After our long stay in Chiapas, we finally cleared out with the local port captain. This process involves having a drug dog come aboard and sniff around. The dog wears little booties and is kind of adorable.
The trip to Acapulco was about 75 hours long, so not too bad. However, it involves crossing the Golfo de Tehuantepec, which can have very aggressive winds if not timed well. We were sure to time it well and as such did not have any issues with the winds. We saw barely over 30 knots at one point for 15-20 minutes and other than that had very calm conditions.
The big problem was that a huge, very active thunderstorm engulfed us. Grete was on watch (about 40 minutes into her three hour, middle of the night, shift) when the radar showed a big red blob getting too close for comfort. Cruising boats don’t go very fast, so it isn’t possible for us to simply divert and avoid the weather. The best we can manage is have some advanced warning so we can take in some sail and put on foul weather gear to be ready.
So, Grete woke me up and I checked the radar. It didn’t look good, but it didn’t seem too crazy either. I put on my foulies and took the helm for what I thought would be 20-30 minutes.
About 7.5 hours later we finally came out of the other side of the squall that just kept growing and morphing. Lightning was striking every few seconds for 2-3 hours of that time and probably 50-100 strikes were within about a mile of our boat. It was fucking scary. Like, just about the scariest thing ever. The thunder cracks were so high pitched, loud, and sharp and occurred within 1-2 seconds of the bright flashes. Grete was sitting curled up at the top of the companionway and reported that the flashes were so bright that they made her eyes flash bright red, even with eyes closed.
After a while she went below to stay warm and dry and to get some rest and I rode it out hoping for the best. All I could do was try to point away from the most active parts of the storm and that turned out to be sufficient because we sailed safely out the other side a couple of hours after sunrise, shaken but not stirred.
Acapulco
After the harrowing crossing of the T-Pec, we arrived in Acapulco for a short stop. There was a huge hurricane there only a couple of years ago and the rebuilding and damage are everywhere. We didn’t plan to stay long, but I really wanted to see the famous world-record holding cliff divers and also to break a 7-day trip into two parts.
We had been told that there is a ton of debris from the storm in the anchorage and that it is problematic. The advice was to get a mooring ball with some guy in town. I had been in contact and all was good, but like most of these kinds of things, he went radio silent when we were about an hour out so when we arrived we drove in circles for a while trying to figure out which mooring balls were his.
Finally he messaged me back and said he was on his way out. He came to our boat and guided us to the mooring in his panga. Just as he arrived at the mooring to try to grab it and tie us off, he acted like he didn’t have control of his boat. After a minute or so he lifted his outboard only to find that (in true Latin America fashion) his propeller had just fallen off. Another boat in the area came over and ultimately we got everything all worked out.
We went into town and walked around for a bit, getting groceries and food.
Definitely the highlight of our brief stay in town was the cliff divers. I think the evening show would have been really neat too, but we didn’t feel safe out and about after dark so we settled for the midday show.
The guys are jumping from heights between 50 feet or so and about 135 feet. It’s insane. Also, they are jumping into a raging sea in a narrow, rock-lined gulch. It was awesome and well worth the $5 to watch.
Barra de Navidad
Our next stop, just under three days underway from Acapulco was a small town called Barra de Navidad. It was a great place to get some rest because the anchorage is in a calm lagoon. We didn’t plan to stay for more than a day or two, but this incredibly active storm season had other plans. We stayed put to wait out a tropical storm which turned out to be a complete non-event, but we were safer in the lagoon than out offshore making passage.
We went for a walk and ate onshore a few times in the week or so we were in Barra. We ate ice cream at Thrify, which is a place I hadn’t seen since I was 7 or 8 years old. My mustache, Walter (known locally as El Bigote), joined us on all of our trips ashore.
There were some cool statues, etc. to be found. The town had letters, so as always, we took a picture there.
We were there for my 47th birthday, so I went for a nice 4.7 mile run and even found what kind of passed as a track. At one point it had been a track, but it was haggard now, like me. A sign nearby goaded me into trying to run faster by calling me a “faty”.
Birthday dinner was like 10 different ceviches and drinks at a waterfront spot that Grete and I loved and the kids tolerated.
Our first day there I went to go for a run and met a boat in the marina that had two kids not too far from our kids ages. They invited us to the pool as their guests that afternoon. The kids and adults hit it off well and the pool was really awesome - three levels of pools with waterslides in between. So, we ended up going to the pool with them every day. It was our first real kid-boat encounter before we came through the canal back in January. They were flying back to the states the same day we were continuing north, so the good-byes worked out well.
Puerto Vallarta (La Cruz de Huanacaxtle)
Our next stop is one of the cruising hubs of Pacific Coast Mexico. Not in the off season it isn’t. We were the only boat in the anchorage, minus the one boat that didn’t ever have anyone on it. La Cruz is a rough, rolly anchorage that is notorious for theft, including people waking up in the middle of the night with people on their boat and having to chase them off with machetes. We were ill at ease when we set the anchor.
The first afternoon we were there, a drone flew out from shore and circled our boat before flying back to shore. I assumed this was the modern version of ‘casing the joint’, and decided to sleep in the cockpit with a flare gun and machete just in case. We were there almost a week and no one did ever come near our boat, but we never felt comfortable there. The town of La Cruz is supposedly a lot of fun during high season with tons of cruisers and kid boats, etc. It wasn’t bad when we were there, but it certainly wasn’t noteworthy in any way, except for the fact that the town had several pugs.
Our arrival into La Cruz was on Grete’s birthday, so I woke up an hour early and took an hour of her night watch. We also went out to dinner the night we got in, and again the next day.
While there, we took a cab down to Puerto Vallarta and did a walking tour and Sam’s Club run. PV was a pretty town with an interesting church with an iron crown on the top. It is right on the side of a very hilly countryside so views down over the town were really spectacular.
The zocalo was pretty in the centro district of town and the church was very nearby which made for good photos.
The malecón was pretty and not too crowded midday (they never are because it’s so hot) so we were able to get a picture with the letters and the most famous statue in town, the Sea Horse!
Isla Isabel
There is a small island halfway between La Cruz and Mazatlán called Isla Isabel. It is only about 30 miles from the coast, but that is enough in general to make places feel remote. There aren’t typically any tourists (other than us cruisers) and there are no businesses, etc. So, we were excited to go check it out.
We were a bit worried though because the notes we’ve seen from other cruisers about the anchorage are that it is an anchor eater. The bottom has tons of large rocks and rock ledges, etc. and it is very easy to snag your anchor. The anchoring depth is also of concern. Only a small area is around 30-35 feet. Closer in that that and you can easily end up on the rocks and just a few feet away the other way it is 60-70+ feet deep. I am always a bit concerned when we anchor in deep water because if anything goes wrong I can’t freedive down to do anything about it.
We pulled into the anchorage and it was rather windy and choppy. We set the anchor and didn’t feel comfortable with how close we were to another boat so we decided to pull up the anchor and move a bit closer in. But, it turns out we were stuck. We were unable to pull our anchor up.
I dinghied over to the boat next to us to tell them that we were aware that we were close and that we were stuck. They were long-time cruisers and weren’t in the least bit concerned with us. They told us that we should wait until the wind and waves dies down to try again. So, we waited until morning after it had calmed down.
I dove down and the anchor was fine, but the chain had wrapped completely around a large bulbous portion of rock sticking out like the bumper of an old Buick. After the wrap around the rock, it was wedged between two large lobes of rock and was very, very stuck. We were in 30 feet or so of water. My mask was leaking really badly and I couldn’t see because of all the water coming in. A harsh reality set in, “El Bigote” had to go. I went below and shaved so I could continue diving.
Grete was as unhappy as she’s ever been cruising - and that is saying a lot. She had no desire to stay and said we needed to leave once I got this resolved. After about 15-20 dives down and yanking with all my might every way I could, I managed to free the chain from both hazards and lay it out cleanly on one side. While down there I noticed that 100-200 feet in front of where we dropped was a huge sandy patch that would be good anchoring. Grete didn’t care, she wanted to leave.
I was disappointed but didn’t want to upset her more so I hauled out the dinghy and made things ready to get underway. Just as we were about to pull up the anchor she said she wanted to go ahead and stay another day so we could go ashore and snorkel. So we re-set the anchor further forward and felt good all around. The wind chop had eased up and we went ashore for a bit of hiking.
Thousands of frigate birds were nesting all over the island. They didn’t seem too bothered by us walking within a few feet of their nests, but they did make sure that the island was engulfed in bad smells and eerie sounds.
The trail had a dozen or more dead birds over the course of a couple of miles, but tons of new birds were being hatched and reared, so it was the circle of life.
The north coastline was really pretty and had hundreds of brown boobies all over the rocks. I tried not to get too close, so my pictures of them aren’t very good.
The highlight was the east side. In addition to having a nice view of Sea Hoss at anchor, it is where the blue-footed boobies reside. We saw a nice little family under a tree with a newborn baby.
There were a bunch of others just hanging out as well. This one guy was about a foot away from the trail so his photo came out best.
We also did some snorkeling in the crystal clear water to check out the fish and rock structures below the surface. I was able to get a cool picture of the rock that we were anchored near while we were swimming. We ended up snorkeling around it and then back to the Hoss.
The snorkeling was alright, with tons and tons of fish as well as a sea turtle. The highlight for me though was that after 5 weeks in the pool at Chiapas where we had finally convinced Dublin to wear a mask, Dublin now comes snorkeling too :) Well, ‘masking’ I guess since he still won’t use a snorkel.
Mazatlán
Our last stop on the mainland before the jump to Baja was Mazatlán. First off, we encountered more pugs. We met some on the malecón and got to pet them. Then we met some guy who wanted us to pug-sit for two weeks, but we were leaving a day or two later. Mexicans seem to love pugs, which has been great for us.
I really liked Mazatlán. The running was slightly hilly along the malecón. It is the longest in the world and just like any other it is perfect for running since I don’t ever have to cross traffic. Additionally, this one had several really neat sculptures.
There was also a swimming pool that people can swim in at low tide, complete with a slide.
We were anchored in the old harbor, which had several benefits. First, it was very calm so we got to sleep well for the first time in about two weeks. Second, it was very near the old town, which was the best part of town for sightseeing.
Third, it was right next to the lighthouse trail so we were able to go hiking right from the dinghy dock.
Fourth, it is where the touristy boat rides with live mariachi bands depart from, so we got to be in the middle of the battle of the bands every afternoon.
It made for a really nice stop. The lighthouse hike had a glass viewing platform and zipline. The zipline didn’t seem to be open on any consistent schedule, and we’ve done it not too far in the past, so we didn’t do it. The glass platform was alright, but honestly the view from the other side of the top was much better.
Grete and I even squeezed in a really nice date night at the fancy restaurant on top of another hill near to the boat. We were even able to see the boat from there, so anyone judging us can sleep soundly knowing we were ‘watching’ the kids.
We also made it to the national whale museum, which was really neat. It has the largest collection of whale skeletons in Latin America. It talked about different species and the history of whaling (which always makes me wonder what the ocean used to be like before humans killed over 3 million whales). In typical kid fashion, Fira’s favorite part seemed to be the air conditioning.
After a week or so, and another hurricane passing by, we decided to make the hop across the southern end of the Sea of Cortez to the Baja Peninsula. The underway was pretty decent, complete with the best sailing we’ve had in months, and decent rest due to the drier, cooler air.
The underway was also kind of amazing because, although we’ve seen lots of dolphins, we are never fully aware of how much cooler it could be until we see something new. For example, I never knew that dolphins stir up bioluminescence and look like glowing torpedoes on a dark night until we were sailing near Tampa, Florida. Incidentally, we have seen this a couple more times, most recently on the way to Mazatlán.
We have also seen large super-pods of 100+ dolphins and have loved it. This underway though, the entire ocean was dolphins popping out of the water for a few hours. Literally thousands of dolphins were everywhere. Dozens were sharing the fun of swimming in our bow wake and dolphins were in every direction as far out as the horizon. Different species of them, many jumping and flipping, spinning, everything. It was ridiculous. We probably doubled the number of dolphins we’ve ever seen on this passage. After a while I decided to clip in and take the GoPro to the swim scoop to try to get some underwater footage. I clearly need to figure out a better way to do this in the future, but it’s a valiant first effort.
As we approached the peninsula, the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. It’s the coldest we have been in a long time which surprised us in a good way. We are 100% in the Sea now and looking forward to slowing back down and getting into a real cruising rhythm again. Hopefully we can find some other kid boats, but if not we will make the best of it all and continue enjoying a new slice of the world together.
