Life in the Bays of Huatulco

Here are some random photographs of our recent days in Huatulco. In Puerto Angel where we were protected from the rough seas, Maya, Tim and Kai had fun converting our dinghy into a swim platform.




I saw this confident dog sitting on the steps in Puerto Angel and I felt he represented a part of Mexico. Straggly, but strong. In the story, Panga Boy, the boy from Los Barilles goes to the United States and compares the life of dogs. He says something to the effect that in the states, dogs don't have skin problems and they have owners.

Have you ever seen one of these animals? This was our first time. Usually it lives in the mountains, but this man who resides next to the Port Captain decided to keep it as a pet.



First person to guess the above animal gets to eat what Tim is sampling. Hint it's full of protein:

Turtles in Barra La Cruz

We walked out of the marina to get to Barra La Cruz lugging three back packs filled with clothes, food, swim suits, a hammock. and two surf boards. We found a taxi close to Marina Chahue. It drove, and drove, and drove. First to the palapa that a friend Enrique let us borrow. Then we went to the turtle camp but the biologists weren’t there. After that we went to the beach to swim. When we were about to swim in the ocean we saw there were HUGE breaking waves. But luckily there was a lagoon.

Ruth said to swim out to the stick with the bird on top. About three quarters of the way there Mommy said fearfully “There might be crocodiles in here. Get out.”

I said “Mommy, there are no crocodiles in here.”

But all the same Mommy made me get out.

We walked down the beach to the turtle camp. A patrol was out and picked us up in their military jeep and took us to the turtle camp. The biologists were there. We signed in and that sort of thing: Some people eat turtle eggs and they want to prevent it so that's why the military was there.

We didn't know that we were supposed to bring warm clothes, so we had to borrow them from the biologists. We had to put on really big adult clothes and they looked so funny on us everyone around us laughed. Then we had to get in some hammocks to sleep until 10:00 pm, the time we would start looking for turtles. Here's where we slept:



But Ariane the biologist wanted us to help her. We got out of the hammocks in the turtle camp inside Barra La Cruz to free four leatherbacks and lots of black turtles. We also checked the temperature of the sand where the eggs were. Here's Ariane and me looking at the nest:



Then we went to the beach and dumped out a bucket to let the turtles out. The leatherbacks and black turtles scrambled into the sea.

After that we went back to the hammocks. In a few hours we woke up. We went on an ATV and drove to this pit to let more baby turtles free. There was one leatherback and a lot of Olive Ridleys. Then we walked back to the ATV and drove to look for grown turtles nesting. Here is the ATV we patrolled with:



This is me holding a baby leatherback:



These are baby Olive Ridleys departing to the sea:



We zoomed around in the ATV looking for turtles. Taking naps along the way. After the third nap we found an Olive Ridley trying to nest! We watched it for about 20 minutes. But it couldn’t make a nest because the sand was too dry. So it went back to the sea.

Than we zoomed a little more. But we didn’t find any more turtles so at 4:00 in the morning we went back to the turtle camp. We went back to sleep.

We all got up at about 8:00, had breakfast and freed some more baby turtles. Here's Maya carrying a crate full of baby turtles.



We said good bye to everyone.

Sailing south from Acapulco to Puerto Angel

It was hard to leave Acapulco where we watched the brave cliff divers plunge 130 feet or more off the limestone cliffs and enjoyed the comforts of the yacht club -- its swimming pool, fresh showers, and good company, but on Mach 1st, we pulled anchor and headed south. According to the weather forecast, a gale was blowing in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, but winds were calm up north. What we didn’t anticipate, was that even though the winds were calm, the gale had upset the seas, bringing huge confused waves to the Bays of Huatulco where we were heading.

Our sail out of Acapulco was a comfortable spinnaker ride and the first 24 hours went smoothly. However, on our second night at sea, the waves became choppy coming from both south and east and west. In the morning, after 175 miles of sailing, we pulled into Puerto Escondido to take a break from the confused seas caused by a convergence of the waves from the Pacific Ocean with the Gulf of Tehuantepec. After a short rest, we chose to continue 26 miles southeast to Puerto Angel. Jenny Lin, a sailing trawler, also anchored there, wanted to join us.

At first the rolling waves were bearable and with the light wind we opted to motor sail to keep our momentum forward and arrive before dark. To pass the time, we counted turtles along the way. They were all heading up the turtle channel to Playa Escobilla for the turtle arribada. That’s when the female Olive Ridley turtles arrive on the beach at the same time to lay their eggs. They come in the hundreds and thousands.

Soon the waves grew to about 10 feet and some of the waves bounced our 40,000 pound Kamaya up into the air and back down. My heart pounded and I watched the knot meter tick slowly by, like a kid in a classroom looking at the clock and waiting for the bell to ring. When is this going to stop?

This was one of the few times in our journey when I couldn’t wait to drop anchor and stop our movement. But not everyone on the boat felt that way. Maya was happily on the bow with her father jumping high into the air as the waves lifted us up and then down. She held onto the forestay and the jib and jumped into the air. At least they were wearing life jackets.

One wave broke on the bow and water flowed into the forepeak. I kept planning on going below to dog the hatches (what a funny expression!) but didn’t until it was too late -- water rushed down into the cabin and onto both the bed in the forepeak and the bunks in the kids’ cabin. Tim finally decided it was a little rough and lured Maya back into the cockpit. We slowly motored broadside into the waves to get into the tight anchorage of Puerto Angel. “Mom, we don’t have to stop sailing, I want to continue on … this is fun,” protested bold and fearless Maya.

“That was one of the roughest seas I’ve been in,” an old South African sea salt tells us. We later learn that the port captain had closed the harbor, prohibiting his fishermen from venturing out into the rough and uncomfortable seas.

P.S. For anyone heading to Acapulco, Eusebio Almanza, a sailor who takes care of a number of boats, including Andromeda, the 72-foot Swan docked at the north end of the yacht club, has a mooring. The Yacht Club lets you stay only one night gratis on their mooring if you come from a yacht club with reciprocal privileges, but they charge $120/day if you want to stay longer. Eusebio’s mooring is much more affordable. He didn’t charge us, but he wanted us to pass the word on about his mooring.

Is Mexico Safe?

We received an email from Bob and Moni, my inlaws, advising us to get out of Mexico as soon as possible. Apparently, our state department has issued a travel alert, advising Americans to stay out of Mexico, especially the border towns.

“It sounds like the wild west,” my own father tells me.

Tim responded to his parents a bit flippantly reminding them that when he was young they lived in India at a time when the country was not deemed safe but they were there anyway.

Our travels in Mexico this past six months have been peaceful, exquisite and removed from the drug wars. We’ve for the most part avoided the big cities (even though I’m writing this from Acapulco), not because of the drug terrorism, but because we like the smaller towns. We’ve enjoyed the hospitality, the people and the laid back pace of this flavorful country. Moreover, the dollar is at an all time high - 15 pesos to the dollar - so living is relatively inexpensive.

Just after receiving Bob’s email, we befriended a family of five that lives in Mexico City, but was vacationing at the Acapulco Yacht Club for the weekend. Mexico City has been dangerous forever, but I wanted to know whether life for them was more dangerous than before? “How is it in Mexico City?” I asked the parents.

They responded that “It’s bad, both with the economy and the drug wars. You don’t have to worry when you’re in the small towns, but it’s in the big cities that you have to be careful.”

And what do they do differently?

“Don’t give too much information to people about yourselves,” they advised. “Here, at the yacht club you don’t have to worry, but when you’re outside stay on guard.” One of their family members was kidnapped, but fortunately returned. Their perspective of the drug wars was two-fold: the drug lords want to keep the country feeling insecure so the government will change its current policy of trying to capture and contain the drug traffickers. They, the drug cartels, want the police to turn a blind eye and let them continue with their business. Secondly, the drug lords argue that the Mexicans aren’t consuming the drugs, so it doesn’t hurt them. It’s really the problem of the consumer and most of that comes from users in the United States.

And since, the Mexican father explains, the government isn’t changing its crackdown policies, the drug leaders want to terrorize the population with fear, especially through kidnappings and killings. Today, the situation has evolved into a war between the police and the drug cartels.

So, fortunately, we’ve avoided all of the above and have had an exceptional time meandering our way down the coast of Mexico. If anyone is planning on coming down, and we highly encourage you, just stick to the wonderful beach towns. As Tim told his parents, “It’s much more dangerous in New York City than the places we’ve been in Mexico.”

Sailing from Barra de Navidad to Zihuatenejo

It’s often mentally difficult to pull the anchor and continue on our way, especially when you have to leave friends behind, a school that the kids have been enjoying going to and a real live French baker who delivers fresh baguettes and chocolate croissants to the boat. But Tim and I promised that after we finished our taxes and my article for the Gorge Guide, we would head south. It helped that the water quality had deteriorated rapidly and turned a chocolate brown color.
So we headed out the bar, not the kind that serves drinks, but the one with sand that piles high and if you’re not careful, you can run aground, which we did once when we came into the lagoon about a week ago. Kamaya came to a skidding thunk; fortunately, we were able to reverse off the mud. This final exit, we safely navigated our way out of the Barra de Navidad lagoon and sailed about 20 miles toward Santiago Bay, just north of Manzanillo. The wind was perfect for our spinnaker and we arrived just at sunset.


Along the way, the ocean bubbled with foam. It looked a little like an ebb tide line that we see in San Francisco Bay, but the color was dark on both sides. We later learned from another sailor that the water turns murky every year; however, this year it had changed a little sooner. Apparently, the ocean is suffering from an algae bloom where high concentrations of algae/ phytoplankton congregate and deplete the oxygen from the water. Sometimes the result can be toxic for the fish and other marine life. According to Wikipedia, scientists no longer call this disease “red tide” because the color is not always red, but can be brown or dark green.
The next morning we motored to Las Hadas and anchored in front of the Moorish style hotel, famous for the set location of the movie, 10 starring Bo Derek who jogged gorgeously along the beach. Well, even though Bo wasn’t there when we arrived, we enjoyed the pool and journeyed into Manzanilla to stock up on food: vanilla and strawberry yogurt, mangos and bananas, cheese, chicken and cereal, and lots more.
We pulled anchor at 4 in the morning for the Zihuatenejo area, 180 miles south, hoping it would be an easy and quick overnight sail. But we were wrong. At first, the wind came lightly from the south and the swells were all mixed up, so we found ourselves beating at a rapid 2 or 3 knots (we could almost walk faster!). Then the refrigerator turned off, clogged from the nasty water, so we thought we’d have to feast frenetically on all our newly purchased cold food before it turned bad. In the evening, the wind grew a little stronger and Tim and I didn’t want to change jibs in the middle of the night. The angle of the waves occasionally snapped the jib and this might have been the reason why we heard a big “pop”: the stainless ring holding the jib sheets broke, forcing us to change to the smaller rainbow jib.
Fortunately, the wind changed direction, coming from behind and Mr. Fixit Tim figured out a way to fix the fridge. The water turned a translucent blue, the turtles and dolphins showed up and we were back on track. We hoisted the spinnaker sailed about 7 to 8 knots into Isla Grande, just in time for sunset. Isla Grande just off of Ixtapa is a tourist spot with clear water, restaurants and mega motor yachts. After cleaning our bottom, well not my bottom or Tim's but Kamaya's bottom, we pulled anchor and sailed the short distance to Zihuatenejo.
Before arrival or shortly thereafter, its mandatory to learn how to spell “Zihuatenejo” and I think we figured it out. The name comes from the Nahuatl Indians and means “place of women.” In this place for women, we can now feel the heat of the tropics. The kids slept outside our first night, and the once sleepy fishing village is now a bustling tourist town with fine restaurants, delicious gelato ice cream and lots of trinkets.
So I apologize for writing a more or less “we did this” type of story. Now that I just learned how to spell Zihuatenejo correctly and the kids have finished school, we’re going to town for relief from the hot sun in a hopefully air conditioned movie theatre. We’re hoping to see Inkheart by Cornelius Funk. All of us have read the book, eager to see Dustfinger and Capricorn.

Photo of Kamaya sailing into the Sunset taken by Ewout Mante, Captain, SV Bravado now en route west

Interview with Maya

Maya, I'm going to take you back to Chamela. One night we decided to swim back to the boat instead of brave the surf in the dinghy. How did you like swimming at night in Chamela?

It was very fun.

What was different about it?

It was the first time that I got to swim with bioluminescience. Bioluminescience is a chemical reaction that creates light. When I swam, there were bright lights all around me.

Did you go to the school in Chamela/ Punta Perula? What did you teach there?

I taught Chinese there and told them about the Chinese New Years.



Did you also go to the school in Colimilla, the town that’s near us when we anchored in the Barra Lagoon?

Yes. There is only one teacher and she teaches 1st grade through 6th grade.

How do you like going to school there?

It's fun. The people are really nice.

Did you bring your unicycle there?

Yes, they liked it.




Who have you been teaching to swim?

Lucy
(Lucy is a woman we met in San Blas on Christmas Eve and she sailed with us from San Blas to Chacala and then met us with her sister Teresa in Cuestacomote, a small beach town near Barra de Navidad. We just spent a fun weekend with them.)

What happens when a frigate bird lands on your mast?


You shoo it off.
(One of the birds broke our windex- that’s on an instrument on the top of our mast that helps us know where the direction of the wind. Frigate birds don’t swim, so like to land on masts and that is a constant problem).

What are some of things you’re going to miss most about Barra de Navidad?
The French Baker. He comes to the boats and delivers fresh baguettes and chocolate croissants and other pastries.

From Chamela to Barra de Navidad

Be warned, this is a bit of a ramble….

We left Punta Mita and sailed south, crossing the famous Cabo Corrientes, where the wind is known to make a racket. But it was pretty calm for us -- at least at first. We hoisted the spinnaker and unfortunately just as the wind predictably kicked up, the fishing pole zzzzzed. “This is a real big one,” shouted Tim. “I hope it’s a tuna,” yells Maya. I think it was both. Probably the biggest fish we’ve ever had behind us, probably bigger than both Maya and Kai combined. But the problem was that we couldn’t reel in the fish and slow down the boat at the same time. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the strength to pull down the spinnaker sock with the strong wind while Tim and the kids worked on reeling the fish into the boat. Then there was a loud snap. The fishing line broke and the real big fish got away. So if anyone catches a fish a real big yellow tuna with a lure in its mouth, please call us. It’s ours!

We reached Chamela Bay the following morning and anchored exhausted from sailing all night. Tim and I alternate two hour shifts during the nights. It’s hard for me to get used to the pattern in just one night and we’ve discussed lengthening our watch schedule, but the problem is that we’ve found that after two hours of sailing alone in the middle of night, we’re both eager to stop.


In Chamela Bay, while eating at the taco stand, we met a 9 year old boy named Sage who lived part time in the local town of Punta Perula and the other months works as a child actor in Los Angeles. Dressed as a sailor with a captain’s hat, and striped shirt, Sage asked me what kind of boat he should get when he turns 18 and sails with his friends. I told him to keep studying all the boats anchored in his bay and to see which ones look strong and sturdy to him. Sage told us that he dreams about sailing, but has not had the opportunity. We were excited to make his dream come true and we took Sage and his mother and younger brother with us on the 28 mile passage from Chamela to Tenacatita. It was an ideal sail with 10 knots of wind behind us, perfect for the spinnaker. We sailed into Tenacatita just in time for the beach bonfire.

The sailing community in the Mexican Riviera and really along our entire journey is super helpful and friendly. Most areas have a morning net (open discussion on the VHF radio) to communicate with the fleet. We’re always eager to get to know other “kid boats” and sometimes we team together for boat schooling. Musician and sailor Bobbie Jo who helped with the Harry Potter performance in La Cruz was also anchored in Tenacatita and came on board to teach Maya and Kai how to play Ode to Joe on the recorder.


On Friday, we also did a boat school morning in Barra lagoon where bats have made their home at an abandoned building near the hotel. First we watched the Planet Earth section on caves and bats and then brought the Bravado kids and “Bear” from Oso Blanco to investigate the bats of Barra. We walked up the steps of the spooky building adjacent to the fancy Grand Bay Hotel. “They’re here,” six year old Bear told us and pointed to the ceiling. We could hear their high pitched sound as they buzzed in and out of the dark abandoned rooms. When one flew out, Annie, Bear's mother, bee-lined out of the building, shaking her head, “I just can’t do bats.” On the other end of the spectrum, Maya wanted to bring one home as a pet. "I just don't do boat pets...kids and a husband are enough."

That afternoon, Bravado, our buddy boat since Christmas Day, sailed and drove north. Does that make sense? Well in the early morning, Bravado rafted next to us and dropped Judith and the three kids and their Oma, Ineka, on our boat as Ewout and Opa Alexander sailed the boat to Puerto Vallarta. Ineka gets seasick and so prefers to travel by land. As they drove out of the narrow streets of Barra and Maya and I stood and did the Dutch wave (that’s when you continue to wave until you can’t see them anymore), I had tears in my eyes, sad to see them go, but excited about their upcoming adventure across the Pacific. Though we’ve only known the Mante family for less than two months, it feels like we’ve known them forever.