Cental America
And Back
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The Gulfo de Tehuantepec. Tehuantepec means "hill of the demons" and refers to a ferocious tribe of warriors that once terrorized the area, but demon winds are a continuing feature. The winds blow extraordinarily large, from both north and south. They can blow so hard, they literally part the sea and cause currents on each side of the gulf.
We had a consistent 20 knot headwind from the start, the evil we chose. Dois had cleaned up the autopilot connections and found a setting that Hal, our recalcitrant autopilot seemed to like and was much more amenable behaved for the first two days of the voyage. But Hal still refuses to play in large swell or steep wind waves, of which we found both. It wasn't a pleasant ride, Ashika rising steeply on 10 to 12 foot waves, her bow clearing the crest and then plunging abruptly down into the trough before taking on the next wall of water. Our new coffee maker flew through the cabin on one of these roller coaster moments leaving coffee grounds and the remnants of the morning's coffee dripping down the companion way ladder filling the nooks and crannies of the teak and holly floor boards. The conditions were very wet; Ashika taking water over the decks, Captain and crew sweating buckets. I changed three times, Dois just removed clothing. And it seemed the conditions were deteriorating as we maneuvered through a freighter mooring field outside of Salinas, so we headed for Punta Chipehua about 10 miles south. There was no moon and we risked an instrument landing again. The map showed a long sandy shoreline ending in a hook and a 25 ft shelf, so we pointed Ashika in that direction. When the depth finder said 37 feet we could hear crashing waves to our right. When the depth finder said 35 feet, we could hear crashing waves to our left, huh? We stopped the boat to listen, there must be an uncharted reef out there, but nothing bad was happening so we dropped out anchor right there. Dois was up and down all night checking to make sure no waves were sweeping us toward shore. We could see the breaking reef clearly in the bright sunshine of morning, but the reed sheltered us rather than endangered us. Luck fairies are alive and well. It was eight am and we had 50 miles to go before the wind picked up. Hualtulco seemed so very far away.
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I awoke again, the roll of the anchorage had allowed me to fall asleep for a brief time before another large set of waves would roll me against the bulk head waking me up for the umpteenth time. I had had enough. I climbed over Dois without waking him up, which is a testament to how tired he must have been. I turned on the red overhead light and checked the time, 4:10 AM. We had agreed to stay here in Amapala one more day, awaiting the best possible weather window. The bay is in Honduras and we were not checked in, so there was no going ashore to get even a small reprieve from the incessant roll. I sat down on the settee facing Dois wondering if he would sleep through the next violent roll. I didn't have to wait long. He opened his eyes and I said "let's go". He said "I'll get the anchor, you start the engine". Apparently he was rolled enough too.
This was not the best way to start a voyage. We were tired, but we thought that we would be able to catch up on our sleep taking turns on watch and it couldn't be worse than Amapala. The waves that had been rolling us around the anchorage were bigger outside the bay and there was a mean cross swell as well. Throw in a 20 to 30 knot breeze on our port bow and we had ourselves a party. Unfortunately, Hal, our unfaithful auto-pilot didn't want to come to our little party and every time we turned him on, he would do something devious like turn us around, heading back the way we came. Hal seems to have lost his mind.... A hot wind howls through the mangrove and with it comes ash and dirt. We are anchored in an estuary in Corinto, Nicaragua. Each morning Dois rinses the decks down with salt water or we would be walking in mud. Ae are safe and secure and the people in Nicaragua are really good to us. They just like to burn the fields this time of year. We are leaving Nicaragua tomorrow morning looking for fresher air in Mexiico. Finally, finally I caught a decent fish. I hadn't caught anything worth eating since we left Mexico over a year ago. Granted, half of that year was spent on the hook in a polluted anchorage, but still...
I think it was a small yellow fin tuna by most anybody's standards, maybe 20 lbs. But I was thrilled. The red meat down here has been mostly tough and tasteless and all the freshest fish goes to the restaurants, so we eat a lot of chicken... chicken alfredo, baked chicken, chicken burritos, chicken sandwiches... you get the idea, I was starting to cluck.
Despacio, it means "slow down"... some people choose to ignore it. We were forced to slow down by a Papagayo wind event. We tried to get to Playa Del Coco by Thursday so we could check out by Friday and sail on the weather window at dawn Saturday. Instead, we slowed way down. We ended up in Papagayo Marina and washed up everything while waiting for Monday morning.
Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica
When we left our two wanna-be heroes, they had burst forth from the jungle with a troop of hungry Capuchin rascals hot on their heels. The captain and crew of Ashika barely escaped inside the largest cage in the compound; the dining hall. All of the enclosures in this remote park in Costa Rica were built to contain humans. People are housed in buildings built with endemic rough sawn forest timber and decorated with chicken wire. Our adventurers would eat the feast laid out for them in the relative safety of a jungle cage.
Having some serious success at smashing the hands of time, the reefs of the Tortuga Islands were once again beckoning Ashika's crew. They decided to take another try at staying in the lovely bays of Isla Alcatraz and Isla Tolinga.
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