Tehuantepec & El Salvador

A day later we got to the charming town of Huatulco. It was a small town with friendly people, stunning beaches, and a charming town center. Best of all, it’s in the state of Oaxaca, which means mole sauce and lots of it. Yum.

Again we rented a car and this time drove north to Puerto Escondido, a surfing town Andrew and I had visited in the summer almost four years earlier. It was largely the same, except the waves were smaller this time of year, and more of the main road along the beach had been paved. I went for a long walk on the beach and came across a crowd of people staring at the sand – baby sea turtles had just hatched and were trying to make their way to the ocean!

Huatulco was the last stop before we had to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec on our way south. The Tehuantepec is famous for it's windy weather pattern, where the narrow land isthmus, the Sierra Madre mountains, and the differences in air temperature all combine to create gale and storm force winds on the Pacific side. For most of the year the weather pattern looks like this:

The advice given to boats crossing this gulf is to stay as close to shore as possible to avoid getting caught in the massive windstorm. “Keep one foot on the beach” or “drag a hand in the sand” are the familiar expressions. So we waited for a weather window and sailed to the 16^thparallel, then followed the coast south past Guatemala. After all the discussion and planning, the crossing was largely uneventful. The wind was minimal and we motored almost the whole way. We even got a little bored and Andrew attempted to wakeboard with the paddle board.

But we are a sailboat, after all, without a speedboat engine so even the wakeboarding got a little boring.

We were motoring along the coast of El Salvador when John mentioned that we were near a surf break with delicious pizza that he had visited before. Craving some brick-oven-baked thin crust, we anchored off a little town called Tunco. After setting the hook, we threw some clothes in a dry bag backpack, got on our boards and paddled to shore. As this was a surf spot and not an anchorage, we were the only boat out there. Consequently, the beachgoers seemed quite interested in our arrival (and probably also because we came ashore with a dog in a neon orange life vest). We walked a short ways up the beach to stash our stuff at John’s friend’s hotel, then moseyed over to the open-air palapa café where surfers lounged around in their board shorts, waiting for the next surf session.

How nice it was to go ashore without the hassle of having to check in with immigration and customs! We were minor celebrities for the evening, as everyone we met had seen our boat anchored off the break and wanted to know all about it. Some great Australians befriended us and we followed them to a local beachside bar where it was ladies’ night. Kitty came along too and of course, she was the most popular lady there. A few free rum and cokes later we paddled back to the boat around midnight, in 85 degree water and under a full moon. After rinsing off in the cockpit we weighed anchor and set sail for Nicaragua.

From Ixtapa we sailed south to Acapulco, which was two days at sea. You’d think a stint like that might get boring but we had one of our fullest days 35 miles offshore. First thing in the morning, we caught a Jack. As a rule, we don’t eat Jacks aboard El Tiburon, from previous unpleasant experiences, so we threw it back. Then around 10 AM we saw a bunch of splashing going on in the water about 100 yards away and not thirty minutes later there was a brisk zing on our fishing pole. The creature on the other end jumped and flailed. We'd caught a sailfish!

Out came the video camera to document the whole thing:

Look closely and you’ll see that although it looks brown, the fish is indeed sort of, like, purple.

So we caught two big sailfish that morning and just when we thought the excitement was done for the day a huge ray came over to see what all the commotion was about. John got in the water to swim with it.

A few hours later we noticed we were passing first a few, and then many sea turtles, all floating serenely at the surface, unperturbed by our intrusion. We slowed down to observe them and noticed that the water was swarming with little jellyfish, upon which the turtles were feasting. The guys got in to swim with the friendly, ancient creatures.

Later in the day we were swarmed by hundreds (not an exaggeration) of dolphins. We’d never seen so many dolphins around our boat at one time. There were at least thirty of them crammed at our bow, each one trying to surf our wake. Their high-pitched conversations were so loud I could hear them through the hull when I took a shower. Kitty was enthralled by them.

That night we discovered a little baby squid on the bathmat in the head. It was anyone’s guess how it got there. Maybe it had been caught in somebody’s board shorts?

All day on the open ocean and not an hour went by when something interesting wasn’t going on. It was a banner day.

After sailing into Acapulco bay, we got a creepy feeling about the place. It was overly developed with plenty of abandoned buildings, there were all kinds of debris floating everywhere in the water (including a rotting sailfish head), and the harbor was full of dilapidated boats. The place gave us the heebie jeebies, so we turned around and headed south for Huatulco.

Barra de Navidad, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, Troncones & Saladita

We left La Cruz and sailed south across Banderas Bay, heading for Barra de Navidad. The trip was uneventful except for a pod of three whales that crossed our path. The most forward one spouted of our starboard beam and it was LOUD! It was so close I could have sworn its head was under our stern.

Two days later we arrived in Barra de Navidad, a charming little town alive and bustling with beach-goers. The marina is part of a beautiful five star resort with pools, tennis courts, and yoga on the beach every day.

The town is separated from the resort by the narrow mouth of a large placid lagoon, so going to town necessitates the service of a water taxi. Just call them up on VHF 22: “Taxi Aquatico, Taxi Aquatico, this is El Tiburon,” and a panga will pick you up in ten minutes. And you can’t beat the price: ten pesos per person each way.

Water taxi dock in Barra de Navidad

The French Baker can be reached on VHF 23 and he’ll come to your boat to deliver fresh buttery croissants and crunchy baguettes. Be sure to let him know in advance if you want a ham and cheese croissant with béchamel, as they sell out first. What service!

We rang in the new year with our friends Maja, Laurent, and John from Windsong in a biker bar in town and watched the massive fireworks display.

Our next stop was Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo. We stayed in the marina in Ixtapa and it was unremarkable except for the large crocodile I saw swimming along serenely next to the dock. Kitty was kept on a very short leash after that and we walked only in the middle of the dock.

Sadly, Andrew had to fly home for a conference and his flight was out of Acapulco. We rented a car and prepared for a three-hour drive south. It turned out to be a five-hour drive on a rural two-lane highway, with vicious speed bumps at every little pueblo and dirt dappled children who stood on the speed bumps selling candies or bags of peanuts.

Eventually we got to Acapulco but had to drive through the sprawling crowded city to get to the airport on the other side and of course, we didn’t know how to get there. Waiting at a stoplight, we motioned to a gentleman to roll down his window and asked him how to get to the airport. He responded with a rapid string of Spanish words we could barely understand except I thought I heard him say “Sigame,” and for some reason I thought that might have meant “Follow me.” We followed him for a number of hectic blocks before we started to doubt that “sigame” meant “follow me” or that he’d even said “sigame” at all, and we attempted to make a left turn. The two of our cars were stopped in traffic at a diagonal from one another when I glanced back and saw our guide looking at me and motioning vigorously with both arms, jabbing his pointed fingers towards his steering wheel. I took that to mean he meant us to keep following him. We made an awkward three-point turn and were once again behind our kindly leader.

At this point, it was about forty minutes before Andrew’s international flight was scheduled to leave, and because he’d thought he’d be at the airport by now, he had set up an important conference call. He had to take it. Oh, and did I mention that he was also the one driving? And the car was a stick shift. As John was in the passenger seat, he assisted Andrew by alternately holding the phone next to his ear and shifting the gears, all while we were trying to follow a nimble and expeditious Mexican driver through the packed streets of Acapulco. Soon we began to see signs for the airport and were relieved to find our guide had not led us astray. Andrew wrapped us his call as we pulled into departures, now with only fifteen minutes before takeoff. He ran to check in and check his baggage (our broken propeller) and made the flight. What a feat it was!

While Andrew was gone, John, Luke, and I drove north of Zihuatanejo to a surf town called Troncones, then stayed in a comfy beachside house in Saladita where the waves were perfect. That night we had a massive feast of roadside chicken and beef tacos for a total of six dollars. I woke up in the morning to find this guy staring at me right outside my window:

Punta Mita, Sayulita, and La Cruz

We left Paradise Village and motored over to La Cruz shipyard and marina to take a look at our propeller, thinking maybe there was some fishing line wrapped around it that we couldn’t see underwater. When the boat came out of the water the prop looked perfect! If John and Luke hadn’t decided to dismantle it and put it back together, they never would have determined that the locking mechanism was broken and an over-pitched prop had been our problem all along. Hallelujah we solved our engine problem! And as my father pointed out, Perky had been maligned. Proppy had been the culprit the whole time.

With our problem solved, we rented a car so we could explore the surrounding area. Some friends of John’s, Kate and Simone, were holidaying at the Four Seasons in Punta Mita, so we went to visit them for a day. The resort was at the end of a private road and the grounds were exquisitely manicured. It was noted that the place was so exclusive that it didn’t feel exclusive because the excluded people were so far away one was hardly even aware of them. We spent the day lounging on the beach (with no vendors to bother us), enjoying complimentary ice water, chilled towels, and ice cream brought round by friendly waiters.

When we got hungry we went to the hotel’s café and savored a fine lunch by the beach while whales breached all across the bay. As tasty as our salads and sandwiches were, they were hardly worth the $300 bill that landed on our table when we’d finished eating. Yes, that was in dollars, not pesos. Shocking really, considering we had been able to stuff ourselves with outstanding food only thirty minutes away for less than $2 a person. But it was a lovely day all the same.

Later that week we drove north to the town of Sayulita. It’s a small bay with a long surfable wave, ideal for beginners, so the town was pretty well populated with visiting, as well as expat, gringos. The expats were easily differentiated from the visitors because Sayulita appears to be a sort of bohemian mecca, with much of the resident population fitting that description. It is the kind of place where you might see two white people with dreadlocks in one day.

Heavy rains during the summer had caused the river in Sayulita to flood, taking out many small buildings along its banks. This was not much of a problem for us until Luke went to use the men’s room . . .

. . . and was dismayed to find it out of order.

On the beach we found an umbrella and chairs to occupy while we soaked in the sun and the local beach scene, which was a far cry from that of the serene Four Seasons. John tried out three different chairs before he found one that wasn’t broken. He finally settled himself into it with his book when, after a hopeful five seconds, it collapsed. I had to take a picture.

Later we had some yummy fish tacos in the center of town (dinner for four was less than $20) and wended our way through the crowded streets looking for a good place to have a margarita. People of all ages were out enjoying the night; the open-air restaurants were all full and delicious smells wafted from roadside trucks serving tacos or churros or diced chilled fruit. It was a charming place to visit.

Paradise Village, Nuevo Vallarta

Paradise Village is an extensive resort complex in Nuevo Vallarta, just north of Puerto Vallarta in the eastern most part of Banderas Bay. It has a marina and yacht club with access to all resort facilities, and even a shopping mall complete with a grocery store, gelato shop, and a Starbucks. It was a nice place to stop after a long trip from Mazatlan, even if it was a little inauthentic (ok, a lot inauthentic).

The bathrooms were cleverly disguised in this replica pyramid.

As Andrew and I took Kitty for a walk around the complex we came across a bird enclosure housing beautiful macaws. Kitty was very interested in the birds and they were likewise interested in her. Two of them clawed their way down the chicken-wire to her level to get a better look at her, squawking ‘hello, hello’ all the while. After a few sniffs she turned her attention to a cage behind us and froze in her tracks. I wasn’t sure why she’d stopped until I caught a glimpse of orange on the other side of the fence. She was about a foot away from a huge tiger!

In the next cage another tiger was napping peacefully along the wall of its pen when Andrew decided to try to touch it. Don’t ask me why. I was not happy about it.

He poked a finger through the fence, brushing the top of the tiger’s head and the beast snapped his head up and gave Andrew a stern look. Since I don’t know why Andrew tried to touch the tiger in the first place, I definitely can’t explain to you why he tried to touch it a second time. Again he poked a finger through the fence and again, managed to touch the tiger’s head. All I could think about were those dumb kids at the SF zoo who were messing with the tiger there (from a much further distance away and with a moat separating them) and the thing broke loose and tracked them down and killed one of them, so I hurried off with the dog, mumbling expletives all the way. From around the corner I heard the tiger give a loud warning hiss and Andrew caught up to me shortly after that.

A few days later I walked by the tiger cages again and noticed some new signs:

While enjoying beachfront margaritas and guacamole one night in Paradise Village, we met two delightful girls, Stacy and Jill, and became fast friends with them. As it had been a long time since any of us had been around women, we invited them to dinner at Il Pescatore, the resort’s Italian restaurant, and enjoyed their company if not the food. We dined with them regularly over the next week and I even got to have some much-needed girl time with them at the spa and shopping mall. What a treat it was to have some estrogen around!

After Andrew returned from the US with a new fuel pump, the guys spent a whole day replacing it, only to discover that the problem with the engine still wasn't fixed. The next day we left Paradise Village to haul out at La Cruz shipyard in the northern part of Banderas Bay.

Isla Isabella

On our trip down to Isabella we were treated to a visit from two whales. I’d been napping on deck when their spouting woke me, and there they were just ten yards off our starboard beam! We watched their dorsal ridges arc gracefully out of the water a few times before they revealed their massive forked tails. About a hundred yards away another whale breached, jumping clear out of the water and landing with a colossal splash.

Soon we arrived at Isla Isabella, a small rocky wildlife reserve in the middle of the ocean. It was swarming with large black frigate birds and was reminiscent of something out of a Hitchcock movie (namely, The Birds). The smell of the guano-encrusted rocks hit our noses even before we dropped the anchor.

We rowed ashore and beached the dinghy near a small makeshift fishing village, then proceeded to look for a hiking path. Every branch of every tree drooped with the weight of at least three birds.

As we walked along the island started to look like one of those “After People” shows on the Discovery Channel that depict what would happen to human creations after our extinction. Abundant white streaking indicated the birds had made good use of this dilapidated basketball hoop.

And after walking along staring at the birds we realized we ought to pay more attention to where we put our feet, as the ground was covered with iguanas, frozen in place and waiting for the sun to warm them.

How many iguanas can you spot in this photo?

John and Luke hiked to the top of the island where the view was beautiful, and they saw some rare birds.

We knew there were both blue and yellow-footed Boobies on this island, but this particular bird appeared to be a green-footed hybrid.

Next stop was Banderas Bay and Nuevo Vallarta.