Author: katie

Siete Waterfalls

We had our first guests in Central America when our good friends Jeff and his 14 yr old daughter Jianna joined us in El Salvador.  It was also a good excuse for us to go traveling around the country.

We were able to rent a car really easily and cheaply, which was quite surprising after our experience renting a car in Mexico.  In Mexico, we had to put down a pretty hefty deposit on our credit card and pay a pretty penny for full insurance.  But, in El Salvador they delivered us a rental car for $25/day in cash with no deposits.  I don’t think they even looked at our driver’s license or passports.

The car had 87,000 miles on it and a pretty bad alignment, but it drove and had A/C!  So, that was a win for us.  But, driving in El Salvador is something else.  Most of the streets don’t have street signs.  Even when they do, they don’t always make sense. And, there are not easy ways to get on and off the highways.  We found that having Google maps open on the iPad and following the blue dot was the only way to navigate.  However, even Google maps is not infallible, as it once took us down a dirt farm road and another time led us to a dead end at a river.

After spending a day driving around San Salvador and seeing the sights, we decided to drive up into the mountains with stops at a volcano and archeological sight on the way.  The great thing about the size of El Salvador is that you could drive the whole country pretty quickly.

Our first stop was a hike up the Vulcan de San Salvador.  After a few wrong turns, we finally found our way up to the top of the Volcano.  You can drive almost to the top where there is a very well marked trail to hike to see the top of the caldera.

Our next stop was at Joya de Ceren.  This is an UNESCO world heritage site.  It is a Mayan farming village which was buried and preserved by the ash of a volcanic eruption around 600 AD, similar to Pompeii.  It really was a unique and fascinating site.  It is not as grand as the Mayan pyramids at other sites, but it shows the daily life of the people who lived here.

We finally made it to Juayua, our destination up in the mountains.  Another cruising couple had recommended a small hotel, Hotel Anahuac, which was just perfect.  It had a coffee shop attached brewing locally grown coffee and a cute courtyard around the six or so hotel rooms.  It was inexpensive and catered to the backpacker crowd.

We inquired at the reception about taking a tour the next day, and it was recommended that we take the Siete Cascadas (Seven Waterfalls) hike.  Our guide would pick us up at 8 am the next morning at the hotel, and it only cost $20/person.  Perfect.

So, we dressed for hiking and getting wet and met a young woman at the front of the hotel the next morning who introduced herself as our guide.  She didn’t have a car, so we just followed her walking through the town until we got to a dirt road that led back to a lean-to type home with chickens and dogs wandering around.  She told us that we would be meeting up with another guide here.  Soon we were introduced to Douglas, our second guide, who greeted us with a large rope slug over his shoulder and a machete.  I was beginning to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into…

We started following our guides further into the woods? jungle? not sure what you would call it…   Douglas pointed out various plants that the locals use, and soon we started seeing the coffee plants.  Although the terrain is mountainous, the coffee is planted up and down the sides of the hills.  I can’t imagine how much work it takes to plant and harvest the coffee beans in this inhospitable terrain.

We began to walk farther and farther through somewhat difficult trails.  I saw why he brought the machete…to cut our way through the wild plants that may have grown over the trails.  We never would be able to do this hike without the guides, as the trails weren’t always marked well and sometimes required scrambling up or down rocks and tree roots.

We finally got to the first of the seven waterfalls and all decided to cool off.  It was a warm day out, but the water was cold!  It felt good, even though it took your breath away at first.

A couple of waterfalls later, we were actually standing at the top of the waterfall.  We all looked at each other as we saw Douglas take down the rope he had been carrying and start to a fix it around a tree.  We were going to repel down the waterfall!

One at a time we slowly make our way climbing down the waterfall.  Douglas went ahead of each of us to show us exactly where to put our footing, and we all made it down safely.

The last few waterfalls have been damned up into pools that you can swim in.  After a picnic lunch, we took advantage of the deepest pool and did some swimming.  The waterfalls were amazing!

Overall, this was a fantastic hike and one of the best things we have done in the last year.  The views of the waterfalls were spectacular.  It was a moderately difficult hike, but I would recommend it to anyone traveling to this part of the world.  Juayua was also a really cute little town to stay in.  I wished we’d had a bit more time to explore, especially more time to see the coffee plantations.  But, we’ll just have to put that on the list for another time.

We had so much fun with our guests, and we hope they come back and visit us again soon!

~katie

Crossing the Bar

When we decided to spend this season in Central America, we were delighted to discover that the El Salvador Cruiser’s Rally coincided with our plans.  And so, we were making the push to arrive in El Salvador by mid-March.  After clearing out of Chiapas, Mexico, it was just a 2 night sail to the estuary at Bahia Jaltepeque where the boats would be gathering for the rally.

We had a fairly uneventful sail.  There were no fish to be caught, as we had to reel in our lines after the brown boobies kept diving on our lures.  Twice those stupid birds snagged the lures.  Reeling in a dazed bird and trying to get the hook out of its beak is a lot more difficult than a fish.  We have no desire to injure any birds, so we took the lines in for good after that.

Once we arrived at the entrance to the estuary, we had to call the pilot boat to guide us in.  There is a sand bar you have to get across to safely enter the estuary.  As sand bars shift often and can be quite shallow, you have to have local knowledge to make it across.  You also have to time it at high tide so that you have enough water to cross without going aground.

The wind was blowing that afternoon and waves were breaking over the bar.  It certainly looked intimidating!  Luckily, the pilot boat was great.  Bill, who helps organize the rally, was on the VHF relaying the directions of the pilot.  He timed it between the sets in the swell and told us to gun it. Mike hit the throttle hard and pushed us through.  The swell came in behind us, and the boat surfed the wave.  Crazy.  Then, Bill came back on the radio and said “Bievenidos a El Salvador!”  We had made it across the bar and into El Salvador.

We were greeted at the dock with cocktails from the hotel at Bahia del Sol where we docked the boat.  Immigration also greeted us as we handed over our passports immediately after we stepped off the boat.  Clearing in was a pretty painless process.  There is an immigration office right at the hotel and the port captain arrived shortly after to give us the import permit for the boat.

The small marina is attached to the hotel, and for $15/week we can use the hotel facilities including the pool, internet and $1 beers at the bar.  The $1 beers were about the cheapest thing at the hotel though.  El Salvador uses the U.S. dollar as currency.  I think we had become quite spoiled living in Mexico this last year when the peso was so weak against the dollar.  Our prices just went up.

One of our first tasks after arriving was to find an ATM to get some cash.  We had limited US dollars on hand.  After paying immigration, we needed some cash.  There are no banks out on the peninsula by the marina. The closest ATM is in the “Supermercado.” The Supermercado is a convenience store about a 45 minute bus ride from the marina.

In order to get to the Supermercado, we had to take the “chicken bus.”  Chicken buses (no idea why they call them that) are the local buses found throughout Central America.  They are converted old US school buses which have been painted bright colors and often have crazy lighting.  They also usually have some extremely loud sound systems with sub-woofers that make it nearly impossible to talk on the bus. The buses can get pretty tightly packed, and as the seats were originally designed for school kids you can imagine how easily Mike at 6’2” fits.  The locals don’t quite have his long legs to worry about.

In addition to the bus drivers, each bus has a bus hustler.  It is the hustler’s job to get people on and off of the buses quickly.  It is not uncommon to hear the hustlers yelling, “rapido, rapido, rapido.”  We nearly got pushed off the bus by one.  I even saw one guy pick up a little girl (about 3 or 4) around the waist and carry her quickly up onto the bus.  The mom seemed unfazed.  Can you imagine that happening in the US?  Me neither.

The estuary at Bahia Jaltepeque is quite large, and there are multiple communities that live in and around the estuary, including on several islands.  Some have modern facilities, but others lack electricity and sanitation.  Although many of the local people live quite meagerly, everyone we have encountered has been very friendly and cheerful.

On Saturday nights, we’ve been invited to the island across from the marina in the estuary.  Bill and Jean live on the island and have introduced us to some of the locals who operate a make-shift pupuseria.  The kids always come out and greet us with hugs, and we’ve had some of the best pupusas.  Pupusas are to El Salvador what tacos are to Mexico.  They are made with either corn or rice flour that is made into a thick tortilla.  The tortillas are usually stuffed with cheese, beans or chicharron (pork).  They are served with curtido, which is a fermented cabbage topping. And, they are delicious!

One of the great things about the rally has been meeting up with some friends we made back in Mexico and making some new friends.  When cruising, friends come and go but you always hope to meet up again someday soon.  A daily ritual has certainly developed of everyone meeting up at the pool in the late afternoon with those cheap beers when it is just too hot to be stuck on the boat.  We’ve also had a few awesome potlucks.  Cruisers can get quite creative in the galley when you have limited options to work with!  The rally has also organized some fun activities, such as a dinghy raft-up, estuary tour to a beach and party barge.

One of the other fun trips we took was to a little town called Panchimalco up in the hills.  We went to visit an artist gallery that had the most amazing sculpture garden.  The artist runs workshops for aspiring artists in El Salvador and has showcased their work all over the world.  It really was an amazing find in this little town.

The marina has also been a safe place to leave the boat to make some excursions inland within El Salvador and Guatemala, but more on that next time…

~katie

On the Border

Arriving in Chiapas is a whole different experience than any other port in Mexico we have stopped at.  Because it is on the border with Guatemala, the Mexican Navy boards every boat in and out of the port to inspect it with the drug dog.  That was a first for us.

As we approached Chiapas, we called the Port Captain on channel 16 to request permission to enter the port.  We had been told we had to do this by another friend and that they would not respond to you if you hailed them in English.  Mike did an awesome job calling in Spanish.  What was funny about it was at the end of their conversation when the guy realized Mike was trying to reach for the right words in Spanish, the guy just started speaking English.  Sheesh.

Anyway, we pulled into the marina and unfortunately had a bit of a rough time.  We were assigned to a slip where we had to make a 180 degree turn to get in through a narrow fairway.  And, just as we were starting to turn, the wind picked up.  Our bow was being blown by the wind and we couldn’t make the turn. To top it all off, the engine died twice while Mike was shifting between forward and reverse.  Both Mike & I (and I think everyone on the dock) about had a heart attack.  Luckily we didn’t crash into anything and Mike was able to back us out safely, but the stress was a bit much.

We couldn’t get into the assigned slip and the marina staff just yelled at us to pull in anywhere we could.  We were able to pull into another, larger slip facing the opposite direction. Whew!  I hate docking.

We were very happy to be reunited with our friends Mike & Katie (and their dog Penny) on Kya. They invited us over for drinks that night.  They also invited two French couples from a catamaran called Ivadel.  We had a fun time with Kya and our new French friends.  We found out that Phillipe used to own a bakery in Paris, and he invited Katie and I over the next morning to give us a lesson on how to bake French baguettes.  In return, he would get an English lesson!

The next morning Katie and I gathered on Ivadel with our pens and paper, like all good students, to take notes.  Phillipe showed us how to mix and knead the dough, how to let it rise, and the trick to getting that crusty outside of the baguette (hint – steam)!  It was so much fun!  We learned that Phillipe had a bakery in Paris for 24 years and won all kinds of awards for his pastries.  He said he used to make over 4000 baguettes a day.  Wow!

I wanted to repay the favor for taking hours out of his day to teach us how to make the baguettes.  We still had tons of dorado that we had caught two days earlier, so I invited everyone to a sushi party.  Kya was nice enough to let us use their boat since we can’t really fit 8 people on Adagio for dinner.

Now, I’ve never made sushi rolls before, just sashimi, so I’m not sure what I was thinking.  But, Mike was up for the challenge and helped me make a whole platter of sushi rolls with our fresh dorado, avocado, cucumber, etc.  It just took us a bit longer than anticipated.  But, it turned out awesome.  We had a great time with everyone and the sushi was delicious.

 

We made the decision to leave Chiapas on Saturday to arrive in El Salvador on Monday.  But, that meant that we had to get our zarpe (exit papers) on Friday.  I had NO idea that trying to get out of Mexico would be harder than coming into Mexico!

We started out first thing in the morning in the marina office to fill out the required paperwork and make copies of all of the documents.  Then, the marina manager would have to drive us to immigration, the banjercito, customs and the port captain.  Everyone has to stamp this same document to let you out of the country.  And, everyone wants copies of our boat documents, passport, visa, etc.

So, everything seemed to be going according to plan until just when we were about to leave the marina office.  One of the staff came in and told the manager that the road was blocked.  Apparently there was some dispute between a company at the port and their transportation contractor, so the contractors decided to block the entire road in protest.  Nice.  The police were there, but they didn’t really want to get involved.

Thankfully, the marina manager had a 4×4 truck and said he knew a way around.  He ended up driving us on dirt roads through a mango grove and banana plantation to get around the road block.  Only in Mexico…

After five hours, we were finally back at the marina with our zarpe in hand.  I have such mixed feelings about it.  I’m sad to leave Mexico, but I’m excited about the next part of our adventure.  El Salvador…here we come!

~katie

Tehuantepec Tale

What the heck is a Tehuantepecker, and who came up with that name??? The Gulf of Tehuantepec spans about 250 miles from Huatulco to Chiapas on the Mexico/Guatemalan border.  On land is a narrow peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean.  This low lying area creates a funnel effect drawing strong winds from the Atlantic to Pacific side.

When a Tehuantepecker (the name for the strong winds) is blowing, the winds can reach over 60 knots. But, the real danger is the short, steep waves that can develop.  These waves can build up to 10 to 15 feet at 4 to 5 seconds.  That is pretty gnarly.

All of the books and sailing blogs, etc. warn you not to become another “Tehuantepec Tale” arriving at your destination exhausted with torn sails or worse.  Basically, they all try to scare the shit out of you.

So, the prudent thing to do is to closely watch the weather forecasts and go when there is no Tehuantepecker predicted.  There are also lots of “strategies” for how to make the crossing.  You can do the straight shot, rhumb line approach and take your chances.  But, you have a greater area of exposure to the strong winds.  Or, you can take the 16 degree short cut where you head northeast into the Gulf and then cut the corner when you get to 16N.  And, of course, there is the “one foot on the beach” approach where you hug the coastline all the way around the bay.

Mike and I read and read all these different pieces of advice and looked at weather forecast after weather forecast.  Finally, we just decided we had to go for it.  We did NOT want to be stuck in Huatulco for another week waiting for a more perfect forecast.

After we returned from Oaxaca, the forecast started to show the winds dying out the next Monday afternoon, Tuesday looked calm, and then the winds started up again Wednesday afternoon.  The 250 mile trip would take us approximately 48 hours.  So, the weather window looked tight.  But, the funnel effect of the winds means that it really is only about 60 miles or so of that 250 where we would really need to worry about the wind.

We kept looking at the forecast for days as it was changing slightly but still looked like a good window.  We had to time the crossing just right.  First we decided 6pm Monday would work.  But, as it got closer to Monday, we realized we need to leave even earlier.  Finally, Monday came and we decided 2pm was the perfect time.

We said goodbye to our friends in Huatulco.  Several of them were also going to make the crossing, but they were a bit trepidatious about the window we picked.  Everybody has to make their own choices as to when to sail and when not to sail.  We certainly would not be pressured to go if we were uncomfortable, and we weren’t going to do that to anyone else either.  We made it clear they shouldn’t go just because we were going.

We started out sailing just beautifully, 10-15 kts of wind and not too much swell.  As we started to get closer to Salinas Cruz the seas were getting bigger and a bit confused, but we still only had about 10 kts of wind. That changed pretty quickly when we arrived at the “funnel” in the Tehuantepec.  As the wind creeped up to 18-20 on a close reach, we put a double reef in the main and pulled in some of the jib.

I had the overnight shift as we headed past Salinas Cruz (the beginning of the funnel effect) and had to drag Mike out of bed twice to reduce sail.  We ended up with a triple reef in the main, pulled in the jib completely, and just had part of the staysail out.  (Just FYI, we always get the other person up if someone has to go up on deck out of the cockpit, which we have to do to reef the main. We also are clipped in with harnesses to the jacklines.)

The winds settled in at 22-23 for a while and then slowly crept up.  I saw it hit 28 and stayed in the 26-28 range for less than an hour before settling back down to 20-22 for the rest of the night.  With the wind in my face, I was perched pretty tightly behind the dodger for most of my shift.  It wasn’t cold out, but that’s a lot of wind to take for 4 hours!

By the time Mike got up around 5am, the wind had backed down into the teens.  The boat handled the wind beautifully, we were properly reefed so the boat wasn’t overpowered, and the hydrovane kept us right on course!  But, I was definitely ready for a few hours of rest.

We ended up taking that 16 degree shortcut I mentioned above, but not intentionally.  It was just where the wind allowed us to sail.  And, we were happy to sail that first 100 miles.  We do not like being a motor boat. Unfortunately, after we made it through the funnel, the wind died completely.  We only sailed about 3 hours during the day Tuesday, having to motor the rest of the time.

The ONLY advantage to motoring is that it is much easier to fish!  If you’ve followed this blog, you know that Mike LOVES to fish.  Unless it is really rough out, the trolling lines are off the back of the boat.  On Tuesday Mike was in fish heaven.

First we hooked 2 skipjack and threw them back.  Next was one of those big jack crevalles.  Then we hooked a marlin and saw him jump clear out of the water behind the boat!  But, he shook the hook loose (fine with us).  Then another jack crevalle.  Mike was getting a serious workout at this point trying to drag in those big crevalles.

We had a bit of a lull in the fishing in this point until we hooked another skipjack.  But, just as Mike was reeling in the skipjack, we saw a huge dorado going after the skipjack.  (I don’t know if he was trying to get the dorado or the lure the skipjack had).  Anyway, we tried to get another lure in the water in front of the dorado who was on the surface right next to the boat, but it took off.  After throwing back the last skipjack, we were feeling a bit defeated on the fishing front.  All those fish, and none that we kept to eat.

A couple hours later, right before sunset, we finally got our fish!   After the line started peeling out we saw a huge splash behind the boat and Mike knew it was a dorado.  We reeled this guy in and couldn’t believe the size.  We measured him at 51 inches!  That is the biggest dorado we have ever caught.  Mahi mahi for dinner!!!

We had an uneventful last night and the next morning motoring.  We arrived at Marina Chiapas around 2pm on Wednesday.  We had survived the Tehuantepec and had not become another Tehuantepec Tale.

~katie

Road Trip!

We spent five days at sea sailing from Manzanillo to Huatulco, with a one day layover in Zihuatanejo.  The real excitement on that trip was the sailfish that we caught.  (Check out the video on our Facebook page.)  But, after so many days traveling, we were happy to arrive in Huatulco and have some time off.

Our next leg of the trip would be from Huatulco to Chiapas, where we would have to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec.  I’ll write more about the Gulf of Tehuantepec in a later blog, but it was really important for us to pick a good weather window to make the crossing.  When we looked at the forecast upon arrival, it was clear that we were going to stay put for at least a week.

Anjuli, one of the other boats in the marina that traveled with us from Zihuatanejo, mentioned that they were interested in traveling to Oaxaca City and asked if anyone else wanted to go.  Since several boats were all in the same position we were, we all decided to go on a road trip to Oaxaca!

We rented three cars and all headed out for a seven hour trip to Oaxaca.  In order to get from the coast to Oaxaca, we had to pass over a mountain range that required us to travel the windiest, narrowest roads I’ve ever seen.  And, there is no shoulder or guardrail on these roads, so if you screw up you are going off the cliff.  I’m really glad Mike was driving and not me.  It was bad enough being a passenger…

We arrived in Oaxaca and found our cute little hotel not far from downtown Oaxaca.  The city has a population of about 250,000, so it is a decent size city.  After dropping off our bags, we decided to walk around the city for a drink and some dinner.  We passed several large cathedrals and town squares.  Eventually we made our way to the Zocalo, which is the main square in town.  After a couple of cervezas and margaritas, we were on a mission for some good street food which is ubiquitous in every Mexican town square.  We found a great taco stand and had delicious al pastor tacos.  I think we got 10 tacos for 30 pesos (about $1.50).  Pretty crazy.

The next morning we got back in the cars to see Monte Alban, the Zapotec ruins which are just outside of town.  It was really stunning.  These structures were built over 2000 yrs ago.  It is amazing that any of them are still standing!  The cool thing about the ruins is that you can walk all over them and explore on your own.  There aren’t rails and fences prohibiting you from getting close. There are lots of signs and plaques explaining each structure and what it was used for.

This is a pretty big tourist attraction and there were a lot of school groups there on field trip.  I would guess most of the kids were probably 5th-7th grade.  Several groups of kids came up to us to ask us questions.  Many wanted to practice their English, and some wanted to take their picture with us.

But, the funniest interaction was when one group of giggly kids walked up to us and kept looking at each other to see who would speak first.  Finally one girl spoke up and asked, “What do you think of Donald Trump?”  We both smiled, gave them the thumbs down sign and said “Booooo.”  The kids went nuts laughing and jumping up and down.  It. Was. Hilarious.  I quickly said to Mike, “You should have gotten that on camera.”  So, he grabbed the GoPro and ran back over to them to get them to do it on camera again.  So funny.

After seeing the ruins, we headed back into town for some lunch and then to the cultural museum.  The museum is in a large building connected to the large cathedral at the Zocalo.  The building used to be a monastery or convent and was as fascinating as the museum itself.  The museum contained all of the artifacts that had been pulled from Monte Alban that we had seen earlier in the day.  Many of them were so well preserved, because they had been found sealed in the tombs, similar to the artifacts found in the Egyptian pyramids.  It took hours to get through the museum, but it was well worth it.

Oaxaca is also known for two other things: mole and mezcal.  If you haven’t had mole, I’m not sure I can explain it to you.  There are seven different kinds of mole in Oaxaca.  I was only familiar with mole found in Mexican restaurants in the States that usually has chocolate and different spices in it.  We went to a restaurant for dinner where you could a sampler off all of the different moles; it was delicious.

I think mezcal can be described as a smoky tequila.  It is either made with agave (like tequila) or maguay.  We drove down a highway with signs that we were in mezcal alley, with mezcal production all around and hill after hill covered with agave plants.  We stopped at one small shop and got to see the maguay plant up close.  It looks like an agave.  The plant had been roasted (probably set in a fire) as it was charred on the outside.  The woman pulled off one of the leaves and cut it into strips for all of us to taste.  It was very similar to eating sugar cane.  Very sweet!  We bought some local mezcal which was awesome.  It is funny when we mention mezcal to the locals.  People look at you with a smile and say “peligroso” (dangerous).  I guess we’ll have to take it easy with the mezcal.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip.  And, it got us back to Huatulco just in time to prepare for the crossing of the Tehuantepec!

~Katie

All Part of the Adventure

We left Tenacatita and headed a short distance south to Barra de Navidad.  There weren’t predicted to be any significant winds, but after we got out of the bay it was blowing about 30 knots.  That’s a bit more than we like to sail with, but the boat can handle it.  The challenge was getting into the harbor and docking the boat at the marina with that wind.  After a first attempt, we determined that there was no way we were going to be able to turn the boat into the slip down the fairway, so we just pulled up the outside of the dock.  Quite a few people from the marina came over to help grab our docklines, which was much appreciated.

We arrived just in time for a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner at the Grand Isla Navidad Resort.

We enjoyed the marina and resort and made some new friends.  But, my favorite thing was the French Baker who comes around to the boats each morning delivering fresh baguettes and croissants.

We left Barra de Navidad after a couple of days and continued south toward Manzanillo.  We had just left the harbor at Barra and put the sails up.  We were about to shut down the engine when all of the sudden a loud alarm went off.  We know the common alarms, like the bilge alarm, but this was one I hadn’t heard before.  Mike ran down into the cabin and then yelled at me to check the engine temperature.  That was it.  The engine had overheated.

I quickly killed the engine as we started to brainstorm what could have happened to overheat the engine.  We discovered the culprit.  Before we left Barra, Mike had gone below to open the thru-hole that lets the cooling water in for the engine.  Well, the thru-hole was apparently already open, and Mike must have been distracted. He though he was opening the thru-hole and he really closed it.  He said in nine years of owning the boat, he has never made this mistake.

He was pretty upset, convinced that he had destroyed the engine.  I tried to calm him down a bit.  We were a sailboat after all, and we could sail!  Mike was able to get a call off to his diesel mechanic back in LA who didn’t seem as alarmed as Mike was.  The mechanic said he probably just burned up the impeller, but other than that it was probably ok.  Luckily, we carry lots of spare parts on board, including a spare impeller.

Mike got to work changing the impeller while I was behind the wheel. We had a few hours before we were to arrive at Manzanillo.  It took Mike a couple of hours, but he was able to change the impeller and the engine cooled down.  He was still kicking himself over a completely easy mistake to make.  It was my turn to echo the words that Mike has said to me many times when when we have had some sort of difficult situation: “It is all part of the adventure!”

Safe and sound anchored in Manzanillo:

So, this got me thinking about what exactly is an “adventure.”  It is what Mike and I have been calling our journey.  But, I wanted to really think about what that meant.

I recently read a book called Flying South by Barbara Cushman Rowell that my dad gave me for Christmas.  (Great book, by the way.)  The author writes about her experience flying her single engine Cessna from California to Patagonia.  She is frustrated by her life and living in the shadow of her famous husband, who is a photographer and rock climber.  She feels like she is simply tagging along on his adventures and needs one of her own.

So, she becomes a pilot and is then encouraged by one of her husband’s friends to fly her plane in tandem with his down to Patagonia and back. She endures instrument failures, political coups, tropical storms and a horrible rafting accident.  She is pushed beyond what she thinks her limits are, overcomes her fears and talks about how much the journey changed her.

Tragically, she and her husband were killed in a plane crash (she was not the pilot) shortly after she wrote the book.  But, I think it makes her words have even more impact. She says this about flying and her adventure…

“Fear isn’t a reason not to fly.  I know now that fear is my biological warning system that I can tune into to keep from blundering on into disaster.  I see fear of flying as a beam of light through the fog radiating from a lighthouse:  it lets me know that something on the horizon could wreak havoc if ignored.  A veteran bush pilot once said to me, ‘The day you’re not afraid is the day I don’t want to fly with you.’
“I could have found plenty of reasons not of fly my single-engine airplane to Patagonia- but I would have missed the greatest adventure of my life.  Even though I may have slain my fears one by one this time, I know they’ll be back.  And when they return, I’ll fight them off again. Anything truly worth doing in this life comes with risk, and risk is never without fear.”
I thought about that a lot.   So, here is what I think an adventure entails:
(1) It is something unexpected – not something everyone ordinarily does
(2) It presents a challenge, either mentally, physically or both
(3) It involves risk and overcoming fear
(4) It fundamentally changes you.
So, I want to know if you have had a grand adventure.  If so, what was it and how did it change you?  Or, do you have a grand adventure you want to undertake.  What is holding you back?
I think the hardest part of our adventure was casting off the docklines.  It involved preparing the boat, training, obtaining gear and overcoming obstacles of finances, our careers and our relationship.  And, we had to ignore the naysayers who didn’t understand what we were doing.  But, finally letting go and leaving the dock was the most freeing thing we have ever done!
~katie

 

Don’t Tip the Canoe!

After leaving Punta Mita, we headed over to Yelapa just across Banderas Bay.  Yelapa is an absolutely beautiful bay with steep, green hillsides.  The anchorage is also steep-to underwater, so some enterprising locals have set up moorings that you can tie up to.  The “mooring ball” was just an empty water jug, but the mooring was solid and kept us in place.  We got a visit from one of the locals in a panga to charge us a fee of about $15/night for use of the mooring.

There is no way into Yelapa other than by boat, as there are no roads (and no cars) into the town.  There are winding, cobblestone streets throughout the town that are a bit of a maze.  But, we did find a delicious restaurant called Tacos Y Mas the first night we arrived.  We ran into a couple other boats we had met earlier in La Cruz and invited them to join us for some delicious al pastor tacos.

Our plan for the next day was to hike to one of the waterfalls that we were told were outside of town.  Unfortunately, Mike & I both came down with a horrible cold/flu type thing and were laid up in bed for the next two days.  Ugh.  So, we missed out on the waterfall. Oh well.

We needed to keep moving south, so as soon as the weather forecast looked good, we took off on an overnight passage to Tenacatita.  We had pretty consistent winds in the 15-20 kt range all night that gave us a beautiful downwind sail.  On my watch I got the privilege of seeing an amazing moonrise when the moon looked like a giant orange ball of fire rising up over the mountains.  Just awesome!

We arrived in Tenacatita and were a bit surprised to find about 15 boats there, but it is a pretty large anchorage.  We had read that there was an estuary you can enter just off the anchorage that will take you about 2 1/2 miles through the mangroves up to a lagoon.

We decided to check out the estuary by paddle, so we blew up our inflatable canoe and took off toward the estuary entrance.  We could tell that the tide was going out, so it was going to be an upstream paddle on the way in, but we thought it would be better to have the more difficult paddle first and then coast back.

What we didn’t anticipate was that at the mouth of the estuary the bar gets really shallow.  That shallow water accelerated the flow of the current to the point where we were fighting about a 4 kt current.  Despite our frantic paddling, we weren’t able to get through that.  So, we beached the canoe and walked it across the bar to a point where the estuary was deeper and the current not quite as fast.

The upstream paddle was definitely a challenge and a serious workout for the arms, but we were able to manage it ok.  Just a few blisters on the hands…  But, on the return trip, we were able to float back just using the paddles to steer around the bends.

The estuary was beautiful.  The mangroves lined the sides of the estuary and were home to tons of red mangrove crabs and all different types of birds – herons, egrets, etc.  It really was perfect to paddle instead of using the dinghy with the motor.  The silence in the estuary except the sounds of the birds, the wind blowing through the mangroves and the scratching of the crabs through the mangroves really did give us a sense of being part of nature.

We were told that there were some crocodiles in the estuary.  One of the other boats we met in the anchorage told us they saw some baby crocodiles on their trip through.  We were on the lookout, but unfortunately never saw any.  I’m sure they were hiding somewhere in the mangroves.  I figured they wouldn’t bother us, but I certainly didn’t want to take an chances of tipping the canoe and going for a swim!

Tenacatita was awesome, but we needed to keep moving. After a couple of days, we headed south again to Barra de Navidad!  More on that next time…

~katie

Toys Toys Toys

We finally finished all of our projects in La Cruz and stocked up on provisions. We were ready to head south but decided to make a detour to Punta Mita. Mike really wanted a surfboard as we are going to hit lots of surf spots south and in Central America this year. After talking to our friend Merle on Kenta Anae, Mike decided he wanted a stand up paddle surfboard. We have two SUP boards on the boat, but they are inflatable and not exactly what you can surf.

Banderas Bay was probably the last chance we were going to have for quite a while to find a surfboard to buy in Mexico. So, we headed up to Punta Mita, where there is some surf and lots of surf shops. Now, these surfboards can be pretty expensive, so we were really in the market for a used one. We found some surf shops with some used ones for sale that Mike tried out, but none were really what he was looking for.

Then, we found an American couple living in a condo just off the beach that had one for sale! It is a bit less “floaty” than Mike would probably have liked, but it really is perfect for him to surf. It’s just going to take lots of practice. As Mike has quite a few pounds on me, the board has no problem floating me. It is a bit more challenging to paddle than our big inflatables, but a challenge is a good thing! So, we ended up with this awesome board at a totally reasonable cost. It was definitely worth our stop in Punta Mita.

Part of what we wanted to do by setting sail was to push ourselves and be adventurous. It wasn’t just about sailing for us, which is why a good part of our investment in this project was in non-boat related gear. Or, as I sometimes call themtoys.

When I met Mike, he had more “toys” than anyone I had ever met. Two cars, two boats, snowboards, wakeboards, a mountain bike. You get the picture. What else did I expect from a very active 40 yr old bachelor!
In loading up Adagio, we had to trade in some of our old toys for new ones that would work on our adventure. So, here’s what we ended up with on the boat:

Fishing – Mike had lots of fishing gear that he acquired over the years. (He used to take charter fishing boats out of San Diego every year and bring back enough tuna and yellowtail to fill my freezer for a year!) Rods, reels, lines, lures Mike adds some new little things here and there. But, his birthday/Christmas present this year was a new speargun! After our adventures with friends in the Sea of Cortez this last year, Mike REALLY wanted one, and we found a great deal on Ebay for a Riffe speargun when we were back in the States over the holidays.

Snorkeling/Scuba – We have lots of masks, snorkels, fins, etc. for snorkeling, but our real investment was in the scuba gear. You might recall that before we left California we got our scuba certifications. But, we wanted to be able to dive wherever we were, even in a remote place without a dive shop. So, we picked up the BCDs, dive computers, regulators, etc. And, we put four steel Fabor tanks on the boat. Getting tanks filled can also be a challenge in remote places, so we added a gas powered dive compressor to fill our tanks. It really is cool and totally worth the cost, which wasn’t really all that bad.

Bicycles – Mike and I both liked cycling. I had a road bike, and Mike had a mountain bike. We liked the idea of having bikes on board for both exercise and transportation. After some research, we found the Dahon Mariner folding bikes. They fold up pretty compact. The tires are the size of a kid’s bike, but the frame is larger for an adult size person. The seat and handlebars are adjustable. You can go back and read about our adventures on the bikes in San Jose last year.

Canoe – I know this one sounds funny. We had two rigid kayaks that we used for years back in California. But, they take up a lot of room and created a lot of windage strapped to the rails. So, we sold them and started looking for inflatable kayaks that could fold and store easily. Then we found the 14 ft inflatable canoe from Sea Eagle and decided we had to have that instead. It is pretty big, but it is lots of fun and gives us good exercise rowing when we don’t want to throw the dinghy in the water.

SUP/Surfboards – So, that brings us to the stand-up surfboard we just acquired. We also have two inflatable SUP boards from Tower. They are lots of fun and easy to paddle. They are very “floaty” and wide, so not very hard to keep from falling off even in rough waves and surf. But, I’m really excited to paddle our new Starboard surf/paddleboard.
I think that is about it for the toys. Mike has talked about getting a kiteboard, but I think I’ve convinced him he needs to master the surfing before taking on another toy to learn.

It’s all part of what makes this our adventure!

~katie