Bahia Santa Cruz

We really liked La India, but our friends on Willow and Tara are departing to Costa Rica and are taking the weather window to get across the Tehuantapec in the next couple of days. So we braved the 10 miles needed to catch up with them and anchored in Santa Cruz next to Godspeed. We're pretty close to the small stores and downtown from here and we caught a 16 peso ($1.60) taxi ride to Marina Chahue to see Willow and Tara. We also met up with Con Te Partio, Homers' Odyssey and a few new people who are hanging out in the Marina.

Our plan is to be in this area for about 3 weeks, surfing, snorkeling and diving while the weather in the Tehuantapec slowly improves as we get closer to fall. During the fall the high pressure systems in the Gulf of Mexico become less frequent so less wind pours over the low lands of southern Mexico and the windows for crossing get larger.

Anyway we probably won't be posting much until we get ready to cross unless we happen across something spectacular.

{GMST}15|45.2|N|96|07.713|W|Sitting at anchor next to the cruise ship dock.|Bahia Santa Cruz{GEND}

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La India

Sometimes when the right wind is blowing you just have to go with it. So when the wind kept blowing from the southwest we hustled to pickup our laundry, 15 gallons of water and hoisted our sails. We had a nice sail all the way into La India. Those big swells coming from deep in the Gulf of Tehuantapec were running at about 6 feet and close together as we rounded the point. We were a little concerned that La India wouldn't provide us much protection, but we tucked deep inside the cove and it's calmer than Puerto Angel and about 10x prettier. We are the only people here and it's nice. Times like this you lay back and breath out ahhhhhhh.

Check out this spot on the google map above and zoom in to see the details!

{GMST}15|42.611|N|96|11.889|W|Like our own personal pool.|La India{GEND}

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Updated slog with photos

We found a very slooooow internet connection in Puerto Angel so we slapped up some new photos to go with the slog entries. Take a look back in the past few weeks.

Hard to bathe with the Navy Watching

For some strange reason historic traditions allows governments sovereignty at all times over boats in just about every country in the world. Who cares if it is your home and you happen to be hidden in the cockpit naked trying to wash off three days worth of salt before having a nice dinner at 6 pm at night? Well the Navy and the Port Captain didn't seem to think twice when they motored up to our boat. I think they might have been a bit surprised though when I jumped up in a towel all wet and dashed down below as they started to board our boat. Surprised enough that the Navy decided to forgo the inspection, but the Port Captain boarded and was all business. He stepped around the shampoo bottles, over the bucket and plopped down with his papers. He sat there with his shoes resting in a shallow puddle of soapy water while I was dressing down below and Sherrell was scrambling to move things out of his way. And of course Jordan pushed her way into the cockpit to see what was going on.

Sometimes boats buzz in and out of ports quickly to try to avoid checking in. So they were going to make sure they got us before we tried to take off in the morning. Since we told him we planned to stay a few days and we'd come by his office he just took copies of our paper work and said he would prepare the documents ahead of time for us. He was also relieved we could communicate completely in Spanish and told us it was a pleasure. He didn't seem phased that my hair was all wet and in a messy knot.

Well, at any rate, their visit to Sarana probably provided some stories back in the village last night. I wonder if they'll rush out to board the next boat that anchors here....

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Puerto Angel

We managed to make the 37 mile leg to Puerto Angel (AHN-hel). It is a very pretty little bay and village, but not a spectacular anchorage. Hopefully we can find a place where we can get water and some veggies.

On the way here we saw turtles everywhere. They were swimming, mating and being tossed in the air like toys by dolphins. Pretty standard. We were minding our own business when to LARGE humpback whales surfaced 3 feet from the boat. A momma and her baby were so close they could have easily smacked our boat. In fact, Sherrell was already planning our survival escape after they sunk our boat. Because sometimes whales will agressively attack and sink boats, it's rare, but in the wild who knows what they are thinking. And a mother with a calf...well, it was enough to stop Sherrell's heart. Fortunately they went their own way because even the baby calf was almost as big as our boat.

Well, at least we survived another savage day at sea.

{GMST}15|39.913|N|96|29.52|W|Nice beaches and a fairly calm bay.|Puerto Angel{GEND}

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Mexican Pipeline

World famous (to surfers at least) Puerto Escondido where the Mexican Pipeline has a huge following and surfers come to strut their stuff in hopes of getting sponsors. The wave here really thumps hard, really hard. We're going to check it out from the beach because I don't think I really want to hurt myself that badly. Not to mention there's a ton of other surfers here who probably aren't as friendly as the surfers I'm used to.

The town is a funky little tourist spot and the anchorage is super deep. We were forced to anchor not far from the breaking waves on the beach because everywhere else the depth was 100+ feet. There's lots of surf shops here where I can finally buy some more wax and if you want us to pick you up some tacky gifts, let us know they abound by the truck loads here.

Although we aren´t anchored by the main surf beach, you can see from the photo how close we were to the shore just to find a spot that was 100+ feet deep.

{GMST}15|51.5|N|97|03.706|W|The Mexican Pipline|Puerto Escondido{GEND}

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A week into it.

I have spaghetti arms and most of my body aches. How does something so simple as laying around on a floating piece of fiberglass become such a work out? The first couple of days here in our secret surf spot the waves were pumping like a machine. Since then they've died down a little bit, but we managed to fill the anchorage with 5 boats (Sarana, Ocean Lady, Willow, Tara and Godspeed) and there's one souped-up panga (Get Lost) who made it inside the lagoon and anchored. Between us, that's 10 surfers and most of the time we're the only ones out there surfing.

We've toured the lagoon, walked the beaches, met lots of people and we even had a big bonfire (fogata) on the beach last night with lots of music and singing. Then of course we've been able to surf everyday.

The only downside is the anchorage is a bit rough. All of us have stern anchors out to help steady our boats in the swell, but it's still a bouncy and rolly ride. So after having spent a week here, we're going to move on to Puerto Escondido (only 35 miles away) where they have a funky surf town and the world famous "Mexican Pipeline". I won't be surfing there but we'll go check it out. I'm sure the waves are too difficult and the crowd too big for me.

Check out the night heron catching lunch in the lagoon!

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Punta Galera

Well we ended up just resting for about 5 hours in Dulce and then caught the afternoon winds to try to sail some more. We didn't get too far, about 20 miles or so before it died. Basically we motored for about 12 hours after that with a little sailing in between.

The plus side is we saw lots of wild life. Turtles, sea snakes, and dolphins were all over the place. And when we arrived in Punta Galera, Greg from Willow, and I caught some of the best surf either of us have ever tried. It was fantastic! We're going to try another nearby surf spot a couple of locals recommended and it has a nice left wave with tubes! The great surf usually means a rolly anchorage, but who can complain?

{GMST}15|58.048|N|97|40.228|W|Oh the surf, the SURF!|Punta Galera{GEND}

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Bahia Dulce how sweet it is.

The charts of Mexican waters are so poor that you shouldn't ever try to make landfall in the dark. And since leaving Acapulco we had very little wind and were tired of motoring. Our only choices for making the next anchorage before dark were to slow to 2.5 knots or speed up to 5.5 knots. Neither of those ideas seemed attractive. So we decided to try a spot that Sherrell had noticed on the charts called Bahia Dulce. The chart was pretty sketchy and no guides had mentioned it, but we thought we'd tool around and see if there's a place to anchor out of the swell.

Bahia Dulce (Sweet Bay) is surrounded by beautiful beaches and it's nice and quite. Ourselves and Willow found a spot in about 35 feet to anchor and the holding was good. Then we all ate some food and crashed for a few hours. Now that we're settling in for lunch we're debating staying or going.

And here's a first! I had a Boobie bird land on my head while I was tying up the mainsail! We were both equally shocked and he lept to the mainsail and stood there looking at me like I was guiltly of messing up his perfect landing. So he rode with us for about 45 minutes and endured several attacks by Jordan. We went below and that's when the party started. It's amazing how much crap one little bird can make. No problem, it just washes off, but it was funny watching Jordan stalk the bird because she was a little afraid of the feathery monster. Anyway the boobie is still hanging out on our boat, so maybe we'll have to add him to the crew.

{GMST}16|32.743|N|98|50.526|W|A sweet little bay.|Bahia Dulce{GEND}

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Underway

We left Acapulco today. I have to admit I liked Acapulco. It's a big city with big city problems, but we had a fun time there and the anchorage was better than Zihuatanejo. We're sailing along slowly at about 3.5 knots or so with some kind of current against us. The weather is nice and we're sailing in company of Willow. We're not sure where we are going to stop because the winds down here are so light and we don't like motoring all that much. So we'll see where we end up tomorrow morning.

{GMST}16|42.772|N|99|48.010|W|Heading 110 magnetic at 4knots|Underway{GEND}

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Sailing into Acapulco

With some luck, we were able to sail about 45 of the 110 miles from Zihuatanejo to Acapulco. This part of the world has very light winds and most of the time we were only doing about 3.5 to 4 knots. As we approached Acapulco the winds returned and we were able to sail right into the bay just like the old sailing ships from Spain 400 years ago. In fact we sailed right into the bay along side Willow and we were busy taking pictures of each other as we squeezed through the Western Pass and into the bay. The cliffs and water were so beautiful it made our day! When we find internet access we'll post some photos.

{GMST}16|50.482|N|99|54.277|W|A huge city in a cool bay.|Acapulco{GEND}

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Zihuat Madness

Here's a slice of night life from Zihuatanejo at New Year's Eve in "La Jungle". I'm holding the white cup and a couple heads to the left you'll see Sherrell. I think the photo says more than I can.

Trying to lift anchor

Sometimes the anchor seems to have an unnatural hold on the sea floor.  We’ve had the desire to leave for a while now, but we just can’t seem to get going.  There has been family problems with two groups of friends here that’s made us a bit melancholy and we’re waiting to see how things turn out.

 

Not that we aren’t enjoying Zihuatanejo.  There is a lot to do here and having lots of friends around make it even more fun.  But we’re anxious to spend some time in the Bay of Huatulco before going to Central America before the rainy season starts to kick in.  And that’s the thing about having a moving house; it is fun to move it.

 

So in a day or two I expect we will finally free the anchor from it’s muddy home and get going.  We’ll head for Acapulco to check it out and then to Puerto Escondido and after seeing the famous surf there we’ll go on to Bahias de Huatulco.