Photos? Fuhgeddaboutit.
January 2015 was almost over and it was time for us to sail northward. That meant we'd cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec like we'd done in March 2010, but we had to pay even closer attention to weather windows this time. The mountain gap that causes strong winds and seas to increase to dangerous levels in the Gulf of Tehauntepec, is located nearer to the Gulf's northern portion. Thus a northbound boat like ours needs a lot more time than a southbound boat requires to cross the Gulf, pass the gap, and move into a safe zone of travel. Basically, because the distance is about 240 miles, the prudent northbound sailor will look for a window of good weather in the Gulf of Tehauntepec that stays settled for at least three days.
We saw such a window coming up, and it looked so good we spent a couple of days bussing to Tapachula and taxiing back with all our provisions...fuel...laundry...the usual Cruiser Departure Drill. Given the distance of travel and our general busyness for that couple of days, I hadn't noticed I wasn't drinking the amount of water I normally did.* (*Literary types call that "foreshadowing.")
The crews of four other boats had seen the same weather forecast and made the same decision about it that we had. We got our paperwork in order through Marina Chiapas, so all anyone in our little informal flotilla had left to do was check out with the Port Captain and get our boats inspected one last time so that Mexico could make sure none of us was carrying any narcotics or Guatemalans.
The fleet was ready to skedaddle at 0800 on January 31 when we came to a flying stop. Long and stressful story short, it seemed that somewhere along the line between Marina Chiapas, Immigration, Customs, and the Port Captain there was a crazy madcap snafu with paperwork -- either some of it was missing; or one of the boats had some errors in the forms they'd completed; we'll never know. What we all do know is that to straighten everything out required some back-and-forth driving, some marina-government official arguments, and multiple discussions in Spanish and English with varying degrees of fluency. We were losing daylight and everyone was getting a little impatient. But huzzah! Four hours later, all was suddenly well. We hustled back to our boats and were briskly inspected by a breathtakingly handsome, dark-tanned young Marine with piercing green eyes and his equally handsome drug-sniffin' dog, a wonderfully fit and sleek Belgian Malinois. I hardly noticed the Marine's automatic weapon the size of a horse's leg. Yes; I was old enough to be the Marin'e s grandma and why, yes; I did make a fool of myself.
Anyway, we finally slipped the docklines and left Puerto Chiapas at 1245 on January 31, 2015. We had been treated well by everyone and we'd had an outstanding time at Marina Chiapas and with all our turismo. We were on to new adventures, but GB said I seemed uncharacteristically morose.* (*More foreshadowing.) I kept saying, for the whole 46 hours we were underway, "All I want to do is get across the Gulf. Get across. The Gulf. Get across....."
m
Comments