Chiapas to Huatulco

Chiapas to Huatulco

We had a very warm welcome in Chiapas.

 Lots of hugs and kisses and handshakes. People seemed genuinely happy to see us againTony was just returning from a tour with a couple that we had met in Bahia del Sol. He looked up and said that looks like Betty-Ann. Judy said - It can't be. They are on their way to Costa Rica. Everyone was confused but not surprised. Karen and Joe also had similar experiences to us were also taking a hiatus from their original plans.

So we immediately made plans to go on a day trip to a coffee finca on Sunday - just a regular outing with Miguel and his wife and son and Tony. No charge. With the rise and fall of coffee beans a lot of these plantations have been forced to diversify. Argovia has done just that, turning part of the property into a beautiful resort with separate cabins nestled in the jungle. We had a wonderful drive up the mountain to the plantation. We saw several toucans - the Fruit Loop Birds - at the entrance to the property. And the grounds of the property are interspersed with exotic plants and flowers. It was a wonderful day.  

We stayed in Chiapas for a couple of days to reprovision. David was filling up the water tanks, put the hose in from the filter system and then went up to the office. I was doing the dishes and noticed the smell of diesel. That seemed odd. Then I could hear running water. Tank must be full. As I was heading up on deck I noticed water running from the ledge on the diesel stove. I ran up on deck to turn off the hose and take it out of the deck hole. I ran back downstairs and started cleaning up the water. That is when I noticed that it was not just water that I was sponging up. It was water and diesel. I motioned for David to come down to the boat - like real fast. That is when we realized that he had put the water into the diesel opening on deck instead of the water intake. In all his years of sailing, David has never done this. It might be something I might do. The only saving grace is the fact that we had so little fuel in the tanks!

I think David was more upset with himself. But nothing to do about it now. So what next? We got the vacuum pump out and David began pumping out the water. But the pump has a mere capacity of 2.5 liters. Our tank is 400 liters. It is going to be a long day. The marina guys were great. Ronnie supplied us with large containers to dump the water/diesel mixture in and every 15 minutes or so, came down to the dock and took it away! Once we got all the water/ diesel out - and it did take most of the day - we noticed that there was a good covering of sludge at the bottom of the tank. So we used some oil absorbent pads and cleaned it out. Another saving grace - got us to clean out the tanks!

David owned up to the mistake. Just so we can all laugh about this - it occurred on April 1 st!  Everyone at the marina and on the dock were very sympathetic. It could happen to anyone! But it was very quiet around the dock all day. Next day Enrique was back and he brought David over to the Pemex station to buy fuel. If you do this with jerry cans you can avoid the 14% marine tax! David changed all the filters, refilled the tanks, bled the lines and we were back in business. Just the small issue of cleaning out the diesel heater.

The next day I went to Walmart to reprovision. David got the rest of the fuel. Memo took us to the Port Captain's office to check out and we were ready to continue.

The next day we had our final check out - no dog this time. Three boats had come into the marina and were being hauled out for the summer. Two boats were heading south. Two boats were heading to Puerto Vallarta. The marina was looking empty.

02-April 1400 and were were on our way. Final hugs and kisses and a promise to return in November! Maybe they will have my pool built by then!

1500: set the main with one reef and stay sail to motor sail into a westerly wind of about 10-12 knots. Making a course of 300M at 5.7 knots

1615: furled in the stay sail

1630: motor started losing rpm's. Pulled back on the throttle and turned off the motor. There was a bit of wind so we out out the sails. We would have to tack in order to maintain our course. We managed to continue to sail through the night maintaining speeds from 1.5 knots  to 5 knots. Let's hope we can cross the Tehuantepec before the window closes. But at least we are able to maintain our couse without tacking!

0600: I got up to serve tea and croissants. We had to short wire the starter to get the motor to turn over. We are still losing oil but at a slow rate. If we maintain the rpm's at 1200 we are okay. At least we have lots of fuel! Pretty well motored all day and the motor behaved itself! Thank you Confidence!

2215: the wind veered about 30* and we were now steering 330. Thunder and lightening up ahead on the starboard shoreline. But the wind is still on our nose. We are more than half way across the Tehauntepec and the forecast predicts a WSW wind for Saturday. This is unusual as it is really not a Tehuantepec as it is not coming from the North. 

Moon was at 96% and it was a beautiful evening. At one point I was sitting in the cockpit by myself with a sad look on my face. I just want to get there. Then I looked around and gave my head a shake. I must  enjoy the moment. The moon is almost full. The boat is sailing along at a comfortable 4.4 knots and all is good!

But the predictions were correct and the next 12 hours were exciting. We started out motoring but were able to put up the sails by early morning. 

We were sailing at 6 knots, rail down and actually having fun!

L

It was a little difficult going down below as we were heeled over so far. I managed to almost break my baby toe! Carefully put on my deck shoes so I could immobilize it. Seemed to work. Took a couple of aspirins and I was good to go. 

The winds calmed down but we were making better time than expected. 

This would put us at the marina at 2000 hours - in the dark.

We decided to continue on to Bahia Magues. We knew the anchorage and had no trouble getting settled.

Up in the morning for one of my famous potato, sausage hash with poached eggs. Cleaned up and all ready to go for a swim. David tried to bring in a bit of anchor chain as we had drifted a little in the night. The anchor windless decided to stop working! When does it end? We tried to troubleshoot but no luck. David got his upper body workout bringing in the chain. I helped by feeding it into the locker and then running back to the cockpit to steer us clear of the reef. Good thing the starter decided to work this time!

So no swim for me. We headed into Marina Chuhue and were secured at the dock at 1300 hours!

Friday looks good for departure so we settled in for a pleasant visit. We reprovisioned. Took a taxi into town to buy some more souvenirs - now that we know we will both be in Canada sometime in the next few months. I spent everyday at the pool getting my laps in! I updated the blog.

David kept busy by filling the water tanks, doing an oil and transmission fluid change and recaulking the prism on the foredeck. I cleaned the boat, made some more carrot muffins, paella - enough for Thursday and another meal on the run and chicken parmesana. Laundry has been done and we are ready to go.

500+ nm to Barra. How often we stop will depend on how we feel. Remember we do not have a windless so we will want to have fairly shallow anchorages. I wonder what kind of surprises we will have this time?