Desert Escape

At long last, we have waved ‘adios’ to the Sea of Cortez and Sonoran Desert. After a few months (4!) of work in the yard, followed by a few long(ish) passages down the Sea and Pacific Mexican coast, we are safely parked in Chiapas, Mexico near the Guatemala border. We have officially entered the cruising waters less traveled. By my rough estimates, perhaps 5% of Mexico cruisers go beyond Zihuatanejo. While we have already gotten a healthy dose of some reasons why not, we’re sure glad to be off-the-beaten-path.

On New Years Eve 2024, we drove out of Santa Rosa/San Francisco with the Sprinter Van STUFFED to the ceiling. This time we were carting down a brand-new dinghy along with the usual load of tools and supplies. We had to spend a few extra days in San Diego while the stab wound Harry accidentally put in said new dinghy was repaired. (Pro tip: don’t cut open boxes in close quarters near inflatable boats). On January 7, we arrived in Guaymas and work began. This year’s projects included:

• Install the DC-DC charger into the House/Starter system
• Build and install a large shelf in half of the V-Berth
• Change the shaft seal and paint the inside of prop shaft
• Rust blister work
• Starlink install
• Salon sleep-over bunk cushions and hardware
• Entertainment system (sound bar, amp, woofer, mini-pc)
• Water Tank Level Monitors
• New Stainless Water Tank (surprise project when a leak was found in old plastic tank)
• Misc sewing projects
• Full boat in-depth detailed inventory (@Itemtopia is my new best friend)

We splashed on April 12. As I type this, I’m asking myself how in the hell that seemingly short list take 3 months?? But the answer is simple….boats.

We spent a week in a nearby marina cleaning all of Guaymas (Grime-ass) off the boat, plus organizing and provisioning. We planned an 8–9-day passage to Zihuatanejo, passing up all the hot spots (Mazatlán, La Cruz/Puerto Vallarta, Barra de Navidad) and even our beloved Altata. We were simply too late in the season to dawdle – it was already getting pretty hot, and the winds were starting to shift not in our favor. We HAD to get down to Chiapas at the bottom end of Mexico by June, period.

Solla and her crew hadn’t been sailing for 3 full years. I hedged my bets with a seasickness patch, but I was still super sleepy for the first 3 days. Poor Tuxie had the drools for the first 36h or so and one puke, but no unwelcome bathroom mishaps thankfully!

Most of the rest of the trip went pretty alright. We had more favorable wind than we anticipated so got to sail quite a bit. Our downwind pole failed but we patched it up enough to keep using it. The Starlink thing, though somewhat of a moral dilemma currently, is a game changer. I was able to do my job-work as needed along the way. Some of my colleagues didn’t even realize I was 100 miles offshore.

Then…about 2 days away from Zihua, our happy little sail went BOOM.

The short version is: our boom snapped in half while someone, not naming any names but it rhymes with “very”, got a bit overly focused on reeling in a large dorado.

<for a full account of the story, click here>

After a few hours of getting the mainsail off the boom and stowed, and straightening + securing the boom itself, we started motor-sailing (headsail only) toward Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo. Jen did not speak to Harry until the following day.

Zihuatanejo (Zihua) is every bit as awesome as everyone says. And, we found a metal-worker who welded and reinforced the boom with 5-foot plates. It took him longer than we would have liked, but that’s Mexico. We made some boating friends, separately both got a gnarly flu and recovered, Jen had to BnB on shore for a few days to work, Tux turned into a feral cat and only ate live fish every day, we enjoyed a few $20 1hr massages, and learned to live in 90+-degree air, 60+% humidity, and 88-degree water. The only drawbacks were the very challenging beach dinghy landing, and the horrible marine growth on the ground tackle and flop-stopper. I suspect both are less of an issue in the “normal” cruising season Nov-Mar.

After 3.5+ weeks and with the boom finally repaired, it was time to move on. We had another pretty nice passage down to Huatulco, our spot to sit-and-wait for the right weather window to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Though in our case, the famed Tehuantepec nightmare weather got to us while at anchor in Huatulco. 🙁

Here’s another long story, but I will summarize. Around 1am, within a span of 10 minutes we went from 0mph wind and no rain to ~90+mph wind with torrential downpour, heavy thunder, and lightning. It blew so hard our wind generator blades bent and cracked their tips on the arch. Our bow anchor drug briefly, we got pinned on a local moored fishing boat and its bow bent our cockpit railing. We ferociously fended off and miraculously did not sustain or dole out any more damage. We re-anchored in a spot with better holding once the storm passed about an hour later. Neither of us have been in anything like that before, and we will do our level-best to avoid doing so in the future!

Huatulco, though a pretty awesome place from what little we saw, just isn’t set up for sailors. There are numerous bays, but limited places to safely anchor between all of the panga moorings and the gigantic off-limits cruise ship area. We would’ve loved to stay and explore, but without a safe place to anchor, we were forced to move on. Plus, two storms forecasted to become early-season hurricanes were developing right in our path.

The Gulf of Tehuantepec is an ill-famed crossing for sailors. Wind from the Gulf of Mexico accelerates over a narrow valley on land, and explodes onto the Pacific side. The strongest swells can impact the Galapagos islands, 1200 miles away! May, however, is typically a fine time to cross and we chose the recommended near-shore route. Minus the ALL THE LIGHTNING(!), the passage was uneventful.

3.5 days later, we pulled into Marina Chiapas, up an estuary still as still can be. We had gratefully reached our final destination for the season with only a bumps and healed scars – all of which serve as a reminder to never underestimate the ocean or overestimate ourselves 😉

Tick-Tick-BOOM

We were flying (for us) downwind wing-on-wing going about 7 knots. Wing-on-wing means we had the main sail way over on one side, and the headsail poled out way over on the other side. It’s a very comfortable point of sail, but the least maneuverable because everything is locked in place. One of the fishing reels hit, and hit hard – something big was on the line – it spooled out nearly all the line on the reel.

With a fish on the first thing you have to do is slow the boat down. When motoring, no big deal, you throttle down and go into neutral. When sailing upwind, no big deal, you turn into the wind which stops you. When sailing downwind, the wind is literally pushing you along – there’s no stopping unless you turn around 180 degrees which requires careful maneuvering, or dropping sails, which also requires some maneuvering. Harry was in full fish-fighting mode so I was on my own.

I got the headsail furled in, so we slowed some, but not enough. I started turning into the wind to bring the boom closer to center and drop the main, but that started wrapping the fishing line around the bottom of the boat. This can cause big problems, so Harry yelled “don’t turn, don’t turn”, but it was too late – the fishing line started pulling toward the bow, and he had to go with it.

Now I want you to imagine you’re in a floating jail cell holding on to a fishing rod that’s outside the cell. You have to get that rod from one side of the cell to the other. So, you let go with one hand, move a bar or two over, pass the rod to that hand, move the free hand, grab the rod, and repeat. All the way down. Now imagine doing so with a 60lb. fish tugging on the line, and waves bouncing you around. Our boat isn’t a jail cell, but we have uneven obstacles around deck, particularly in the stern – which is a veritable jungle gym. Harry made two full laps around the boat while barking out driving directions to me.

If Solla were a fishing boat with motors and no sails, driving this way or that to aid in bringing in a fish is a very common practice. On a sailboat, with a full mainsail up and tied all the way over on one side, you just don’t have much control. The wind easily overpowered the motor and we started going in slow circles. This is bad. It puts tremendous forces on the mast, boom and rigging, and is potentially very dangerous, even with the preventer line tied to the boom.

Two full 360’s later, and with the fish almost all the way in, the boom went BOOM. It snapped in half like a twig with only a tiny bit of bark holding the pieces together. The main folded over with it. “OH-MY-GOD”.

Now perhaps you’re thinking we jumped into action to deal with this VERY BAD turn of events. I sure wanted to. But Harry announced he was going to bring the fish in out of spite. He’d gotten a good look at it – a 5.5 foot Dorado – and it was getting tired. I howled out an “are you f@#$ing nuts???”, but he stayed determined for another few minutes while I protested more and more. But then, THANK GOD, he lost the fish.

Over the next ~2 hours we wrenched the boom back to straight-ish, enough to get the mainsail off and tied down. Harry managed to bolt a few brackets onto the boom to keep it straight and stable. We set a course for Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, and Harry set a course for the dog house.

(resume story above)