If only there were more time, if only we weren't in such a hurry, if only we could just cruise for a few more years. Job...family...responsibilities...oh my! We have scooted on out of Mexico and are now headed for Costa Rica, with a few stops along the way. Our last stop in Mexico was in Puerto Chiapas, 16 miles from the border with Guatemala. I won't expound much on it's beauty, but I'll just say that we didn't do any snorkeling in the water in Puerto Chiapas. It's a commercial port which caters to a shrimping fleet and is dredging for a new marina. Combine shrimp and fish processing with freshly pumped dredge spoil, a lovely odor. The fuel pier was so high and scabby we just lugged jerry cans back and forth with the dinghy. After doing the paperwork cha cha again, paying a few arbitrary fees and visiting the airport for Immigration, we got our national exit Zarpe. We were also boarded by the Navy twice, once when we arrived and once before leaving. Nice guys and a pleasant experience, but if I had come alongside and boarded a boat in San Francisco Bay with the Coast Guard and had smeared bunker oil all over their hull from my boat, I would have lost my head. Their panga was covered in super sticky oil and dirt, so we ended up with another task before leaving. All in all, a working port call.
Favorite spot in Mexico...hmmmmm...San Juanico, with it's isolated, perfect surf. That's my pick and I'm sticking to it. Even though we spent a week anchored there surfing everyday, I could have stayed a month. One of these days I'd like to wrangle some folks into a truck and drive down there, camp in the sand for a few weeks.
There was a feeling of having missed so much as we left, you could cruise this coast for quite a while and not discover it all. But, no time for regrets or to dilly dally, we have a Christmas rendezvous with Amanda's mom in Costa Rica. I don't think I can explain how much we're looking forward to dropping the hook, and leaving it down for over a week. We've been doing some serious rambling over the past weeks and the idea of being a bit more sedentary is very attractive. I feel weird writing sedentary.
Our most notable experience of late was getting caught in a gusty blow off the coast of Guatemala. After leaving Puerto Chiapas we had a nice breeze out of the west that lasted about 8 hours. After that we motored for a while and the next afternoon a wind came up out of the northeast. It was a bit of a headwind, so we were being pushed a bit offshore. Not a problem since our ideal destination was Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua. It was Amanda's watch when we first set sail and when I came up after a nap the wind had veered more to the east and picked up a bit. We talked about what to do, coming about and tacking and heading backwards didn't make much sense, so we kept on. Well, the next 12 hours were interesting. The wind picked up and was steady at 35 knots, gusting to over 45. We were making more south progress than east, even though we were sailing as close as we could to the wind. The seas built to about 12 feet, which wasn't too bad, except they kept getting blown over into the cockpit. I steered for 5 hours before I locked the wheel and went below. Amanda had been sleeping like a baby through all of this, dreaming away...just kidding. She had her hands full keeping the cabin together and the bilge pump going. It was a long night, hard over the whole time, lots of water on deck. Around 8 in the morning we got the jib down and replaced it with a much smaller one, which got me another drenching while perched on the bowsprit hanking on the sails. At one point I had just sat down on the platform and was opening a shackle to put on the new sail, the bow fell, then rose so fast I ended up popping up to my feet in a moment of no gravity, it was a bit wild up there. About an hour after that the wind fell to about 10 knots and we were left wet and frazzled. Nothing was broken, no one was hurt, in the words of the Mexican Navy after the boarding “Everything is okay.”
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