[Huatulco 15 45.813N, 96 07.283W]

 

Greetings all!

 

Due to a lack of good internet my last two updates had no pictures. Thus, here are a couple of pictures of our leaving the Ixtapa marina.

 

During my last update I mentioned that we left the marina in Ixtapa, even though it was closed due to breaking waves in the entrance to the marina. Normally I hold the answers to all questions until the end of my update, but following is an email I received as a result of my last update:

 

“…  hi Ken   been reading your blogs long time   you are so very very lucky leaving that marina. i would sack your crew straight away. no kidding. they put you at so much risk and your fabulous boat . keep safe joe k ….”

 

My response to Joe: As the captain, the ultimate “go” or “no go” decision rests entirely on my shoulders. Elsa, the harbormaster, who closed the marina closed it based on high wave activity the prior evening. At 7am, the waves had dropped to a level where I believe that, had she been standing at the marina entrance, she would have authorized our departure. We were confident that we had a window when departure was possible, and safe, but also knew that the “window” could close at any minute. We didn’t want to lose the opportunity just because the harbormaster hadn’t arrived at work yet.

 

Here we are preparing to leave the marina. Because of the waves at the entrance we are sending one of the crew, Kirt, ahead with the tender to measure depths in the passage and help us time when we hit the waves. Kirt is a surfer and felt he could call correctly when it would be safe to go.

 

 

 

Here’s Kirt on the outside of the entrance counting waves, so that he can tell us when to go.

 

 

 

 

After all the preparation, our actual departure was anti-climactic. We timed our departure between two waves, and cruised out on relatively calm seas.

 

Thirty minutes after leaving Ixtapa, we dropped anchor in the bay of Zihautanejo.  I needed to go back to Ixtapa to clear out with the port captain. In Mexico, it is a bit of a pain in the tail to move from one port to another. Each port has a captain, and the captain is a bit of a King within their territory. You must check in with them when you arrive, and out when you leave. In some places, this isn’t a big deal, and you can even do the clearing with the harbormaster, and in others, it is very difficult and means taxi-ing across town to find the port captain’s office. In this case I could clear out with Elsa, the harbormaster at the Ixtapa marina. When I told her that we had made it out, she said she was very happy for us. As I departed, she mentioned that the swell had come back up, and she was projecting several more days before the marina would open again.

 

Our run south from Zihuatanejo to Huatulco was 400 miles, and required two days. Along the way we would be following the coast, running about 15 miles offshore.

 

While traveling, the crew wanted to fish. I’m not at all a fisherman, and truth be told, I don’t really like fishing on the boat. In fact, when leaving the port in San Jose Del Cabo, I asked the port captain if he would like to have all the fishing gear on the boat. He thought I wanted him to store it for me, but I just wanted it off the boat. Roberta was standing next to me, and punched me in the side, and said “Ken – the guys might want to fish on the way south.” I realized she was right and changed the subject before the port captain realized how close he came to a couple thousand dollars worth of free fishing gear.

 

Sans Souci seems to be very good at catching fish, and the steadily warming water hasn’t hurt. We’ve watched the water warm from 72 degrees when we left Barra, to 83 degrees here in Hualtuco. During the Fubar rally, off of Magdalena Bay (Baja) the guys fished for an hour or two, resulting in a Dorado and a Marlin.  While cruising south from Zihuatanejo the guys put the poles out, and almost immediately I heard the shout go out “FISH ON!!!!” We stopped and reeled in a 200 pound marlin which we released. An hour later, the cry went out again “FISH ON!!!” This was a much bigger marlin 250 pounds plus. Karl and Kirt worked for over half an hour to reel him in.

 

 

 

I confess: It was extremely exciting catching the marlin, and I do see why people come from all over the world to fish. My only objection is that it seems a dangerous sport. I watched as Kirt stood on the swim step and literally stuck his hand into the mouth of a truly unhappy marlin trying to retrieve the fish hook. It seemed obvious from my vantage point that the marlin was at least as interested in skewering Kirt as Kirt was in retrieving his fish hook.

 

My primary obligation,  as captain, is to deliver the boat, and the crew, safely from point A to point B. If we can have fun along the way, that’s great. I am not anti-fun. However, I don’t think people always realize what it means to be seriously injured at sea, especially offshore outside the US, a hundred miles or more from assistance. If someone were seriously injured, I cannot call the US Coast Guard, and wait patiently on the swim step for them to send in a helicopter. In some cities, such as Cabo, there is access to good medical care. However, this is not Cabo. If someone gets hurt on Sans Souci, it can easily be 24 hours or more before we get ANY assistance, of ANY quality. A friend of mine, Buddy Bethea, has a Nordhavn 55. Recently a guest on his boat, while cruising in this same part of Mexico,  managed to put a large fish hook through his arm. Buddy is a doctor and was able to stitch his guest back together. I’m a computer programmer, and Buddy and I have different skill sets. Had this happened on my boat, the outcome would have been quite different.

 

Oh well… enough of that….

 

Cruising here to Huatulco from Ixtapa, it was clear that we were moving off the beaten path. With each city farther south, in Mexico, we have seen fewer and fewer other non-commercial boats (cruisers like us). The harbor master here in Huatulco had an interesting number for me today. I asked him how many boats he sees per year, and he guessed at 500 boats. Huatulco is the end of the line for most boats in Mexico. When southbound boats leave Huatulco, they are headed for Guatemala. Northbound boats are just entering Mexico. My guess would be that easily half of the non-commercial boats headed north or south stop at the marina in Huatulco. If this is true, then the count of boats who travel this far south is probably only around a thousand boats a year. That’s only an average of about three a day. Actually, my honest feeling is that the number is well south of this. A large percentage of the Huatulco Harbor masters 500 boats must be locally based, because I can say this: In our two day trip south from Ixtapa, I do not believe we passed ONE non-commercial boat. We saw a lot of commercial traffic. In fact, we saw so many freighters that we frequently felt like a bug trying to crawl across a Los Angeles freeway at rush hour. We didn’t see a lot of fishing boats until Huatulco, and we never saw another non-commercial boat, not even a sailboat, until entering the marina in Huatulco. It was a very unusual feeling, and a constant reminder that “we weren’t in Kansas anymore.”

 

Looking back at our two day trip, there are only a few other things worth noting:

 

-          I use satellite for Internet while at sea. About halfway through the trip my satellite internet connection stopped working. At first I thought that I had a major problem, but then after a bit of research I discovered that I needed to swap the satellite I was using from the “Pacific region” to the “Atlantic region” satellite. We had come so far east that we were now considered, at least by those satellites living in space, as an Atlantic boat, not a Pacific boat.

-          At one point we were running next to a freighter which had a blinking red light on top. There are international standards that define how boats are lit. For example, there are clearly defined ways to light a boat to identify it as involved in commercial fishing, and even what kind of fishing it is doing. I’ve been through the coast guard classes, and thought I knew most the light configurations, however I had never heard of a blinking red light. Thus, I called the captain of the freighter on the VHF to ask the significance of the blinking red light. In a thick Russian accent he responded “It means we are carrying explosives.” Oh…..

-          Later, at night, we were approached by an almost unlit boat. We were near nothing, and the boat was clearly coming for us. As it approached, we felt relieved when we decided it was military, but then we were confused (and happy) when it came close but did not engage us in any way. I do not know, but it looked too nice to be Mexican military. Were I a betting man, my money would be that it was US coast guard, and that they were looking for drug runners. That said, I have no way of knowing. After checking us out, we must have passed whatever the test was, and the boat left us alone.

 

-          We were between two freighters at one point, and overheard them chatting with each other – in what sounded to us like German. Nothing strange in this, however, what did seem a little weird to me is that both of the people talking had Japanese accents.

-          We had a little adventure in the middle of the night when we accidentally overloaded the boat’s electrical system, and blew some fuses. I had to do some quick fuse replacement while at sea.

-          The approach to the Huatulco marina is simple once you’ve been through it, but approaching it for the first time can be a bit intimidating. I have the best charts I could buy for the boat, including Nobletec’s passport charts, and Furuno’s charts, AND paper charts. However, as usual all  electronic charts were off by over a half mile. My nav system (both Nobeltec and Navnet) showed me cruising across the land long before I reached shore, and didn’t show the marina at all. I have both Charilie’s Charts and the Rain’s cruising guide also, and the GPS coordinates for the entrance to the bay were inconsistent between the two cruising guides. Neither mentioned range markers for entering the marina, or I missed the discussion, yet they were there. To enter the marina you must navigate around an underwater reef, with breaking waves across it. As I said, this is all very easy once you’ve seen it, and know what to do – but, the first time arrival can be a bit intimidating.

 

Here’s Shelby helping Roberta run the boat:

 

 

Approaching Huatulco (Kirt on the bow):

 

 

Karl fixing dinner:

 

About to tie up at the dock, at Marina Chahue, in Huatulco:

 

 

Prior to our arrival at Marina Chahue we had heard rumors that the marina had one of the best Harbor Masters in Mexico (perhaps the best!). I was curious to meet the guy who had earned such a great reputation. His name is Enrique,  and his reputation is well earned.

 

Before I rave about how great  Enrique is, and how great Huatulco is, I’ll whine for a bit about a few things I didn’t like.

 

1)      Marina Chahue in Huatulco does not have wireless internet. As you may have guessed, I look forward to arriving at a marina, because I’ll have access to the internet. In fact, I offered to buy Enrique the equipment needed to add wireless internet, and he said he couldn’t add Internet without permission from Fonatur, the owners of the marina. In Mexico, there is a government agency, Fonatur, which is responsible for “promoting tourism”, or more accurately stated “creating jobs via the tourist industry.” Fonatur does things which are good for the tourist industry, such as building Marina Chahue, but then sells them to private business to operate. Hopefully no one will be offended by this comment, but whereas Fonatur does a lot of great things, it cannot be said that they don’t make a mistake once in a while. I’d put the lack of internet, in a marina that is six years old, into this category.

2)      Power in the marina is best described as “flawed.” There was no power on the slip I was on, and the power at all the nearby pedestals didn’t work.

3)      The marina receives incredible surge when there is a west wind. Enrique said that this only occurs about 30 days a year, and that it is rarely a problem. Well, today was one of those 30 days, and it was a big problem. We put at least 10 lines onto the boat trying to stabilize it. Even with this, the lines would stretch as fast as we could tighten them, and the boat was being tossed about like a rag doll in a dog’s mouth. Adding to the “fun”, the cleats on the dock were designed for much smaller boats, and I kept imagining them being ripped off the dock by my boat, as I heard happened to another Nordhavn a few months back.

I didn’t trust the cleats, so we also ran multiple lines to the large posts supporting the docks, on both sides of the walkway.

 

 

So, with that introduction, why do I recommend Hautulco and Marina Chahue? The answer is that this is a very cool place. Standing in line this afternoon at the port captain’s office, Roberta and I met another couple – sail boaters. We were talking about our favorite cruising destinations in Mexico, and all four of us agreed that Barra and Huatulco were the top two.  This is not a lot of data points to plot on a graph, but I suspect that we are not alone. At dinner we were chatting with some gringos at the next table, who live here in Huatulco, and they said that they loved it because it is “very non-touristy for a tourist town.” That’s probably a good way to put it. It reminds me of Cabo when we moved there 10 years ago. Huatulco is charming, and as of yet, unspoiled. It may some day become the next Cabo, but for now, it is just a really charming town, with very pretty beaches, good diving, clear water, delightful people, cute tour buses, a nice golf course (which I played this morning), and a good marina. Even the taxi drivers are nice! And, you can’t beat the fares. $1.60 takes you in to town from the marina, and the cab drivers do not expect tips. I also have to mention the restaurants! We had dinner last night at a Austrian restaurant (Café Vienna), that was exceptional, and the chef became my golf partner this morning. Tonight, we dined at L’Eschalote, a French-asian restaurant, which was also amazing. Lastly (with respect to the town), I need to thank Monte, a gringo who lives in Huatulco, and reads my blog, for dropping by the boat, to introduce himself, and the town. He wound up inviting Sans Souci’s crew to his home and taking everyone out to dinner.

 

And, as to Enrique, the harbor master: He went beyond the call of duty to help me out today.

 

Mexico can be difficult at times. Clearing into Mexico, and clearing out of Mexico, can be a lot of work. It is a mild annoyance to clear in and out of the ports. And, it is much worse to clear in or out of the country. That said, it may just have been poor timing on my part. Mexico has just had a round of elections, and the incoming authorities are “refining” and “improving” the procedures. Certainly the system as I observed it today needs improved.

 

To leave Mexico, you need to have a document called a “Zarpe”. Getting my Zarpe was a full-day project.

 

Here’s the process I went through:

 

1)      I taxi’d into town to the Port Captain’s office, where I stood in line. Once at the window I filled out lots of paperwork, and gave them my credit card. I’m not sure what they charged on my card. It was either $421 dollars or $421 pesos. I don’t know which. After an hour with the Port Captain’s office I was sent to the Immigration office.

2)      At the Immigration office I filled out more paperwork, and was sent back to the boat to meet with customs. We ran into Enrique at immigration. He was there assisting a non-spanish-speaking couple through the process.

3)      At the boat, I waited for customs. At 1:45pm I sought Enrique to ask if he could help. He called them and discovered they wouldn’t be coming until 5pm. I asked Enrique if this would give me the time required to return to the Port Captain’s office for the final step in my Zarpe-quest. Enrique said “No – the port captain stops processing paperwork at 2:30pm.”

4)      Enrique made some calls, and convinced the customs people that I would come to them, at the airport, if they would give me the “stamp of approval” that I needed to make the port captain happy.

5)      Enrique and I got in his truck and FLEW to the airport. I have no idea how fast we were going, but I’m sure that we broke many traffic laws.

6)      At the airport we met with customs, who should my hand, and declared me to be someone they wanted out of the country. With no inspection, my papers were stamped.

7)      At 2:26pm, after another crazy drive back from the airport we entered the port captain’s office with all the necessary approvals for my Zarpe.

8)      At 2:30pm, after a lot of begging by Enrique, the port captain’s assistant said “The port captain has said that if you will return at 6pm he may sign your paper.”

9)      At 6pm I returned to a closed port captain’s office. It seemed closed, but after a bit of rapping on the window, a gentleman appeared, who worked in the port captain’s office, with my signed Zarpe in his hand! That was it – we are cleared out of Mexico!!!

 

Enrique then drove me back to the marina, where I paid my whopping $94 dollar bill for two nights. I don’t see a lot of marina bills for Sans Souci that give change for a hundred dollar bill. I was quite happy!

 

While I was gone from the marina, Jeff  (the professional captain leading our crew) had moved the boat to the fuel dock. Actually, there is no fuel dock – Enrique had arranged for fuel to be delivered to us by truck. I was nervous about this, envisioning fuel being poured from rusty barrels, which is not completely inaccurate. Enrique assured me that this would be fine and that I should not worry. [A side note: Jeff drove the boat to the fuel dock while I was at immigration. He mentioned that there was so much surge in the marina that he had a very rough time moving the boat.]

 

 

Here’s a picture of me proudly posing with my Zarpe! It’s a slick looking diploma-ish document. I may frame it as it does represent having traveled the entire western coast of Mexico. Ignore the stains on my shirt. They attest to the excellent breakfast we had….

 

 

 

By the time you read this, we will have left Mexico, headed into the Gulf of Tehuantepec. The Gulf is famous for its high-wind 200+ days a year. We have a prediction for two days good weather, and I sincerely hope this is an accurate prediction.

 

As usual I am getting conflicting information. Here’s the weather summary board from in front of the port captain’s:

 

 

 

It says in a way that is as clear as mud, “Winds Calm” and “Port Closed due to Bad Weather.”

 

We only arrived yesterday, and we are leaving at 4am tomorrow morning. This wasn’t the plan, but the window to cross the Tehuantepec isn’t always open. When the weather router says you can go – you go. Huatulco is clearly a place we’ll come back to, with or without the boat..

 

Our plan is to bypass Guatemala completely and make our next stop Bahia Barrilles in El Salvador. I don’t want to say much about what’s up next because I have to be ready for departure by 4am, and it is getting late. Actually .. I hadn’t realized how late it is. I normally end my updates by responding to all your email. My apologies, but this will have to wait for El Salvador. I want to be rested for the three days at sea that begins in just a few hours!

 

If you have any questions, I can be emailed at: kenw @ seanet.com. I’ll try to answer you with my next update.

 

As always -  thank you! More when I can….

 

-Ken Williams

Sans Souci

www.Nordhavn68.com