Trouble In River City

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Hey Folks,

Well, today was a pretty sad day for me. Robinson and Jessica were asked to leave the boat, and under pretty unpleasant circumstances. I'm sure that their story will bear no resemblance to mine, nor is it one I really want to rehash, so I won't bore you with any details, but a general explanation is in order.

Suffice to say that I have very few restrictions about what goes on aboard the boat, but those I do have are pretty important to me and I don't tolerate exceptions. They are all stated repeatedly in previous blogs, and are things I mention explicitly to every crew member that comes aboard. The most important ones are 1) do not bring illegal drugs on board, 2) put in at least one solid hour of work a day on the boat, or whatever is required at the moment, 3) man your shifts sober [that includes not being hung over], 4) respect me, my boat and its equipment, 5) do not yell or argue with the captain during critical situations such as docking, anchoring, bringing in sails, etc. [save that discussion for a calmer moment], 6) do nothing that will endanger yourself, the crew, or the boat. Most importantly, don't whine, pout, fume, grumble or bitch. In under one week, both Robinson and Jessica managed to violate all of those rules in one manner or the other, repeatedly.

It was a very difficult last few days, there were several arguments, and a lot of tension. I understood that introducing Jessica to Robinson might create a distracting dynamic, but I underestimated how much of an impact this would have. I believe, on their own, either of them would have been perfectly reasonable and capable of pulling their own weight. But together it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Bringing them to Cabo San Lucas was like tossing in hand grenades. Their party animal attitudes quickly became a costly liability, resulting in hundreds of dollars in additional costs to me, and unnecessary delay, not to mention having to deal with very drunk behavior and a complete lack of help. They were more interested in getting wasted than getting things done, and it became apparent to me that this pattern would only continue if not get worse. So we parted ways.

Unfortunately, that means I am without crew for the moment, and facing a pretty difficult trek north by myself. On the bright side, this is a solid boat that I have sailed almost four thousand miles in blue water through some pretty tough seas. It is easily handled, stout and capable of taking on whatever you throw at it. I'm not sure I can say as much for the captain, but I am looking forward to the challenge. I've researched this next leg pretty thoroughly, and many folks have done it single handedly, even in winter. There are some risks in going alone, but none that aren't already part of sailing.

In the meantime I jumped back into the marina for a day, but it isn't cost effective to stay there, and need to look for a better harbor to rest and prepare. There are some additional items that I need to address before heading north alone. Minor things that could have waited, but items that I want fixed now if I'm going to be out at sea by myself. I'll probably head up the coast a bit first and look for a quiet anchorage where I can accomplish these tasks and rest up.

In the mean time I wish you all a happy new year, fair winds and following seas.

Cheers,

Robb


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Mazatlan: A nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to check out there.

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Hola Amigos!

There should actually be one of those upside down exclamation marks in front of the greeting, but my damn gringo keyboard doesn't have one. That's okay, 'cause anyone who heard me uttering this phrase would know instantly that I've just used up about thirty percent of my entire Spanish vocabulary, and I either have a severe speech impediment or I'm retarded. Most folks correctly guess it's the latter.

So, we left Marina Puerto Vallarta (the only absolute proof that the universe will end in entropy) and headed north for Mazatlan. The ride up was just more of the same: dolphins off the bowsprit, whales spouting off in the distance, consenting turtles attempting to drown each other, startling sunrises, breathtaking sunsets, beautiful moon-lit nights, cool gentle breezes during the day, and spectacular scenery whenever we get close to shore. It's enough to make you retch. Fortunately, there has been a break in all this paradisaical monotony. It's getting cold.

Nights have been down in the fifties. I've had to start wearing some clothes while above decks sailing, and wrapping myself in blankets when in the cockpit. Yesterday I needed a jacket and socks. SOCKS! The cruiser's worst nightmare. Actual socks! Next it will be pants. God only knows how long before we'll need shoes. It seems the horror is only getting worse. This trip is turning out to be far rougher than I ever imagined it could get. Maybe we should go to Cartagena?

Now, you might wonder why we aren't heading due west for Cabo San Lucas right now. Well, that's because the wind, ever vigilant adversary to cruisers everywhere, is now blowing directly from the West. Two days ago, it was from the North East, exactly what we needed for a beam reach to CSL. It was also predicted to stay that way for at least a few days. That was before we were ready to go. Once the weather noticed we were set to go, it changed direction.

So, the plan was to sail for about twenty four hours due north along the mainland coastline, stop off at Mazatlan only long enough to drop Robert off (he needs to get back to Nicaragua and...for reasons that defy imagination...work), change the crew list, and then head South Westerly for Cabo. That would put us on back on a beam reach even with Westerly winds, much better for catamarans, and give us a fast ride across the Sea of Cortez. The only fly in that ointment was the demonic forces that had possessed the Mazatlan Port Captain and Immigrations office. More on that in a moment.

We made it into Mazatlan harbor without incident. The winds weren't too bad, the waves weren't too rough, and we approached the breakwater entrance as the sun was rising. There is a really pretty little lighthouse on a rock just outside the harbor. Short of an actual mermaid sitting on the rocks around it, it was exactly what any oil painter could ask for in a background.

We hadn't planned on being this far north, and really weren't prepared. We had no sailing guides for the area, and the charts weren't that informative, so we weren't sure where exactly to go, but there was a pretty little cove just inside the breakwater. We motored in and drove around, noticed there were a few other big cats at anchor, and thought it might be a good place to drop the hook. We asked another sailor for advice, and he suggested we stay here, as the various offices were close by. There were marinas a few miles further up the coast, but it wasn't clear if they would have room for a catamaran, and it was kind of pricey. So we dropped the hook.

Well, actually, we didn't. It didn't work. The windlass control had been acting up for a while. I had repaired it earlier, but the micro switches inside it were pretty rotted, and while it would happily raise anchor, it wouldn't lower it. I had taken to shorting the terminals with a screw driver to get the hook down, but even that wasn't working. No one on board really relished the idea of manhandling the other anchors out of the locker, we were all tired, hungry and sleep deprived. So we said, as Pat Boone likes to say, "Boone It!" and decided we just go find a marina, tie up for a night and fix yet another broken part.

We turned tail and began to head out of the harbor. As we did the guy from the cat jumped in his dingy and motored over to see what was up. We explained the situation and he said "Oh, well, why not just raft up with us?". I was amazed. It was such a kind gesture, among a myriad of wonderful acts of kindness we'd received throughout our adventure, and it made our lives just that much easier. And from a total stranger. Sometimes cruising really fucks with my well-honed cynicism about humanity. We sidled up next to his boat, tied along side, and made friends with Henry and J.J. on "Rapscullion", yet another cruising couple from the states.

They had been out cruising on their catamaran for a while, and seemed to be loving every minute of it. Both of them had a great attitude about sailing, and were definitely enjoying themselves. We thanked them profusely for their generous help, loaded up the dinghy and headed into town for the Port Captain's office. Robert had made flight plans for tomorrow, and was beginning to worry about missing his flight. This is apparently one of the things he stresses a lot about, and he had on his "not happy" face. We teased him about it. He didn't think it was funny...we did.

The harbor was small, with maybe fifty boats in it. There was a blue building called "Club Nautico", which provided cruisers with showers, a dinghy dock and ice. The woman who worked there, Wendy, was very, very nice, and showed us around. We paid three dollars for use of their facilities, and headed off into town to find the Port Captain's office.

We wandered around a bit looking for the building, but by around one o'clock (plenty of time to get this done) we eventually found it. It was quite new, clean and had several people working inside. It appeared very efficient. We approached the window and explained what we needed to do. The woman behind the counter said we needed to speak with the Port Captain himself, and to please take a seat and wait one moment. What she meant was, please sit on those plastic chairs designed by the Marque De Sade himself, and molder into old age while we watched numerous clerks chatting and exchanging Christmas gifts from the otherwise vacant waiting area. After about an hour of watching this, we got fed up and asked again.

Editor's Note: There aren't any photos of the government officials involved in the remainder of the following episode, mostly because the author's comrades feared his having anything metallic, heavy or edged (even a camera) in his hand while dealing with government officials and had taken it away from him, for his own good. Instead, because my mother always said "if you can't say anything nice, compliment her shoes", I've included some snapshots of the various bronze statues that we've encountered throughout the Mexican coastline. Fortunately, they were too heavy to carry over to the government offices. By the way, none of the port officials had nice footwear.

The Port Captain was called over (this time it only took about five minutes) then he studied our new crew list, our old crew list, the boat documentation, our visas, our passports and then explained that he couldn't sign Robert off the crew list unless we first got the crew list stamped by Immigrations. "Okay, No Problemo!" we said. That's Spanish for "Okay, it's now my problem". They gave us directions to the immigrations office. "Oh, but you need to hurry, it's 2:00, the office is about ten blocks from here, and we close at 2:30". So, we rushed out of the office and immediately started arguing about the directions we'd been given.

Naturally, any directions proffered by any government official in any foreign country are, by law, required to be wrong. It was part of the Geneva convention and one of the few clauses that all participating countries still enforce. That, and the clause that limits a hotel's responsibility to anything stolen from your room, to only fifty dollars, even though they gave your room key to the local junkie. We were hoofing it along and not finding the place, so we flagged down a taxi. Now, when I say taxi, what you're thinking is a big, yellow Ford Impala, no hubcaps, plastic seats. What I'm describing is an open sided, propane powered golf cart with roll bars made from drain pipes. The one pictured here is from later on in our adventure, much newer (it even had seat belts, although they didn't work) and in much better shape. That particular driver was an amazingly nice, friendly, helpful gentleman who was the exception to the rule. There's always one.

We jumped in, explained that we needed to go to Immigration as quickly as possible. There is no actual literal translation for "quickly" in Spanish, the closest you can get is something to the effect of "before the change of seasons", and the driver slowly drove us to the Customs building. "No, not the Customs building, the Immigration building!" we explained. "Oh, senior, I'm not sure I know where this is." he replied in Spanish. Now Mazatlan is not big. There are about seven government buildings all in an area smaller than a college campus, and this guy grew up there, in a port city where cruisers regularly get rides to these buildings, yet he wasn't sure if he knew where they were. This is equivalent to growing up in a kitchen and not being sure about the location of the silverware drawer. God may have created man, but taxi drivers are definitely the work of the devil. But, I'm not bitter.

So, we rushed over to Immigration...eventually, after first driving through several blocks of town, every known road bump in Mazatlan, and backtracking twice. We pulled up to the offices and asked the cabbie if he would wait--we would only be a minute. They were standing in front of the doors looking as if they might close them at any moment. So we ran up, pushed past the guard at the door, and delivered our paper work to the guy at the front desk. He had cultivated the kind of posture that communicates completely just how annoying your presence is to him, and that if only you would go away he could get on with chatting-up the clerk. He droned, "Oh...okay...please sit over there, on those chairs with the other five moldering Americans and we will let you know when we can process your paperwork." We sat down on chairs that were probably discarded by the Port Captain's Office as being too comfy, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Picture an old Spanish building that has been converted into a government office. Imagine twenty five Mexican government workers, all milling about it. There are several back offices, they all have very comfortable chairs in them. Whenever a door opens you can see several other workers all sitting in them, drinking coffee and chatting amiably. There is exactly one desktop computer in the entire building. There is a pile of paperwork along the right side it. A clerk sits in front of it, typing with two fingers, for about three minutes, then picks up a folder from the pile and moves it to another, much smaller pile on the left. She has that look about her that suggests perhaps she was given this job more for her assets than qualifications. Her assets are cresting out of her uniform.

She then gets up, fixes her makeup, adjusts her navy blue polyester stretch pants which are one size too small and teeters off on three inch high heels-- no doubt these are also part of the Immigrations uniform. She comes back a few minutes later and chats with several other "workers" (I use this term because, technically, they are being paid for this), all of whom are standing around chatting with all the intensity of purpose you see in any union run GM manufacturing plant. In the meantime, the front desk person places folders on the ever growing pile on the right.

Eventually the clerk returns, sits back to the computer and repeats her data entry process. The pile on the right continues to grow. The pile on the left can be seen to increase only by archaeological standards. Paint dries faster. Plus, you suddenly realize that since the front desk person is placing the folders on the top (not bottom) of the right pile, the only way your paperwork will be processed is if you can prevent anyone else from submitting a request. We tried standing in the parking lot and warning newcomers about the problem they are having here with contagious plague, but others must have already tried this before us because everyone just assumed we were talking about the city water supply.

After about twenty minutes, we begin to realize that they aren't going to actually do anything. We approach the front desk guy and ask what is going on. This seems to generate some interest. They explain that it will take another hour, and that we should come back after lunch. "Won't you be closed?" we ask. They assure us that they won't. We jump back in the cab and ask him to take us to a restaurant. He drives us over to the seaside board walk area, we find a restaurant to have lunch. We ask how much...he says five hundred pesos. We laugh a lot. A typical taxi ride is six pesos. Fortunately, he had parked illegally, and a truck and bus have both pulled up behind him and begun honking their horns. Robinson negotiates with him, we agree on something not completely absurd, pay him and walk away in disgust. Fucking taxi cab drivers. When I'm elected emperor, you best not be wearing a peaked cap.

So we ate lunch at a really great restaurant, great service, and the chef, an American, came over to make sure we were enjoying the meal, discovered we needed to know if the Port Captain would be open tomorrow and even called some friends to find out for us. Sadly, I cannot, for the life of me, remember the restaurant, but if you're in Mazatlan, and standing in front of a bronze mermaid, it's just behind you.

We then went back to the Immigrations office. They were closing the doors as we arrived. We again pushed our way past the guard, who didn't want to let us in, found the front desk guy and asked what was going on. "Oh, why did you leave?" he asked. "Because you told us to." we explained. "Oh, no, no. We are closed." he answered. We started arguing with him about it, with it becoming clear that they weren't interested in doing anything this late in the day (hell, it was almost 3:15) and that we weren't going to be able to get Robert on his flight. At that point Robert became very agitated and tried to explain the necessity of getting this done today, as his flight left tomorrow afternoon. "Senior, my bicycle is tomorrow!" he said in his best pleading Spanish. Everyone stopped speaking. Robinson turned and looked at him as if he had he'd just sprouted twigs. Even the front desk guy didn't know how to respond. There was an uncomfortable silence while both Robinson and the front desk guy both stared at him like the dog on the RCA Victor label.

Eventually Robinson regained the momentum, explained the situation, and somehow convinced them to complete our paperwork right now. Mostly because I think they realized we were already back inside, and prepared to sit in their office until sunrise if need be, and because they felt bad for us having a retarded child with us. Of course, that wasn't going to stop them from fucking with us. "Oh, well, we cannot process your paperwork without copies of your passports." he said. "Oh, no problemo, Senior, I have them here." I replied, pulling out several copies of each of our passports. "Oh, no, mi amigo [technically, that's Spanish for "my friend", but it doesn't mean he's my friend], you must have three copies of every single page, even the blank ones."

Now, at this point I realized that some parts of the Mexican bureaucracy hadn't got the latest memo, and that Mazatlan was still back in 70's. "Where can we get copies made?" I asked, vowing to bring my copier with me next time I have to come to any government office. "Oh, just down the street." they explained. We sent Robinson, while Robert and I remained in the building, afraid that if we left they would close. He returned about a half hour later with the copies. We gave them to the front desk guy, he brought them back to some other official, then came back with our paperwork, but not our visas. This is bad because you can't leave the country without them.

"We need a signature from the Port Captain saying that your boat is in the harbor before we can give you the visas." he explained. The fact that more government officials aren't strangled with their own red tape amazes me. I have, however, noticed a very high correlation between countries that insist on strict gun control but permit Byzantine bureaucracy. They obviously know that a well-armed populace would not put up with this shit. We left Robert at the Immigration office again, and went back to the Port Captain's office, but it was closed. We came back. The front desk guy was gone, but the guard was still there. He insisted the Port Captain's office was open. We explained that we were just there, and it wasn't.

There were several phone calls made to the now off work front desk guy's cell phone. The guard then explained that we could also have the harbor master at Club Nautico write it. Robinson and I jumped back in another cab. As we rode back to the harbor, we decided that it would have been significantly less paperwork if we'd just thrown Robert overboard and declared him missing at sea. We asked the taxi to wait while Wendy signed off on our documentation. She quickly wrote us a cover letter, and we shot back to Immigrations. We showed them the letter, they stamped it, stamped our new crew list, and finally gave us back our visas.

Robert was safely off the list, so he could leave. Now, all we had to do was get the Port Captain to sign off on our new crew list tomorrow and we could leave. In the meantime, we had to spend yet another day in town. As we went back to the boat we noticed the wildest sunset I've ever seen in my life. This was unlike anything else I've ever witnessed. The clouds had an almost velvety sheen to them, and there appeared to be a monstrous face staring down at us. Double click on the picture and look at it in full size, it was really very spooky looking. No doubt we'd angered the Gods Of Bureaucracy. Mother Nature doesn't have a thing on the Red Tape Demon hovering over us today!

We were exhausted, and went back to the boat, then wandered over to Henry and JJ's for drinks. We had a great time hanging out on their cat, it was spacious and quite comfortable. They had an "owner's version" where the entire starboard hull is basically a single living space. Their shower had a glass wall, very elegant and stylish. Definitely a boat worth cruising in!

The next morning we got up, saw Robert off to the airport (it was the first time he's smiled since the day before), and headed in to get our new crew list signed off. The Port Captain's office was open, but he wasn't there. The office worker told us to leave the documents and come back at 11am. We really weren't sure if that was such a good idea, but we were hungry and didn't have any better options. We left, had lunch, came back, and found the Port Captain. He still hadn't signed our document. We started to worry. He asked us when we were leaving. "Oh, right now!" we both chorused back. "Oh, okay." he said, and signed our paperwork.

We sighed our relief, left immediately, and headed into town. We had no intention of leaving until after I'd found the parts I needed to make another windlass control switch. In fact, he had no real authority to tell us when to leave. We were check into the country, and had a valid crew list. We could come and go as we pleased. So we walked around Mazatlan looking for an electronics shop. Now, in most places in the states, specialty electronics shops are not all found six on a street. In Mazatlan, they are.

You need Tupperware, you go to the Tupperware section of town. Bath salts? That's over on the East side, where in a two block radius you'll find thirty stores that specialize in them. You want a pinata, you need to find the pinata district, where there will be fifty stores within four blocks, all selling the exact same merchandise. We couldn't find the electronics area. We found someone who repaired radios. He sold us a toggle switch, then he directed us to another shop several blocks away. They didn't have the parts we needed either, but told us about another store several more blocks to the north. That store didn't have anything either. We kept walking. We eventually found an intersection with an electronics stores on every corner, and three more within a hundred yards. I bought a plastic box and some switches.

We went back to the boat and within a few minutes I'd fabricated a new windlass controller switch box. It wasn't waterproof, but it worked just fine, at least good enough for our purposes, and we were able to untie from our neighbors and anchor directly. That night we went into the town center for a decent meal before we headed out the next day. The town "centro" is very pretty, with many upscale open air restaurants and night clubs surrounding it. We bumped into Henry and J.J., along with several other cruiser friends of theirs.

We enjoyed a few drinks, had dinner, then found a small night club that had a local band. They were called Addiction, and they rocked. Sort of hard to describe their sound, almost heavy metal but with less ragged edge and a lot of traditional Mexican flavor rounding out their sound. The lead singer is also their bassist, which always impresses me. I got to chat with Richie their lead guitarist, the newest member of the band. He said they had been around for a while and that they had a bit of a following, but were mostly a local area band. I was really disappointed to learn that they hadn't produced any CD's yet, but if anyone comes across one in the future, please send me a copy!

They played many original tunes, did a number of cover tunes, including a fantastic version of "Sweet Child Of Mine", and a few traditional Mexican songs but with clearly their own spin on them. The crowds loved them. If you are ever in Mazatlan, check them out! Their first set is great, but the second set was jumping.

Oh, and the bar had the best bathroom signs I've ever come across. The men's room and lady's room signs defy description, but I will give it my best try. First, the men's room sign is a picture of a man peeing while standing in that knees slightly bent, arched back position every guy who has had too many beers knows as "The Pause That Refreshes." Including a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I love this country!!

The woman's room sign goes from the sublime to the absurd. There is a picture of what I can only assume is a bulimic woman wearing high heels in the act of inducing herself to vomit while fanning away what appears to be a very powerful fart. Or perhaps she is applying lipstick. It isn't clear. But the reverse image of herself in the mirror is a nice touch and the large red M probably means something in Spanish, but I couldn't figure out exactly what. There is also a wedding cake with a drain attached. Perhaps this is why she is retching? Either way, it stopped me in my tracks for several minutes while I simply stared at it, causing some consternation among the various female patrons as I stood transfixed in front of the women's rest room. They eyed me suspiciously, but assumed from my dress and lack of social manners that I must be a gringo or dismissed me as simply retarded. Eventually the owner asked why I was photographing their wall, but I was unable to express complex ideas like "ennui" and "horror" in Spanish, so instead I smiled and said "Dondeh estan ill banjo", which is Spanish for "please ignore me, I am an idiot".

The night dragged on, we stayed out too late, eventually wandered back to the boat, and woke up the next morning and headed out across the Sea of Cortez, for Cabo San Lucas. And, if we can overcome our burning desire to turn around and head for Cartegena, we should have good winds and relatively calms seas on our trip. We wish you all as much.

Talk to you next when we reach Cabo San Lucas.

Cheers for now.

Robb



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Marina Puerto Vallarta...looks better at night.

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Dear Reader,

Well, we've been in Puerto Vallarta for almost a week now, and staying at Marina Puerto Vallarta, the main marina in town. Aside from the many fabulous cruisers we've met on the dock here, I don't have a lot to recommend about this particular marina, except maybe the sunsets. It is definitely a marina that looks better in the dark.

It is very well protected, but the harbor waters are quite dirty, with dead fish, oil slicks and condoms floating about. At times it smells of sewage, and it isn't uncommon to see any of it bobbing in the water just off the docks. The dock slips are very, very run down. Many of the dock works are broken apart, with missing electrical outlets, non-working faucets and numerous deck cleats ripped out. There is only one shower facility, which was on the other side of the harbor, and very badly maintained as well. It would be understandable if it were cheap, but it has been one of the most expensive places we've been yet. If it weren't for the fact that it was convenient for AnnMarie to fly down for the weekend, we would never have stayed here. I'm told it was once a beautiful harbor, with great facilities, but it has seen better days. Supposedly there are new owners and they will be upgrading the entire facility, but this is Mexico, where you need an archaeologist to measure that kind of progress. We spoke with quite a number of other cruisers who all thought that the area's other marinas were better. We haven't been, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The marina itself is a sort of giant cul-de-sac, surrounded by a brick boardwalk that is lined with restaurants, tourist shops, adventure guides and sports bars. About midway along is a very large pseudo light house, with a small bar on top that looks out over a 360 degree view of the harbor and town. There is an elevator that takes you up to it, but it only fits two people at a time. The light house has that quaint architecture that gives one the impression it was built by the lowest bidder. The building appears to have been retrofitted with a steel superstructure inside it. I'm sure it is all perfectly safe, and done to the highest engineering standards. They probably even used real steel. I'd just rather not be in it when the big quake hits.

Behind and above the store fronts lining the marina are high rise condominiums. In front of the stores are barkers. You know the type, usually found in front of some carny tent or strip joint trying to induce you inside. They start the pitch with "HELLO MY FRIEND, THOSE ARE GREAT SHOES YOU ARE WEARING", referring to the the fact that I don't care that my plastic Crocs don't match [I go by thickness not color] and then should you be fool hardy enough to respond in any manner you will be offered hundreds of dollars, or an amazing experience, or great deal, or the absolutely best food in all of Mexico. Every thirty yards or so there is someone standing outside a shop while trying to sell you land, boat tours, dinner aboard a pirate ship, jungle excursions, zip line rides through the rain forest, time share condominiums and meals at the various restaurants that surround the marina. Oh, and an amazing collection of schlock. We couldn't find a single useful item in this store, but there were six other stores with exactly the same inventory. And it was all made in China. Grandma would be so proud.

It is also populated with very, very expensive mega yachts, top end fishing boats and very fat, dumpy, cigar smoking middle aged American men, with very young, improbably large breasted trophy wives. We've seen more "bolt ons" in the last six days than you could shake a bra at. Robinson and I have taken to sitting in the restaurants and playing a game we call "Love or Money?". As each couple wanders buy we try to guess the motivation behind the twenty five year old runway model snuggling along side the sixty year old, bald waddler with a dart player's physique. Love doesn't come up a lot, but we could be wrong. Maybe it's just sour grapes on our part, but perhaps wintering a multi-million dollar yacht in a nice climate can make up for a lot on the physical side. Not surprisingly, there are also numerous strip clubs just outside the marina along the main drag, just in case it doesn't.

Oh, and there are several wireless providers available within the marina. Unfortunately, I chose "PVAIRPATH", which turned out to be a huge mistake. It was $10.00USD a day, was very often down, and when it was up the transfer rates were pathetic. On top of that, they prohibited the use of VOIP (voice over internet protocol) so using Skype was not allowed. Even if you did, the quality of the connection was so bad as to make it worthless. Some of the other cruisers suggested using some of the local coffee shop's free hot spots, but their speeds weren't good enough to get something accomplished. It was fine if all you wanted to do was the occasional email, but worthless for doing any actual work, downloading files of and size, and especially frustrating uploading images to your blog. Unless you got up at six A.M., when it worked great for about forty seven minutes, you couldn't do anything productive across their net.

We should have left this morning, but we didn't. The surprise birthday party they sprung on me last night went quite late, there was much carousing, imbibing, and far too little sleep for us to just jump up and go. Hah! Robinson didn't wake up until two, and spoke using only vowels for the first two hours of consciousness. Well, we say consciousness, but it was really only brain stem activity. I'm sure a medical practitioner would have at least looked for a DNR, but unless you needed to hold something from blowing away, he wasn't much good for anything. We spoke very, very loudly to him, yelling at his left ear, to help him understand anything we needed to communicate. Pay backs are a bitch.

Well, we couldn't do much else, so instead, we took off an extra day to recover any braincells that survived, and finish repairing, restocking and refilling everything we needed for our trek up to Mazatlan. We had originally planned on leaving straight for Cabo San Lucas from here, but the winds would have been against us, so we decided to motor north to Mazatlan, check in with the Port Captain there, and have Robert taken off the crew list. He booked a flight to fly back to Nicaragua on Saturday, so we figured we had plenty of time to get there and handle any paper work before sending him off to the airport. He is shown here making a face. He does that a lot. We think he might have Tourette syndrome. Or maybe brain damage. Or is just goofy. It's hard to tell with the English.

In the meantime, Robert and I decided to go into the main part of town to see the Festival De Guadeloupe. Puerto Vallarta runs along the coast, with a numerous small and large rock outcropping just off the surf zone. Although the locals we encountered in the marina were pretty reserved, once outside the marina, the folks we met were very nice, helpful and friendly. There is a long cement walkway that runs along the beach front. It is lined with restaurants and shops, and no end of bizarre and somewhat tasteless bronze sculptures. These seem to be pandemic to the inside coast of the mainland as we've encountered them everywhere; apparently someone's cousin got the government contract, and then said to their brother "Jose, quick, we need a thousand nautical statues for tourists to look at! Get that sculptor friend of yours who always forgets to take his medication and tell him the skies the limit." Just beyond the walk way it drops down to a narrow, sandy beach where people build enormous and quite elaborate sand sculptures. Some of them were really quite impressive. Apparently making sand sculptures has really caught on here, and there are competitions and amazing amounts of effort put into them. So far we've seen them on almost every tourist beach we've come to. My favorite was a woman on a couch, holding her breast, while an artist draws her picture. The fact that its a naked woman holding a breast has nothing to do with why I like it so much. Its the artistic inspiration. No really. Honest.

We took a bus from the marina into the town square, then walked along the seaside, gawking at the very bad statues, ugly Americans and other oddities. It was a strange mixture of classical Mexican culture and American trailer trash. For instance, I'm not sure why, but there was a life sized statue of an elephant on the roof of one of the restaurants. There was one block that had a taco shop, an ice cream parlor, a Hooters restaurant, a Domino's pizza, a Mexican Naval Museum and a Starbucks coffee shop across the street. It made me sad to realize this was our contribution to world culture. As we walked along we found a tattoo parlor, which I dragged Robert into, hoping to convince him to get the word "MOM" written on his shoulder, I just know his parents would have wanted him to. Mostly I just wanted to watch him being polite to the shop owner, who foolishly assumed there was more than a snowball's chance in Hell of that ever happening.

We also found a McDonalds, with a life sized Ronald The Clown on a park bench inside it. Robert was also kind enough to point out the "Now Hiring" sign which stipulated that Mikey D wanted you, provided you were between the ages of sixteen and fifty and willing to work for sixteen cents an hour. Robert suggested I put in an application now, because I'd be too old the next time I came through here. He has a very mean sense of humor, and whatever moral qualms I might have had before he left, I now felt better for having putting those fish guts in the bottom of his backpack.

Eventually we reached the town center, which is dominated by a large cathedral with an giant bell tower. There was an enormous crowd milling about, with a queue several blocks long of parishioners waiting to get into the church. They lined the entire side street, several blocks deep, and slowly shuffled along before eventually filing into the temple doors. The church itself was quite ornate, internally balconied, lined with stained glass windows several stories high and trimmed with rococo woodwork overlaid with gold leaf. It reminded me of my days back at Catholic boarding school. There were even nuns wearing the traditional habit, choir boys and alter boys in white smocks, and a priest that looked like he'd walked out of Central Casting.

The bell tower must have had twenty different bells of various shapes, tones and sizes. Every few minutes they would ring all of them, which was deafening. Apparently the "procession" had just happened and we'd missed it. Like all town fairs everywhere, those who had taken part in it were walking around afterward still dressed in elaborate costumes while sipping cans of soda and smoking cigarettes. We wandered about the town square, took photos of the adorable children dressed up in traditional Frito Bandito garb, ate sidewalk vendor food and generally milled about.

There was also an amazing "Pro Life" display just outside the entrance, showing, supposedly, the life sized versions of a fetus during the various stages of development. I think this was intended as some sort of anti-abortion poster, but it was pretty surreal right outside the entrance way to the church. The really scary bit was that the four week old version looked just like Robinson when we left this morning. He had said he would meet us at the square, but he never showed up. Eventually we tired of waiting for him, had seen most of what the town had to offer visitors, and decided to grab a bus back.

The mass transit seemed like a pretty decent setup, although we were riding on what amounted to old school buses from the states. There were lots of them, if a bit crowed at times, but they seemed to be going everywhere we wanted to. Bus rides were fifty cents and ours came with its own musical entertainment. Apparently busking on public transportation is not only legit here, but encouraged, and we rode back to the marina listening to some pretty decent mariachi music. We passed a Home Depot, a Walmart, and several other "big box" chain stores including the Mexican version of West Marine, which was located less than a block from the marina. The store is relatively new, the prices are very good, there isn't much stock, but it was the largest chandler I've come across yet in Mexico. American pop culture is encroaching here, and no doubt in another twenty years it will be hard to tell the difference between here and any strip mall in Walnut Creek.

Robinson was still asleep when we returned, so we banged around and made as much noise as possible. We got the boat packed up and ready to go, had dinner that night at one of the local restaurants, and I worked furiously trying to get as much of the blog caught up to date, despite the lousy internet connection. We leave for Mazatlan tomorrow morning, providing no one else has a party before then.

Cheers for now!

Robb

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And Away We Go...

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Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Sailor's Life For ME!!

Well, we set sail pretty late in the day on Sunday, but just in time for yet another spectacular sunset. You know, we could probably put hundreds of photos of nothing but spectacular sunsets up on this blog. After a while they become no more unusual than dolphins off the bow, wind coming from where you want to go, or the captain standing at the helm, naked, save for a T-shirt.

The waves had been a bit rough, but nothing too bad, although the motion of the boat wasn't the best. Rain hadn't been feeling that well to begin with, we think she made have had food poisoning from some of the airport food (I use the term loosely) that she'd found on her flight down. It didn't sit well with her, and she spent some amount of time leaning over the coamings, attracting fish. Now, I wanted to include a picture of this, but every time I post it to the blog, it mysteriously changes into a photo of her legs. I suspect this is due to some sort of devil spawn activity. If you look carefully you can just make out the cloven hooves. Although we felt bad for her, it seemed to do the trick for our trawling line, devil guts being the best bait. Up until this point we'd had very poor luck with catching anything, but after our brief lesson with Nick the professional fisherman, and Rain's gastromonic projections, we've now caught several tuna, mackerel and a dorado. They made for great dinners, ceviche and one quick stew for lunch. The weather is okay, the life is good, the food is great. What more can you ask for in life? Oh, well, that ain't for discussion on this blog.

As we were leaving the Nicaraguan waters, motor sailing along maybe five miles off the coast, we came upon a small fishing panga. There were two young men standing on it, waving a red shirt and gesturing at us. Being that this was Nicaragua, I was very worried about this situation. Although there aren't very many cases of pirate attacks on the west coast (they happen almost entirely over on the Atlantic side, and this situation has gotten much better in the last few years) I wanted to scout out the situation carefully and take some precautions. My boat mates seemed amused when I handed them each a machete, and we raised AnnMarie on the satellite phone to appraise her of the situation. We approached them slowly, circling around a few times to check them out. They were lying at anchor, in about one hundred feet of water, in an open fishing boat.

They seemed harmless enough, and there was no one else in sight, so we got close enough to ask them what was the matter. Our trusty interpreter, Robinson, learned that they had run out of gas and their radio stopped working. We had them float a gas can over, tied to a line, filled it with a few gallons of fuel, and gave it back. They thanked us, and much to our surprise, gave us a decent sized Dorado, already gutted and perfect for a dinner for four. This leg has turned out to be one of the best yet for fresh fish! We all had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat and didn't wake up the next morning until it was time to cross the bay.

Lest you have forgotten, we are traveling north up the west coast of Central America, and headed for the Bay of Tehauntepec. This is actually quite a difficult passage we are about to take on. This area, along with two other specific places along the coast, are known for fierce winds without any prior warnings. Usually an on coming storm will follow a drop in barometric pressure, giving you some warning of what's to come, but a Tehautepec wind can spring up out of nowhere and within minutes suddenly be blowing forty, fifty, sixty, even seventy miles per hour. That is like sailing along on a flat ocean, and then hitting a hurricane. It has been known to sink boats, tear sails and rigging apart, and force well seasoned sailors to turn back.

These winds are caused by a high pressure system that builds up in the Caribbean and tries to move westward towards the typically low pressure that lives out over the south eastern pacific ocean. The wind heads over the Central American land mass, then slams into the mountain ranges that run the length of it. Unfortunately, there are a few places, such as the narrow most portion of Mexico, just along the long, open area north of the bay, that allow the winds to funnel through. To make matters worse, as they push up then race down the mountain slopes, they pick up speed. When they reach the ocean they slam down with such force that they push the surface water hundred of miles out to sea. While this action makes for particularly good conditions for catching big game fish, it makes for very dangerous sailing conditions across the bay.

The trick is to stay as close to shore as possible. "One foot on the beach" is the saying for crossing the bay, and we tried our best to hold our course as close to shore as possible. Things were going pretty well as we reached the top of the curve, and there was some discussion (mostly on Robinson's part...he likes taking chances) about the possibility of cutting straight across along the 16th degree of latitude. Doing so saves about thirty miles of sailing, but should anything blow up, you can find yourself in some serious shit.

We elected to stay close to shore, and made it past what we thought was the difficult part. We were headed into Salina Cruz, what is considered to be west of the danger zone, when the winds started to pick up. We were running with just a double reefed main, with wind on our beam, when it started to blow up a bit. The seas were relatively calm, but as the wind increased, our boat speed did as well. Pretty soon we were flying along, averaging speeds around twelve knots, and at one point getting up to fourteen knots for over a minute. It was incredible!

We raced along like this for quite a while, heading for Salina Cruz. Eventually we reached the port area, where large freighters were stacked up at anchor, waiting for an appropriate window to traverse the bay. As we got closer the wind continued to increase, first forty, then to fifty knots, with gusts to sixty. It was a howling, cold wind, something we weren't used to after so much time in a hot climate. We were wearing our foulies, as much to keep the wind chill off as to protect us from the spray, and bashing along as the waves increased.

As the winds increased we realized we needed to get the main down. The seas were building and becoming square and steep. We decided that the safest place to do this would be in the lee of Salina Cruz harbor itself, so we headed up into shore, hoping to get right onto the beach and out of the brunt of the waves. This would theoretically reduce the "fetch", the amount of time the wind has to build up waves, so we headed up towards land.

And stopped. Catamarans are not normally good at going to weather, but in fifty knots we were barely moving forward at all the further we reached. We started the engines, and began pushing our way into the cove. Are speed continued to drop. We pushed the engines to full speed, and inched our way along, barely making any headway, all the while waves continued to crash into us. Given that we had breaking seas five or six feet high coming off a lee shore with only a hundred yards of fetch, you might be able to imagine the kind of force the wind has to exert to generate those conditions. It was a bit of a tense moment. Had the winds worsened we might have had to drop the main right there...something no one wanted to do. Standing on a bouncing deck while struggling to bring down a flogging sail in hurricane winds is not for the weak of heart. Fuck it isn't for the strong of heart. In fact, it is down right dangerous! A flogging sail can generate unbelievably strong forces, and create speeds at the end of the sail that exceed the speed of sound. That cracking noise you hear when someone snaps a bull whip is the sound barrier being broken. When a massive sail starts moving about like that, it can create whipping motions in the lines tied to it that are capable of breaking an arm or knocking you unconscious. Getting up on deck when things aren't stable is dicey. In fact, at one point we tacked and a line got hung up on a cleat, the jib began flogging and the jib sheets started whipping around the deck. Robinson, who was standing in the cockpit, was trying to winch in the slack when a loose line lashed across his shoulder, and cut him through his shirt. Although he was unlucky to be caught by a freak accident, he was lucky to get away with what he did. It left two good sized gashes in his shoulder that took a while to heal. He had pink skin for several weeks afterwards, and a great sailing story to boot, but it isn't what should have happened. High winds mean dangerous times, and things can go very wrong, very fast. We really didn't want to spend any more time exposed on deck, especially in this weather, than we absolutely had to.

Eventually we got close enough to shore to get some protection. There was some shelter from the tall cliffs in front of us. The wind speed dropped to about thirty knots. Robinson and Robert dashed up on deck, pulled down the main and tied everything down. You can see the relief and joy on Robert's face once we got everything stowed away. We turned tail, headed back out into the bay and pointed our boat towards Huatulco. With nothing but bare poles, we ran with the wind and the waves, but further out into the ocean the seas became so steep that it became difficult to keep Triton pointed in the right direction. Now, you would think that running with the wind and waves would be a cakewalk, but its not. Large waves would pick up her stern and try to spin her sideways.

Not wanting to constantly deal with correcting the wheel, and "driving" the boat (the autopilot does not handle this particular condition well) we threw out a drogue. This is a small, cone shaped chute that drags along behind the boat. It provides just enough resistance to keep the waves from broaching us, and still allows for good steerage. With nothing but bare poles, and a drogue, we were pushed along at over four knots. It was a quite, comfortable ride, and given the increased stability, we could turn the autopilot back on!

We drifted like this for several more hours, passing along the Mexican coast line. The winds were still blowing us along at four knots under bare poles, no engines and a drogue!! We realized that if we went faster we'd arrive in Hualtulco before sunrise, so we just coasted along, watched the sunrise come up, the Mexican fishing trawlers go by and just relaxed. As we moved further south the winds died back a bit, but the current kept us moving, so we relaxed and let ourselves be delivered to our destination within using much energy or breaking anything in the process. What a great way to travel. Now if we could only find a downstream course around the world, it would be worth circumnavigating it.

In the meantime we are approaching our first stop in Mexico, looking forward to getting cleaned up a bit, getting a good meal, fixing what broke, and doing laundry. It don't sound like much, but after a few tough days in the weather, a comfortable chair on stable ground, a hamburger and an iced tea are something to look forward to.

Hoping your dreams, happiness and desires are as easily attained!

Robb


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