Chiapas has a new marina but because they had not turned on the power yet it was free. The price being right so we stayed there for 10 days. It is bloody hot but we will survive. The manager Enrique was fabulous. He drove us all over the place to check in and out, fuel runs, etc. From there we took a day tour to a Coffee plantation high up in the hills then to some Mayan ruins in Tapachula nearby. Wow, this is quite a process!
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03/22/2012, Chiapas
Well we finally are updating the blog; sorry for the delay, this cruising lifestyle is so busy with happy hours, cruising, boat chores, etc.
We had a great trip across the Tehuantepec. This is a large bay on the Pacific side at the bottom of Mexico. It is notorious for strong winds and large seas. You have to wait for a weather window to cross. On 3:00pm on Feb. 29 we left Hualtuco, then traveled along the coast to the 16deg N latitude, where we followed that across, then followed the coast down to Chiapas arriving on Mar.2.
At least we got to sail some of the trip with a 8-12knot wind on the beam. Here is our friends Jean-Guy and Fran on Gosling under full sail.
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02/29/2012
Back at the boat and time to do some boat chores and shop for fresh fruit and veggies, etc. Oh, and for Carole to get a hair cut....finally found a hairdresser that was recommended. Carole says it sure feels better.
The fruits and veggies at the markets here in Mexico are sooooo good! Ken worked on maintenance stuff, changed the oil and filters, fuel filter, washed the boat, fixed stuff that needed fixing, nice to keep on top of those items. Carole started some sewing projects, we now have sumbrella covers for the fuel tanks that are kept on deck, one off the checklist, next it will be the winch covers and grommets in our suncover for the boat. We have had a great time visiting and getting to know the other cruisers on the dock and it looks like we have a weather window to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec and head for Chiapas, our last stop in Mexico. Some of us are heading out this afternoon and the rest are heading out tomorrow. The Gulf of Tehuantepec is notorious for it high winds, so you have to wait for them to subside for a few days, that window starts today and ends on Saturday evening. We should be arriving in Chiapas before dark on Friday. It looks like there are about 5 of us heading out today.
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02/24/2012, Marina Chiapas
After a day or so at Marina Chiapas, we decided to take a trip inland to Oaxaca (pronounced Wahacka). We left on the 10pm bus and slept all the way to Oaxaca, it was an 8 hour journey. We travelled with Fran and Jean-Guy on Gosling. Once we arrived we headed for the Hotel we had booked and dropped off our bags and then breakfast. Now that we have eaten it was time to walk around town and get our bearings and then in the afternoon we went to visit "Monte Alban" ruins. We first toured the small museum and then paid our entry fee, while heading towards the gate, a young fellow came up and offered his services as a tour guide, we all looked and one another and decided we would pay the 300 pesos which ended up being a great decision. He spoke very good English and explained the history of the ruins as he walked us through them. We were tired at the end of this and has a siesta in the afternoon. The next day we had booked a full day tour which took us to see a tree which had a huge trunk called "Tule Tree", then onto a rug making place. We have been looking for a rug for the boat for quite a while but have not found the right one so far, we lucked out and found the perfect rug for our boat at this place, it is a wool rug and we were able to talk to the people who made it which was brilliant! Now the driver tells us it is time for the "Mescal" tasting, which is Tequilla for all intensive purposes but they cannot call it that in this part of Mexico. The tour guide gave us the full tour from beginning to end of how they made Mescal and at the end told us we could have up to 30 tastings.....hmmmm, could be a problem for the rest of the tour??!! We really like the Almond flavoured one and the Passion Fruit one. The tour guide did a little ceremony when Ken bought the Almond one, he poured some in a bamboo drinking glass and said some words and then Ken drank it. Next stop were some more ruins in a place called "Mitla", the tour guide gave us a great tour of this place and provided us with lots of history, this one has a lot of inlaid stone design, amazing. It was now around 2pm and time for lunch, we stopped at a restaurant that had a buffet style lunch for 120 pesos each, some of the people on our tour tried the grasshoppers but it was not for Ken or Carole. The finally of this tour was a trip up the mountains to the "Petrified" falls, they are actually calcified from all of the minerals, but was a fantastic time we had, we paddled in the pools and took lots of pictures. The falls are not to be missed. We arrived back at the hotel very tired after a great day.
Friday was our last day in Oaxaca and that night we would catch a bus and again sleep all the way back to Huatulco. During the day we headed over to see the Museum of Culture, from the Museum we had a great view of the Botanical Gardens so we did not need to visit them, one more item off our list. The rest of the day we walked around town, had lunch and drinks and just enjoyed ourselves.
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02/20/2012
Just before we got to Huatulco we anchored in a little bay called Chachacual for about 4 hours, caught up on some sleep and had a nice lunch. The anchorage was very open and not great holding so we decided not to stay overnight and continued onto the marina at Huatulco. We arrived in the early afternoon and you would almost think all of the boats here are from Canada, Vancouver/Victoria area, seriously there are a lot of us here. Now we have to check on a land tour.
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02/18/2012
Acapulco
We arrived in Acapulco Feb 15th and left on Feb 17th in the afternoon as we needed to time it right so that we arrive in Huatulco in the morning on Feb 19th. We were pleasantly surprised with Acapulco, it was much different than either of us expected, and it is really quite a large city. We anchored in the bay near the Acapulco Yacht Club where they gave us a reciprocal due to our membership with Blue Water Cruising Association. This gave us access to the dinghy dock, the pool, showers, and the rest of the facilities. After organizing the boat, we all went ashore to enjoy the pool for the afternoon as it was hot and muggy. The pool was really nice, it had a couple of raised cement/tiled squares built into the pool where you could sit or lie down and still be in the water but not underneath it. We had a couple of drinks and then headed back to the boat to get food ready to take to our friend's boat, Gosling, for dinner that evening. Fran was talking to one of the people at the marina just before we headed back to the boat; she was able to arrange for the six of us (our friends on Gosling, their friends and ourselves) to have a tour of Acapulco the next day in a 7 passenger van.
So the next day we met Jose at the entrance to the Yacht Club at 10am and off we went. It was a very full day, we stopped for a couple of photo opportunities overlooking Acapulco Bay and then our next stop was the Chapel of Peace which was right at the top of a hill overlooking the bay and the houses of the rich and famous. The chapel was amazing, the stonework, the design, the onyx windows, the garden, the very large cross and the statue of hands. A definite must for a visit. Next we went to the Fairmont Princess hotel and had a look around. The centre lobby was open which reminded us of the hotels in Thailand, there were stone modules throughout the lobby and if we could have been on the top floor and looked down we would have seen that they formed the Mayan calendar. The other side of the lobby was the multi level pool with stones, waterfalls and a rope bridge across it. This is where we saw 2 pink flamingos....brilliant! On to our next stop which was to be the Silver Warehouse which was located downtown in a park, the warehouse is secured with huge metal gates which were opened for us when we arrived. Here they design and manufacture silver jewellery, first off we were shown through the area where they make the jewellery and he carefully explained the process to us, afterwards we entered the sales area. They had some beautiful jewellery at reasonable prices, Carole has been looking for a pendant for quite a while now but had not found what she wanted up until now, and she found a very nice pendant at this place. We needed to be at the cliff divers in 10 minutes so it was time to go, it would have been nice to spend more time looking at their jewellery here. Off to the cliff divers we go, we had heard that this show is spectacular and it was. We are hoping our pictures captured the event and will post them once we are in Hualtuco. They climb this high cliff and dive off the top into the inlet below which is not very wide and the waves and swells rush in and out of the inlet. Obviously it is all about the timing when the waves have subsided. We had an awesome view thanks to a young fellow who guided us to this great viewing location. At the end we got our picture taken with the divers, that is the ladies did. Next, we headed for the Fort which is called Fuerto de San Diego, the fort overlooks the cruise ship terminal. The Fort was full of history and the displays were very well done. The fort itself is in the shape of a pentagon--this we have not seen before. We are now nearing the end of our tour and want to do a quick shop at Sam's club, we decided to take advantage of the fact that we have a vehicle that will carry us and our shopping back to the marina. We arrived back at the marina 6 ½ hours later after a fulfilling day and at a very reasonable cost ($70 per couple approx.
After having a shower at the Yacht Club we left Acapulco at 1:30pm, once we got a little farther out in the bay there was enough wind to sail.....whohoo! We had the best sail we have had since we have been in Mexico, we sailed on a beam reach, anywhere from 6 - 7 knots, all the way through until 8pm that night. We motored through the night each of us taking our shifts, the moon rose around 4am but it was a small crescent shaped moon and the sky was full of stars. We wind came up around noon, it was time for a downwind sail, we sailed with just the main and maintained speeds of 6 to 6 ½ knots. We could have put out more sail but didn't because we don't want to go any faster as it would put us in Huatulco to early. As it is we will slow down a little more tonight. This has to be the best sailing we have had so far and we are looking forward to more.
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