Our overnight passage to Ixtapa
05 April 2008 | Somewhere
Jan
We left Las Hadas 6:30am with the day just dawning and the sun not quite over the horizon in the East! We wanted to be sure we could SEE the tankers anchored outside Manzanillo harbor and with some 36 hours ahead of us, be sure we got to the next destination in the daylight! The wind was pretty light and pretty much on our nose, of course so motor sailing was the call for the day. The next 100 miles has had the reputation for drug running and a presence of the Mexican Navy, so we wanted to be in as much daylight as possible...We had heard stories of people being approached by a boat of Mexican Navy personnel dressed in camo and wearing dark ski masks so as to not be recognized in fear of retaliation of drug smugglers as well as others who were just "interviewed" over the VHF. WELL...after about 7 hours we see a rather large gray frigate type ship about 2-3 miles off shore and sure enough as we got closer we were hailed, in Spanish, but heard the word velero (word for sailboat) so we identified ourselves. YEP they were hailing us and asked us (now in English) to divert course and head towards their ship for inspection. They told us when to stop our engine and moments later a panga sized boat with 4 people came out from behind the ship, circled our boat, then pulled along side and 2 men boarded, all with side arms and semi-automatics! They were very polite and able to conduct the interview in English, asking us some typical questions, who are you, where are you coming from, where are you going, are you on vacation, how long will you be in Mexico, and wanted to see our documentation, passports and permit to have the boat in Mexico. Then some unusual ones...What is your current position (you would think they would know where we were) so we gave them our lat & long...What is your current depth...(or course we were in over 600' water so our depth finder was reading 0 ) and this was a shocker...Do you need take anything now like medicine? We of course said no, (except for the Margarita I needed to settle the butterflies in my stomach) but in my true hostess style offered them water or a coke which they of course declined... They also wanted to see what types of communication we had on board. Rob took the officer below so he could inspect and document what we had. He also asked Rob how much a nice boat like this costs?????? One of the last questions they asked was how we have found the Mexican Navy to treat us? He had Rob write on the back of the form he was filling out how we had been treated by the Mexican Navy and asked both of us to sign it. Strange they would want to know what we gringos thought of the Mexican Navy! They at no time asked us if we had any weapons or drugs on board, which is what we were told they might ask about in a search. After about 20 minutes they thanked us for our cooperation and said they would be in the area if we needed them for "anything" to hail them on channel 16. Rob did have 1 request of me (before they boarded us)...that I NOT take any pictures of them...So I refrained until they left our boat and headed back to their "Mother ship". Phew...that was pretty painless, but that also made us look over our shoulder and during the night keep a watchful eye at any boat that came within 5 miles of us...Sunday brought about a new day as we finally saw a couple of whales slapping their tails and playing, we diverted course to check it out, turned off the motor watched for only a few minutes, got the camera out then POOF they stopped. Several dolphins put on a jumping show and we arrived at Isla Ixtapa after only 32 hours....that's 4 hours ahead of schedule! We enjoyed a great Rib Eye Steak dinner, a little wine and toasted 34 years of wedded bliss. Still pinching ourselves that we are able to dream the impossible and actually live the dream! Nothing is IMPOSSIBLE!