Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico

January 26, 2015 - Ann Leave a comment

From our sailboat-centric point of view, Guaymas has a lot going for it, despite a relative dearth of ‘pretty’ or ‘colonial’ or ‘quaint’. The Snapshot Gallery at the end of this post may tell you more about the Guaymas that we have come to appreciate and feel comfortable in.

view over Guaymas — View over central Guaymas towards the port

It’s a working city with plenty of parts and services, if you can make do with not-yacht stuff. And if you can’t, well, shippers deliver to Arizona, only a few hours/250 miles away on the Tufesa bus. I would say it is also a city of entrepreneurs and small businesses, some rising and some waning. As befits a port city, there are numerous skilled mechanics and welders and machine shops lurking behind those unmarked doors.

Probably you could have anything done, if you could find someone to tell you where to look. Can’t get the right sized zincs? The guy at the foundry down the road (really? there’s a foundry there?) will custom mold them for you this afternoon. It’s another advantage of being in a place with a fishing fleet, with people who both know how to do things, and how to improvise. You just have to be clear in your mind what you want.

A Thumbnail Sketch of Guaymas

aerial view of Guaymas looking to seaward — The downtown Fonatur Marina and the main port are just beyond the left end of the picture, and the shipyard Guayma Marina Seca, to the right, but you get the idea, I hope. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia-Guaymas-Sonora.

One thing that makes Guaymas tick is its port, the main port of the state of Sonora. The port serves a fishing fleet; the fleet serves some canneries, and of course seafood is on the menu everywhere. Ships move Pemex (the government oil company) products around, bring in coal for the power plant, trans-ship grain and other agricultural products, plus copper, gypsum and other extracted resources.

Googling around I find reference to potential port expansion, and hopes of closer commercial ties with Tucson and beyond using the existing rail line and more containers, plus a plan for Guaymas to take up the slack as California ports suffer from overcrowding. The harbor will need some dredging in spots but it has a fine natural location.

Guaymas is also touted as a city with a manufacturing tradition, and its backers are proud to mention an industrial park, Roca Fuerte, as a “better choice for offshoring than China”. They mention competitive pricing, that location again, and strong connections with the local community, leading to low rates of employee turnover and absenteeism.

On the outskirts, as the highway north goes through town, you’ll find what you find everywhere these days, the chain store sprawl zone, albeit in somewhat smaller boxes. Walmart, (and the Mexican supermarket chains, Soriana, and Ley), Autozone, Home Depot, Burger King, McDonalds, they’re all in a jumble out there. On my personal map of north Guaymas is the ice plant, just before the airport, and the turn off that will take you on the back road along the water, or the road via Miramar, if you want a more natural view.

A very short and possibly inaccurate history

This area was first explored in 1539 but it sounds like there were only occasional small settlements, for example, in 1821, “one house, occupied by a thief.” Then the pace picked up, to the point of battles with Americans in 1846 and French in 1865-66. Mexico’s history is complicated, and told by those, generally, who won, or at least lived to fight again. But three of Mexico’s presidents did come from this area, and are memorialized in a large, and largely empty, plaza near the waterfront, centro and marina.

Plaza with three obelisks and their statues of three of Mexico's presidents. — Three of Mexico’s presidents were from this area and are memorialized here. It’s a wonderful public space but seems for some reason underutilized.

In the late 1800s…

A monthly steamer visited from San Francisco, and “quality goods” came from Germany. [Don’t they still?] I’d like to know more about this German connection. The mayor of Guaymas has a German name. And the music all over the country sounds like Bavaria, full of accordions and tubas and a yodel-y, oompah, polka-ish sound.

Wikipedia tells me that there were a number of Catholic Germans in Texas who sided with Mexico during the Mexican-American war of 1848 and resettled in Mexico afterwards. The Emperor Maximilian I brought in some German settlers around 1865. Later President Porfirio Dias and the German Prince Otto von Bismarck conspired to bring more Germans, mainly to the south (coffee plantations we saw). A wave of Mennonites came to some northern areas in the 1920s. [Wikipedia says that by their community rules, the men may speak Spanish, but the women must continue only in PlattDeutsch – I wonder if this is true?] And finally, there was a lot of German immigration during and after World War II.

So maybe that’s why so much music around here sounds so German (and the beer is good!) Now, back to regular programming….

The Santa Rosalia Connection

The railway line construction began in 1880; in the night, across the bay, you can sometimes hear the whistle blow. Eighty miles across the Gulf of California in Santa Rosalia, copper production began in 1885; that copper was shipped to Guaymas and thence overseas.

old photo of downtown Guaymas — Guaymas in its early days of vigor, looking west up Avenida Serdan. This is still the heart of ‘*centro*‘. There’s more of everything now (horse power in a different form).

“In 1890, the population of Guaymas was 10,000. These people were proud to live in a city with modern services: electricity, telegraph, urban railroad and especially a communication with the principal ports of the world across big shipping companies. The economy of the port was of great importance.” (from puertodeguaymas.com.mx)

Av. Serdan centro looking west — Av. Serdan is still a main commercial center. This photo taken looking the same way as last century’s, a couple blocks further on.

Guaymas 1900s era bank building columns, cornices and dome, in disrepair. — We’d like to see an ‘architectural angel’ swoop in to rescue this building, and a couple others. Pronto! Good thing they don’t get much rain here or it would already be gone.

So Guaymas is a working city, with an economy whose reasons for being have little to do with the visitors/tourists, except as they need support in the satellite town of San Carlos. We visitors are barely a blip among the (possibly) 150,000 metropolitan inhabitants. The fact that people hardly notice us may be my most favorite thing of all about Guaymas. It’s a real relief not to be the lynchpin of the economy. And yet, look lost or ask a question, and you’ll almost invariably be met with a smile and real help. We’ve become quite comfortable here!

What about San Carlos?

San Carlos, a half hour bus ride to the north and west is much more a gringo zone. When we crossed the international border, San Carlos is where they assumed we were coming. There are two marinas with dry storage yards, and a nascent resort town with hotels, restaurants, curio shops and the other sundry accoutrements. There’s a big RV park; but I’ll bet most of the visitor population lives in the several housing developments (aka ranchitos ) you can see spreading back into the hinterland. To me they look kind of mono-cultural, but at least they’re not in Alberta!

sunlit mountains marina foreground — Looking over San Carlos Marina toward the scenic Tetakawi “Goat Tits” (literal translation) mountains. Photo courtesy of siesta realty.com

Of the San Carlos area, the Lonely Planet guide said something to the effect of “beautiful desert-and-bay landscape presided over by the dramatic twin-peaked Cerro Tetakawi” and “full of norte-americanos from October to April.” Somewhere else I read that these winter people only spoke English and didn’t bother to exchange their dollars for pesos.

We are them, I guess. We went to Hammerhead’s, a sports bar in San Carlos, several times as U of Alabama moved towards the (US) national collegiate football championship; spent pesos alright, but spoke English. And fit right in. But Alabama didn’t.

bar crowd watching football — The national collegiate football semifinals drew a partisan crowd at Hammerhead’s sports bar in San Carlos.

When I repeated the remark, I was tartly reminded that many norte-americanos also did their best to support the economy and numerous of them supported good works, in particular the local orphanages and animal shelters. Point taken.

A friend who likes to play basketball pointed out that he looked in vain for courts in San Carlos. Finally he realized that basketball courts are usually at the schools, and there are no schools in San Carlos because the locals mostly live in Guaymas and take the late bus home.

Enough of the lecture. Here are some random photos of Guaymas over the course of several months.

The Oxxo chain of convenience stores has thousands of stores, often a block from one another.

A very neat gate and ?frieze? of metal parts.

The ice plant seems to be open all the time.

The PAN political party wants each student to have a uniform.

Coyote traps, rat traps, and plenty more hang from the ceiling.

The Farmacia Similar has a friendly dancing mascot.

Politicians promise paving, and it’s sorely needed.

A lovely bandstand in the park near the church.

Shrimp sellers outside the supermarket; muy barato, señora!

Dates from the interior for sale during the holidays.

On the malecon one night, but usually it’s pretty quiet.

Tortilleria El Concel, a finely tuned operation producing an excellent product.

Locally farmed oysters nicely fried and presented.

The fisherman’s monument. I have never seen a fisherman hold a fish so loosely and tenderly as this man does.

Bench on the malecon, and a couple who didn’t chose to use it.

The waterfront road from centro to Marina Seca

Waterfront road from Marina Seca approaching town, passing a small fishing fleet

Looking across the bay towards Marina Seca

This shoe shine man caught me looking at the shoes on his feet and told me "I do them last!"

This damage to the waterfront near Fonatur Marina may have been a result of torrential rains following a storm in ?2010.

dome about to collapse — The dome may be doomed.

What’s to like about living in the shipyard

January 4, 2015May 19, 2018 - Ann 2 Comments

Living on the hard, which is to say, on the boat while it is out of the water, is like a cross between a refugee camp and a trailer park, according to Doug. I think of it as a peculiar gated community, or maybe a half-way house, twixt life ashore and life afloat. Some of us get launched in a couple days, while others have been here for months, even years. We inmates can and do leave the premises from time to time but often remain quite near our cells, often at arm’s length.

Ten steps up, ten steps down, but look at that shiny paint!

There are some issues related to our hovering home, mostly to do with plumbing. The nicer bathroom is 500 steps away, a five-minute walk, or a two-minute bike ride. Plan ahead! There are showers, and the hot water heater is turned on, hallelujah. In June, 104 degrees, you’d like to have a water cooler instead. Whatever the season, water conservation is mandatory, and the taps in the yard are turned off overnight.

For drinking and cooking water, we’re hauling 20-liter garafons up the ladder. Hector Manuel, the two-toot, blue cap water guy (as opposed to the siren water guy whose garafons have yellow caps) honks past daily. We wash up with the marina’s non-potable water, which we dispense to ourselves via a garden sprayer. The main advantage to peeing into a milk jug (via a folding funnel for those of us lacking extension tubing) is that there is no flushing required.

Watch, and you’ll see most everyone at some point in their day leaves the boat with a roll of toilet paper, a milk jug or a bucket. The genteel among us put the jugs and paper in bags, but if not: Don’t look at that jug. Especially don’t glance into the bucket. The lucky folks are the ones with the composting toilets aboard.

Damon Doug Shane — Doug’s purple glove is being passed from boat to boat, to be used for that last little dab of bottom paint under the keel where the blocks were.

There is a goodly amount of opinion-sharing, information-exchange, and just plain bull-shooting. On the plus side, there is almost always someone with the tool, the experience, the address or directions, the microballoons, the software, the great idea, a few ounces of sympathy or a shred of information. The Boat-Yard Mind is a powerful thing, and so is its toolbox.

Easing the furler towards the masthead. — Need a hand with something? Here you can get a dozen.

The social life is good

Pot luck dinners are the go-to event for every occasion. We’ve had birthday parties, pre-launch parties, Christmas and Thanksgiving of course, even a December 21 Solstice party.

We’re newbies to Mexico cruising, but one of the first things we’ve learned is that everybody brings their own chair to a gathering. There are no fallen palm trees around here, no driftwood, and apparently, not too many willing to stand up, except for the food line.

Thanksgiving potluck dinner, and weren't we all thankful for something! — Thanksgiving potluck dinner, and weren’t we all thankful for something!

The Christmas pot luck dinner featured plates of good food and and a white elephant “under-50-pesos or something off the boat” gift exchange. The rules were a little complicated, but someone could chose the gift you already had rather than unwrap something unknown from the stack. The bottles of tequila and wine all made the rounds several times. We also had music from our resident troubador.

Goofing Off? Who, Me?

Work alternates with goofing off — All work and no play..or is it the other way around?

Graeme and John admiring the machine shop's 2015 calendar. — Machine shops the world around use the same calendar.

Problems worse than ours

There’s always someone with a bigger project or a worse set of problems than ours.

It’s a reminder that Marina Guaymas is a shipyard, not a fancy marina. We’re here to get ourselves ready to leave, not to loll about on beach chairs! But it really helps that the marina staff is friendly and helpful. “If you’re happy, I’m happy” says Arnulfo the yard manager, and he means it.

Sheep Eat Our Garbage!

In their own gated communities around our perimeter are a couple dozen sheep whose diets we are encouraged to supplement if we’d like to. There are some loose sheep in the other part of the yard too. Watch out for ‘Pinto’ the butting male! He’s a bruiser.

Their tails are down, their ears are big, so these are definitely sheep, despite their long legs.

They don't like egg shells or garlic cloves, but it seems like everything else is in play, including squeezed out limon, and avocado skins. — They don’t like egg shells or garlic cloves, but it seems like everything else is edible, including squeezed out *limón* and grapefruit peels.

Every so often…

Someone escapes.

Best of all

We’ve made a lot of friends here. Maybe it’s due to adversity, or the common bonds of boatyard life, but really, it’s been a lot of fun.

One of the things we like best about cruising is that we get to spend time with people we wouldn’t have even met in our other life.

We Splashed!

We’re spending the first weekend of the New Year of 2015 in the water. The yard was fine, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be liking this floating stuff better. Un feliz, saludable y próspero año nuevo a todos.

Back in Mexico

December 12, 2014February 21, 2016 - Ann 1 Comment

This is the border crossing, leaving. Border crossing entering Mexico is kind of confusing, and not the time to be taking photos. But at first, I didn't know which one this was! — This is the border crossing, leaving US of A. The border crossing entering Mexico is kind of confusing, and not the time to be taking photos. But at first, I didn’t know which one this was!

Slightly Nervous

Driving across the border into Mexico at Nogales was something I’ll admit to being a little concerned about. After all, there has been a lot going on recently. We had never done it before. With the back of the car full of stuff, how would we get through customs without getting an evil eye cast upon us?* Was it true that the paved roads fell abruptly a foot to the desert without any shoulder, that we would break an axle if our white-knuckled attention wavered, (or anyone else’s attention either)? What if we inadvertently break some traffic law and face the police? If we see someone broken down, should we stop and help?

Guaymas is halfway down the mainland side at almost 28N, as are Tampa-St. Pete and Corpus Christi. Map courtesy of desert museum.org. — Guaymas is halfway down the mainland side at almost 28N, as are Tampa-St. Pete and Corpus Christi. Nogales is about where Arizona’s southern boundary takes a jog to the northwest. Map courtesy of desert museum.org.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

Well none of those things happened or even came close to happening on the Arizona-Sonora interface. In retrospect such concerns seem almost laughable, as is so often the case. A life lesson I keep re-learning: worrying doesn’t help!

The Mexican entry traffic lanes have red or green lights, supposedly randomized. We got the green light and just kept moving. Going through about 8 AM probably helped, since all the lights were green and hardly an agente was stirring! About 19 kilometers further on is another stop wherein one pays the immigration fee, and buys car insurance for Mexico, or an import permit, if the car is going beyond Guaymas/San Carlos area.

The toll road (Highway 15) had its moments as it changed from a divided to a shared roadway between construction cones, but it was an uneventful drive on a decent road. There are some ‘off-label’ uses of the left-turn signal to learn. On the truck in front of you it means, not “I’m pulling out to pass something now”, but instead “It’s clear for you there behind me to pass now.”

We were back at the boat at lunchtime, none the worse for wear. Back in the land of limon and aguacate, tortillas and fish tacos, sunshine and smiling faces. Hooray!

The original yard to the left, and the new storage yard to the right. There's a big shrimper workyard at the waterfront end of the road. — The original yard of Marina Guaymas to the left, and the new storage yard to the right. There’s a big shrimper workyard at the waterfront end of the road.

Nor had any of the dreadful consequences of summer in the desert near a hurricane zone befallen Galivant on her perch in the Guaymas Marina. We were told: Your interior woodwork will dry out and crack, you’ll get dust sifting in everywhere, ants and bees will invade, the jackstands will wash out in torrential rains if a hurricane comes. We saw people stuffing their thru-hulls with steel wool, putting wool hats atop their wind instruments, wrapping their winches and plastic bits with with enough aluminum foil to roast a bull.

Well, we did cover our winches and windlass, put shades in the hatches and ports and leave our Colombian greenhouse-cloth awning in place. When we got back the boat was just as we had left it, or cleaner thanks to a bit of rain over the summer. And we were well-looked-after by Gabriel, Arny, Andrés, Roberto and the guardiáns.

The hurricane season in the Pacific ran nearly through the alphabet in 2014. The actuaries recommend staying north of 27N, which here means Guaymas or San Carlos.

Hurricane Vance maybe was the one who gave us our washdown. Not everyone was so lucky. Further south, at Cabo San Lucas, on the tip of the Baja California peninsula, they took a big hit from Hurricane Odile in mid- September. In La Paz, Odile’s 125-knot gusts took lives and ruined buildings. Lives were lost in the anchorage as well; and boats sank and were blown ashore. In one of the haul-out facilities, Atalanta, they fell like dominoes.

boats blown over by Odile — We couldn’t quite make ourselves comfortable with leaving our boat for the season in any marina we saw in La Paz. Sometimes it’s good to listen to those little voices in your head.

Get Back to Work

We’ve got plenty of work ahead of us. We’re getting a paint job, and transmission repairs, just for starters. Guaymas is a good place for both things. It’s a port city of several hundred thousand people but I am still studying what exactly makes it go.

We like moving ourselves through the world with public transportation. However we have a car of our own here and it certainly does make errands easier, the marina being a bit out of town. Until now I hadn’t fully appreciated its secondary use as a rolling storage shed. You should see the stuff we’ve got stacked in the back, like winter clothes and empty canning jars, and tools that haven’t earned their keep.

The temperatures are pleasant, highs about 80, overnight into the low 60s, or even into the 50s, at which point the coconut oil needs to be spooned out of its jar. Close the hatches! Where are my socks? Humidity is in the “Goldilocks’ mid-ranges. The sun shines almost all the time but the sun index is down to 6. The hours of night exceed those of day, 0700-ish and 1730-ish. The water temperatures are dropping into the low 70s if the satellite image is to be believed. We’re in Mountain Standard Time.

It might be better to be floating, but that will come, mañana.

Nice to remember why this car is really in the boatyard!

* Although, despite our bicycles and paint, we were real lightweights compared to some. You should have seen the mountains of stuff that came back on other cars, backseats crammed, roof racks heaped and trailer hitch carriers flowing with fluttering tarps.

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Jumping Ship for the US of A

November 20, 2014November 20, 2014 - Ann 1 Comment

When we left the boat in Guaymas, Mexico in mid-June, my little laser thermometer gun was taking readings, everywhere inside the boat, of 104 degrees F. Galivant‘s overhead, the floor, the mast, the upholstery, every surface you could touch, was in a high grade fever. One night I slept under a wet towel, effective, but unpleasant.

We ended up at the last minute flying to Maryland, despite dreams of dispelling the summer heat in the Sea of Cortez, by sailing, snorkeling, swimming, scavenging seafood, and studying about the surrounding desert. So we hauled the boat out at Guaymas Marina, parked it in a row with a couple hundred other norteamericanos, and bolted. The last enervated gringos (may have been us!) turned off the lights when they left. We were too busy swatting mosquitoes to notice.

Then, it was a working holiday on the shores of Warehouse Creek, Kent Island, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Maryland can be steamy too, but this particular summer was, weatherwise, a delight. The land area has gotten distinctly smaller in the nearly forty years I have been there to observe. Here is a high tide, definitely higher than those of the previous century. But it’s still a lovely, mellow location.

Replacing the fasteners on the dock. — In service to our possessions, Doug replaces the fasteners on the dock.

The Annapolis Sail Boat Show is always on the agenda if we’re in town, even if we just look for friends who used to be there but don’t come any more. Might be us! On the way out of town, driving west back towards Mexico, we paid a call in West Virginia, and got introduced to mountain biking, which was something I could definitely get interested in. But as with zip-lining, I’d like a bit more time to look around as the world zooms past.

Not so on the interstate, although the autumn colors were about peaking, which that made the interstate driving way more enjoyable. Also our new-to-us car came with a Sirius radio trial period. We tried it, and liked some things, but I have to say that, at least away from highway driving, I’m pretty content listening to the noise inside my skull. ‘Talking Head Radio’ has nothing on me!

Peak autumn leaf season in 4 states was an added bonus as we drove back to Mexico from Maryland.

Every so often we break free from the Big Road, especially if food might be involved, and ‘check the pulse’ of the country’. Here, somewhere in Tennessee, was a mighty fine breakfast, biscuits and gravy, and grits. Though, I got the breakfast burrito, and a good one, here in the heartland. But for pure local color, not much beats the sign we saw, I forget where, that said “Do not stop for hitchhikers. Correctional facility nearby.”

Some of what is happening not too far from the interstate in rural Tennessee.

I mustn’t neglect to mention the nice stop we had in northern Alabama, where Doug spent his youth, and lots of his friends and family are still reliving it. For me, it’s interesting to eavesdrop; surprising how different my connections are. And the food! It keeps on coming! We had pork barbecue with potato chips, fried okra, deep-fried pickles, jug upon jug of sweet tea. Hush puppies.

Catfish. Imported from Vietnam, when they grow nearby. What part of globalization makes that a good idea, I wondered. Read about it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/12/16/250845123/battle-of-the-bottom-feeder-u-s-vietnam-in-catfish-fight. And wonder.

We had three kinds of greens cooked for hours with potatoes in Hazel’s very own cast-iron skillet, delicious, but not too photogenic. And cornbread mushed in buttermilk never tastes as good as it does in my brother-in-law’s kitchen.

Birthday cake, sensibly candle-free. — Chocolate cake, white icing, another year older.

This “world traveller” has barely set foot west of the Mississippi in all her life. From the rice paddies of Arkansas to the actually White Sands of White Sands NM, it was all new to me.

One astonishment was the miles of giant wind turbines peppering the Texas panhandle. When I Googled them later, I found out that at least some of these turbines are Google’s own; specifically the company’s effort to reduce its carbon footprint. Because of the nature of the power market, their production can’t run the Google servers directly, but they can indirectly, with carbon offset credits and wattage numbers too large for me to comprehend.

On the same subject, I was interested to read that Denmark, the world leader with forty percent of its energy coming from wind, has come to a conundrum. They can continue to increase their wind power generation, but must be concerned about harming the traditional electric companies, whose services are still required for calm or dark times. More about that here: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/earth/denmark-aims-for-100-percent-renewable-energy.html?referrer=&_r=0

Wind turbines in Texas, as far as the eye can see.

I also learned that ten percent of Texas’s electricity needs are served by wind power, and that modern turbines can have a wingspan of 350 feet. They move in a far more stately fashion than the 3-foot spanning, sometimes spinning, wind generator on Galivant. When I commented to a waitress that cows on the ground and blades in the air must be good news for everyone, she told us that in some places, no cattle were allowed, due to problems the cows could cause for maintenance and construction crews. Culture clash? But for the owners of what, ( to an easterner, at the end of the summer) looks like pretty unpromising land, wind money is just as good as cattle money, she said. Somewhere in the vicinity is also a ‘wind farm’ lab where they test new turbine designs.

And the trains! Line after line of them, maybe 150 cars each, including many double-deckers, and three engines apiece, run (are they all always going east, or was it a scheduling thing?) alongside I-40. Back east, much of our railway right-of-way has been turned to bike path, or sits unused. Train cars labelled Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe had me humming Judy Garland’s catchy rendition (from before I was born).

Lots of trains travel across the high plains.

“Don’t Mess With Texas” is how the anti-littering signs on I-40 put it. Another sign I liked was “DUI. You can’t afford it.” You sure can’t. I must also report that the famous Rio Grande, wherever it was that I crossed it, was narrower than the creek in front of my house, and bone dry.

After hearing the lyrics of Little Feat/Linda Ronstadt Willin‘ several hundred times without really understanding them, I had to see the place.

(And I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made Driven the backroads so I wouldn’t get weighed And if you give me weed, whites and wine And you show me a sign And I’ll be willin’ to be movin’…)

And so here is Tucumcari. Somehow I thought there would be more to it. And maybe there is. There’s a Readmore Bookstore, for one thing. And a People’s Credit Union.

Rt. 66 runs through Tucumcari, and lots of it looks like it did in the 1950s, I'm guessing. — Rt. 66 runs through Tucumcari, and lots of it looks like it did in the 1950s, I’m guessing.

One thing you see more of in the US of A than most places is the bumper sticker. Apparently, we’re an opinionated people and care to share. Yin and yang.

We've got something to say, or maybe just rust spots to cover. — Lots of Americans have something to say, or maybe just rust spots to cover. This one, clearly male.

My guess from all the evidence is that this car is owned and decorated by a woman. — My guess is that this car is owned and decorated by a woman.

It was also election time. Signs proliferated, big money was spent, but at least in my county, there wasn’t much substantive conversation. My Congressional District, well, let’s not even get into that! There are times when having no TV and no phone is No Problem!

I’ll stick to reading bumper stickers. And church signs: “Become an organ donor. Give your heart to Jesus.” I’d like to see the book the pastors can chose their signs from. The Bible should be so catchy!

"In them ole cotton fields back home..." — Alabama: “In them ole cotton fields back home…” In Maryland, corn or soybeans, but otherwise not too different.

But for now, as we drive back to Mexico in our blue mini-van, home is where the boat is, and that’s Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

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Random notes on Pacific Mexico

May 20, 2014May 20, 2014 - Ann Leave a comment

Weather is always on our minds

My new favorite weather website is this earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic, a graphic representation of the actual winds being reported, available for the entire globe. In this picture of southern Mexico, the big green part is the tail end of a cold front passing through the US with a tail extending across the Caribbean. The small green is where those winds have funneled through the Chivela Pass across Mexico into the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

…especially Tehuantepeckers

The next day’s NOAA weather forecast for a 90-mile swathe of the golfo is INCLUDING GULF OF TEHUANTEPEC…N TO NE WINDS 30 TO 50 KT. SEAS 12 TO 17 FT. This kind of weather is a regular feature of the winter months. In fact, according to one of their blogs, NOAA issues more gale and storm warnings for this area than for any other, except during hurricanes. They (the ‘fleet mind’) say small craft like us should negotiate the 240-mile crossing area around its edges, with “one foot on the beach” or “close enough to hear the dogs bark”. But we were approaching this area at the end of its heavy season, had a four-day forecast for light winds, so we mainly motored straight across, and right into the marina in Huatulco to buy more diesel fuel.

And you can also see in the null school.net image, there’s not much wind elsewhere. That’s been the situation for most of our trip towards the Sea of Cortez and Baja California from Panama throughout the early spring of the year. (But not all of it: Too much wind, or not enough). Sometimes there’s an onshore breeze in the afternoon and offshore at night, but lots of lulls and opportunities to motor, against the current too. Here is a picture of ocean currents, also from nullschool. I could watch for hours; better than TV!

We’ve had our new engine for four years now but we have put at least thirty percent of its hours on in the last six months. And we’re darned grateful to be able to motor, considering the alternatives.

Ship Traffic

When we’re underway we always have our VHF radio tuned to Channel 16. I heard a ship, the container-carrying Maersk Wolfsburg, call another ship on to ask what conditions he had seen in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. “Force 4, in advance of a much bigger blow being forecast” was the answer. It’s the first time I’ve heard big ships talking with each other to exchange information not directly about course changes. I figured they just steamed through all weather no matter what.

OpenCPN, our computer’s navigation program, keeps track of each AIS ship it has seen, and doesn’t delete them when they are no longer ‘targets’, leaving the screen cluttered with ‘ghosts’. There’s more traffic than we would have known, but we never see more than one or two, if that, at a time.

Then a couple nights later, I heard my first Mayday. It was another container ship, reporting a man overboard, and giving the position. We were about 150 miles north and not in a position to do anything. Then it transpired that the MOB position was estimated, since the person had been missing for two hours. And then the Mexican Navy broke in and there were no further transmissions. Google tells me nothing more. For me it was a somber watch, dark and moonless, on the edge of windy and rough for us in a 40-foot boat, and for a man in his skin, well…..

What else could go wrong?

running man sign — Not the official warning sign, but the message is the same.

We were in a small bay outside Huatulco when we heard of the tsunami alert following the earthquake in Chile April 1. Thankfully, nothing materialized here, but we did get to think of what might happen and what we could do, not that we have any real answers to either question. Except, move to higher ground probably won’t be an option.

We also heard a report from a sailboat at anchor in Acapulco during one of two recent big earthquakes there, one a 7+. Anchor chain rattling and grumbling, palm trees swaying, a small rockslide or two is what you first notice, they say. That boat (sorry, I didn’t get the name) up-anchored and left immediately, fearing tsunamis. Probably I’d still be scratching my head!

But I did read a bit more about the earthquake warning system in place for Mexico City, which is situated on jelly-like landfill and has suffered greatly from past terremotos. http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/04/economist-explains-14

Many of the earthquakes take place inland in Oaxaca along the intersection of the North American plate and the Cocos plate. Seismic waves move 7000 miles an hour, but the alarms are almost instantaneous, giving the folks in Mexico City at least a chance to get out of buildings.

Not all anchorages are good anchorages

In fact, there aren’t that many all-round good anchorages on this coast. The surf/swell/surge from all that open ocean to the southwest is a constant feature. You know it’s not going to be great when the most prominent comment is about the surf spots nearby. We like to be enclosed and protected, but we’re getting used to the open-ness and the rocks, sort of.

One night we shoe-horned ourselves into an anchorage in Puerto Angel, something we won’t be doing again unless the harbor is somehow enlarged or emptied. All night long we moved between the rocks on one side and the rocks on the other side, but managing to stay clear of the moored boat 20 feet away. There was a big surge in the harbor, and a very steep beach, so as I peeped out the porthole I had the distinct feeling that I was already halfway down inside a vortex, ‘down the gurgler’ as the Kiwis say, and I didn’t like that!

The local boats without moorings just surfed a wave with their outboards full on until they hit the beach and, they hoped, kept going up.

And not all charts are good charts, except the iPad’s charts

We do carry some paper charts, although of course the electronic ones are a bit more convenient. Coastal charts like the one above with the AIS ghosts are off by a mile or more. By their offsets, we’re usually on the beach when anchored. I would have gagged on the words not too long ago, but I have to admit that our best charts and our most used close-to-shore navigation interface come from the iPad. The iNavX’s Navionics-based charts seem mainly accurate, and the charts from the top-notch Mexican cruising guides Pacific Mexico and Sea of Cortez (by Shawn Breeding and Heather Bansmer) can’t be beat. These harbor charts can be downloaded thru the iNavX app (Blue Latitude Press), and the waypoints are also available as a separate download.

Dolphin Feeding Frenzy

Saving the best for last: one day we saw this fantastic dolphin feeding frenzy, or party, or whatever it was. There were at least five hundred (guessing!) leaping, twirling, splashing, dolphins moving back and forth on both sides of us for twenty minutes, until a message came in from somewhere else and they moved on.

We were lucky to be part of the party as we sailed silently through. And if I’m lucky one of these days, I’ll be able to upload the video too.

Galivant's Travels

getting away from some of it, and into other of it