“Northbound passages to ports on the Pacific coast of Central America are always difficult due either to contrary winds or prolonged periods of calm,” so read Jimmy Cornell’s
World Cruising Routes, not exactly the most enticing words to describe the several thousands of miles that lay before us and where we wanted to be. We knew we were in for a bit of an uphill battle, having come through the Panama Canal on our 35-foot S&S-designed
Althea. With the Caribbean behind us, the majority of our friends thought us a bit daft as they were bound to continue the trade-route run to the Marquesas and exotic points beyond in the South Pacific. Instead, we would be splitting with them and returning back to California, and our loop of the Western Caribbean, the East Coast as far as Charleston, SC, and the trip through the Eastern Caribbean would be complete.
So what did we find? As expected, the wind was much less reliable than it was in the Caribbean. From Florida to the British Virgin Islands steady trade winds meant that we only had to take on fuel once. We would take it on again in Venezuela—for .28 cents a gallon! Once through to the Pacific side, however, we’d be taking fuel on in Panama City, Costa Rica, several more times in Mexico—it seemed as if the wind wasn’t blowing right on the nose, it’d be too light to sail and that filling up the diesel tanks and changing the fuel and oil filters were permanently on the boat list.
 |
"It seemed as if filling up the diesel tanks and changing the fuel and oil filters were permanently on the boat list. " |
|
Regardless, the trip back up along the coast was worth the extra hours on the engine. The Pacific coast of Panama remains one of the hidden jewels of cruising, its many uninhabited or sparsely populated islands a salve to the hustle and bustle inflicted on us by the noisy buses and loud city life of Panama City. The Caribbean is beautiful, but it is also home to one of the densest population of cruising boats on the planet. Finding an anchorage you can have all to yourself is a rarity. One jaded cruiser compared the Eastern Caribbean to a freeway; anchorages have instead become rest stops for boats that look more like RVs than capable passagemakers.
It’s possible to go from Massachusetts to Trinidad and only sail overnight a handful of times, thanks to the Intra Coastal Waterway.
Many boats make their home between Martinique and Trinidad, moving up and down according to hurricane seasons. Then there are the charter fleets and their crews and varying levels of seamanship, tight anchorages, and the ubiquitous boat ‘boys‘ (most often full-grown men rowing long lost windsurfers) that come out to the boat selling coconuts or mangos (easily gathered on most islands) or touristy t-shirts. One charter boat parked right on top of us in St. Vincent, and the crew of four proceeded to spend the entire day under a blinding tropical sun and much of the night nude in the cockpit. Not that I have anything against nudity, mind you, well, never mind. I did enjoy the Caribbean
—one of my goals in life is to keep from becoming the type of person that sails around different parts of the world complaining about it
—in many places the sailing is fantastic and the Caribbean is justifiably popular
—it’s just that one of the driving ideas behind cruising is to get away from it all and see what you’ll find out there.
On the Pacific coast of Panama we were off the beaten track and it again became a big deal to see another cruising boat pull into an anchorage, and one of the highlights of the day was to row over and see where they had come from, where they were going, and what kinds of books they had to trade. We spent three blissful weeks surfing our brains out in Panama’s Playa Benao before heading up to Costa Rica. There we had a chance to travel inland and see some of the sights that we missed on our way down this coast in 1997. This included Mt. Arenal, where we sat in hot springs and watched, heard, and felt fiery rocks come cascading out of this active volcano.
There are some sailors who maintain it is easier to head off to Hawaii from Central America, then a hop skip and a jump up to the Pacific Northwest, before heading down the coast to where we were going to go, Ventura, CA. Maybe it is, but for us that seemed like a lot of extra distance on top of a fairly healthy bit. I also couldn’t be held responsible for what corner of the world the boat sailed to should we get to doorstep of the South Pacific that I considered Hawaii to be, so with this in mind we plodded along from anchorage to anchorage, taking advantage of favorable winds and calms, trying to keep out of the headwinds as much as possible.
The big push for us was to escape any hurricanes, which start to crop up once a boat is above Costa Rica from June until November, so instead of revisiting El Salvador, we waited for a good weather window and plotted a direct line across the notorious Gulf of Tehauntepec, an area off Central America known for its gale force winds. These blow upward of gale force some 140 days a year, the worst season being October through April. They can be predicted fairly accurately, anytime high pressure builds over Texas, the winds come screaming through the Isthmus of Mexico, the narrowest and lowest land. The Papagayo is a strong, local wind found in Costa Rica that is much harder to predict. With a careful eye on our weather fax and an ear tuned to the SSB nets, we had a delightful nine-day sail from Northern Costa Rica to Southern Mexico. The sail was pretty much a beam reach the whole way, and at times there were so many sea turtles that they were literally bouncing off the hull, although the wind vane did a good job avoiding most of them. Spectacular displays of leaping marlin were also frequent sights. The fishing was good, and to the cat and crew’s delight, we landed several Mahi Mahi along the way.
|
|
|
Being back in Mexico was almost like being back home, we recognized the ubiquitous and tasteless Bimbo bread brand as well as a whole host of sweets and products we hadn‘t seen since our last time here. We had only one country to go, never mind that Mexico’s coast line stretches over 2,000 miles. Here’s where the wind started in on the nose like it meant it. On top of the headwind, in southern Mexico we often experienced a contrary current, whether wind driven or tidal, none of the fishermen seemed to be able to tell us for certain. The strategy was basically to stay on the favored tack as long as possible, without getting too close to land. Any of the many points that jut out to sea on this coast cause the wind to compress, accelerate, and often shift unfavorably.
Because we’d visited many of the ports on our way down, we felt less compelled to stop as often as we did on our downhill trip. The bureaucracy in Mexico has made it much more expensive for a cruising boat to be legal, at each port with a port capitan, cruising fees have skyrocketed leaving many boats to chance it by going without proper clearance. For the record we were boarded by the Mexican Navy once in Zihuatanejo and trailed by a Mexican destroyer running with no lights on at the southern border. In that encounter, I looked up to see a new, but dim light on the horizon, which I mistakenly took for a fishing boat miles away. It was actually a small cabin light on board the ship that I was looking at only several boat lengths behind. The ship made itself known with a bright searchlight, and from there I contacted them in my best broken Spanish on the VHF. Radar is still on the wish list!
|
"The scenery here is dramatic, the desert reaches to the sea, the windblown landscape dotted by towering cacti." |
|
Wherever there wasn’t a Port Captain became our main criteria for where we wanted to go next. Eventually we made it up past middle Mexico, stopped for a couple of days at Punta Mita north of Puerto Vallarta, and then headed up to La Paz on the Baja Peninsula. The scenery here is dramatic, the desert reaches to the sea, the windblown landscape dotted by towering cacti. It’s also a popular spot for cruisers looking to spend a summer in the Sea of Cortez. We were tempted, but decided to stick to our original plan of getting above the hurricane belt and out of the warm waters that feed these monster storms. We prepared ourselves and the boat for the so-called Baja Bash, an 800-mile beat back to the States.
The wind was cranking as we rounded Cabo San Lucas and several sailboats near us decided that they had had enough and turned around. Sheets of water flew over the dodger, but we were fairly sure that the conditions were just local ones, and twenty or so miles north the winds started to subside. There was the sense that we had taken a wrong turn, however, as the sea temperature dropped 20 degrees and a gray gloom settled in. It was a long, rough, wet ride over on our ear, we somewhat painfully guesstimated that we sailed at least twice as far as the straight line distance. In hindsight we could have done things differently on the homestretch and waited for lighter winds, but something happens to the voyager when he nears home, it was as if the pull of friends, family, and the new lives we’d be living had gotten a hold of the boat and were pulling it and us onward.
|
|
|
Just south of San Diego we had an exhilarating encounter with whales, we could never be sure what kind they were, big ones, as big as the boat if not more. There weren’t just one, or two, but rather hundreds. Unlike boats that have a semi-straight course, these leviathans were just lollygagging around in any old direction they felt like it, suddenly disappearing from sight, then reappearing just in front of the bow. One of us was on the bow directing the person on the helm to steer clear of the whales, getting drenched and cold in the gray mist while the other one drove. We got close enough that the deep sound of blowholes could be heard and two of the curious beasts to alter course to check us out. We then altered course and kept altering it until we were clear. I try to make it a habit not to play with anything that could sink the boat. Fortunately, the encounter had happened during the day, if it had been night I would have been seriously freaking out, but then with a little luck I wouldn’t have known they were there to begin with. It turns out our decision to by pass the Sea of Cortez was a prudent one, the cruising fleet there was pummeled by Hurricane Marty this season, and scores of boats were sunk or damaged beyond repair. The best hurricane plan is to get out of the hurricane zone.
It’s been a whirlwind getting back into the swing of things, and great to see friends and family again. We have a phone, a car, wireless Internet on the boat, but still appreciate being able to step off the boat onto a dock and the miracle of turning a faucet and having drinking water come out of it. Hot showers are still a mystical experience. We’ve still got exploring to do, as our new home port is a mere 14 miles from the Channel Islands National Park, an area we look forward to getting to know and hope to write about in the near future.
Connect with Facebook
