Crossing the Bahia de Tehuantepec: Kievit has been in Marina Chiapas, which is in the complex of Puerto Medera and near the large town of Tapachula, MX. Crossing the Tauntepec, without getting hit by a Tauntepecer was our goal, and we succeeded nicely. Winds were light to nonexistent all the way across. Kievit probalbly sailed for 10-12 hours and motor-sailed the rest of the way.
We could give an account of the experience from Kievit's view point, but in this case we have decided to post the adventure as described by David Cammack who crossed with us on s/v Aztec. So here is David's account:
A crossing of the Gulf of Tehuantepec (As it appeared from the cockpit of S/V Aztec):
Author's note first: The Gulf of Tehuantepec is the crossing most dreaded by boaters on the entire pacific Mexican coast. Winds rise suddenly and howl across the isthmus from the Caribbean, very frequently blasting through at 40 to 50 knots and kicking up waves that have shoved vessels 300 miles offshore.
So we set off, we three, on a fine day in early spring, on an adventure of sail. Noon, it was, on the 16th of March in the year 2013. The Huatulco (Mexico) harbor master allowed us to leave. The port had been closed the day before owing to a large swell emanating from the isthmus of Tehuantepec. Such happens when it blows hard there for several days. Mountains of white-bearded water march west for miles before dissipating in the blue of the Pacific.
In this modern age of computers, however, one can sit in one's own lair and see the world and it's weather. In Technicolor, actually, on more than one site. More than one is better, as well, since you never know when one might contrive to trick you into doing something inadvisable - like crossing the Tehuantepec in a gale. But this day the glow from our navigating station showed agreement between them: it was to be a fine day, indeed.
Simple calculations were performed, resulting in the educated guess that it should take us 48 hours to cross from Huatulco to Puerto Madero, where lies the new Marina Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost port and gateway to Central America - 16 miles north of Guatemala. Noon then. We'd leave at noon.
And we did leave, we three, on that fine day. Aztec, Stella Blue, and Kievit, the Stockton Sailing Club's self-dubbed "SSC Southern Mexico Fleet". It began well enough. Sails went up immediately out of the harbor, catching a nice breeze out of the south, and flinging us all east at the dwindling waves. Today's waves, however, while not insurmountable, were not comfortable. They were just long enough to cause the bows of these boats to bore occasionally into the next wave, rumbling some stomachs, and slow progress, wet the decks, and throw boats off course. And they did not diminish much all the way toward Salina Cruz where we would need to decide whether to take the much-advised "one foot on the beach" approach, take the "16-degree shortcut", or go for the "straight-across" route. That sure was a good weather window showing in those glowing computers! Days of calms or scanty wind. Do we believe what we see on web sites these days, or not? We do! Let's go for it!
We did turn, we gallant three, into the blue. Straight across! Turning out east-southeast, we find the swell much more comfortable when not bashing straight into it. And it also almost immediately began to decrease. The wind was dying as evening came, and we soon found ourselves pointing directly toward Puerto Madero, the glow of Salina Cruz fainting slowly behind. We sailed and we motor-sailed, as the breeze allowed, with little attention to the ever-smaller waves.
Bright green luminous dots rushed out from the bows in the night-dark seas, and the quarter moon slid into the sea at midnight, leaving the million twinkling stars that we all know are out there shimmering in their black dome, but rarely seen. Purring "south" on a heading of 105 degrees, to port emerged the big dipper and North Star, and to starboard rose the southern cross. Fully visible in 15 degrees latitude, it provides a tail to the milky way that winds halfway across the night sky. It's all pretty, but it's a long night anyway when the crew is two.
We wake to a surreal scene of our compatriot boats suspended on a thin line between a mirror-flat gray sea and a morning sky of almost the same color; sailboats in a monochrome world.
The scene fades to blue ocean and we are soon joined by a traveling herd of spinner dolphins. Scores of them passed by! They took time to perform their acts for each boat in turn. They jumped, they spun. They really do spin. Not somersault, spin. Some once, some five or six times before hitting the water with a splash. And not at all far away. Some found a need to splash us in the cockpit, so close they came. Little 3-footers. Big 7-footers. Brown with a sort of pinkish underbelly.

With a south wind of four to eight knots, the seas went flat. Glassy flat. We motored on, a smell of guava, coffee and mangoes emanating from the cabin. Stocking up on fruit was a very good idea. It will go well with that fish we catch. Not that one, it's a skipjack. Or that one, either. Toss it back.
We're over half way across. Even if a dreaded "Tehuantepecker" rises from the glimmer of well-intended weather web-sites, we will not get the worst of it. It would be behind us. Kievit catches a dorado! It will turn out to be the prize of the crossing. What to do now on a flat sea? What would anyone do in the middle of the Tehuantepec in a flat sea when you're ahead of schedule and don't want to arrive in the dark? Go swimming! Of course! So we gathered and swam, we three, in the warm and salty waters of the Gulf of the T.
Our swim position:



We gathered and swam and shared the fish, and then gathered our swim-lines and ladders and left.
The rest of the late afternoon we motored and cooked fish dinners and whistled for wind. Very little came, but we ate well. And another long night followed, but it was not uncomfortable, only noisier than we would prefer, with engines sometimes with or without the sails.
Then, thanks to the miracles of GPS and autopilot, there rose the sun on Puerto Madero, just where it should have been - at the end of that tiny dotted line across our chartplotters.
This adventure was shared by David Cammack and crew Jeff Berry of Aztec, Dave and Marj Fries of Kievit (both are Cape North 43's), and Lori Warner & Wally Fort of Stella Blue (Sabre 40).