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Here we are in Bahias de Huatulco, Mexico, almost at the bottom of the West coast of Mexico. It is a series of ten beautiful bays, some uninhabited, some with luxury hotels and the one were we are with the port captain and boat anchorage. Ten years ago it was just a tiny fishing village, but it is being developed by the Mexican Government into a major resort. There is a functioning Mexican town 2 km inland with all the services. Since everything is pretty new, it is clean and functional. Prices are high by general Mexican standards, but par with other tourist areas. It is about 250 miles east from here around the Bay of Tehuantepec to the Guatamalan border. It has taken us longer to get here than we expected, two weeks from Puerto Vallarta. We have had some light winds and some motoring. The watches have been easy with four of us aboard, and we all have been able to get plenty of sleep. The boat has been crowded however with the extra people, gear and provisions. We have three berths for sleeping under way, so when you come off a night watch you take the one that was just vacated. The next watch, you get a different one! We have had a lot of equipment failures, but nothing traumatic. We have been able to fix most of them except for the inverter, which won't invert anymore. Fortunately we found this out before we left and were able to borrow a portable one from Ivan and Bev, who are crewing with us. We intended to sail directly here from Puerto Vallarta but had to put in to Acapulco because we couldn't charge the batteries with the engine or solar panels. We had converted our wind generator to a training water generator and then lost the propellor to that the first day out of Puerto Vallarta. We didn't see much of Acapulco because we had to fix the boat and get on our way, but the Yacht Club where we spent two nights was beautiful, quite the most luxurious place we have moored the boat anywhere. We left for Huatulco but ran into headwinds, seas and an adverse current so couldn't get there in daylight, so we put into Puerto Angel for the night, leaving at daybreak the next morning and motoring to Huatulco. The anchorage here, although beautiful, suffers from a southerly swell and we rock and roll as well as pitch. We have set a bow and stern anchor to keep us from swinging into the other boats. There are nine boats waiting here to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec, but the weather window closed just before our arrival. We all have our papers ready to leave as soon as the weather cooperates, but we may be here a while longer. We thought we might go tomorrow, but now it doesn't look so promising. Since it is so lovely here, it shouldn't be too tough a duty, but we are impatient to be on our journey to Panama. It is nice to be able to send e-mail and we are looking forward to e-mails waiting for us to pick up. We read in the paper today (in Spanish, so our understanding was sketchy) about the riots and curfew in Seattle. It was on the front page of the paper! It may be two weeks or more before we can do e-mail again and, as always, we look forward to hearing from you. Patricia, Colin, Bev and Ivan |
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