November 12, 2014-Arrived in Huatulco

Today we sailed into Huatulco, Mexico, crossing the track we laid in March 1998. Officially, we have circumnavigated the world, but our journey has encompassed so much more than counting the miles. This is an amazing planet. Humans around the globe are generous and loving and have the very same desires of freedom and opportunity to pursue their goals as ourselves. We are so much more alike than we are different.

Judy & Fred, SV Wings, Huatulco

(Fred will post a story soon, with photos, of the Tehuantepec crossing, obviously, we made it.)

November 9, 2011-Anticipating the Tehuantepec

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Waiting

It’s just that we’ve been hearing about this one for twenty years. Even the word itself, Tehuantepec, has sort of an evil rhythm: "two wan to peck". I can hear the soft southern voice of our friend Kathy from the yacht Tumbleweed, talking about those awful “Tehuantepeckers”. She shuddered some when she said that and she was a little throaty, not quite a laugh, not quite a choke. It must have been, oh, about 1996, when she told us about the Tehuantepec. She said it was scary and they was glad when they got across it.

The problem is that the Tehuantepec has scared a lot of sailors, us included. It’s not that we haven’t faced rough crossings before: the passage from Fiji to New Zealand was a fearful one which we survived. Sailing the Agulhas current off of Africa’s East Coast was another. And Cabo de la Vela on Colombia’s north coast is a leg that sailors just about universally dread, such is its reputation, and we sailed that one.

In each case we just swallowed our fears and set out. In each case we made it through.

But this one...

Bad Day for Tuhuantepec Crossing

I have to say I’ve been stressed out about it.

Like a huge malevolent back draft, the Tehuantepec seems to pulse and roar with evil intent. So says NOAA. When NOAA personifies a weather phenomenon, then you wonder.

Even so, we need to cross. I sat at the computer and studied the weather maps, the web sites, the NOAA models. I sensed Judy behind me, looking over my shoulder. She didn't say much, but she was watching. Finally I managed to find a weather window; a period of time when the winds should be manageable. Not a period with no wind at all, we must sail. If the motor quits when you are out there without any wind you are a sitting duck for the next pulse. No, we want a window with wind between 10 and 15 knots, out of the north; that would be fine.

We’d leave around 6 AM Friday, noon at the latest. I know what they say about Friday sailings, but we don't pay that any mind, and we'll cross the Tehuantepec by noon on Saturday and be safely into Huatulco by Sunday morning. It was a tight window, because we had to be off the water by Sunday when the next pulse was due, but we could do it.

We swallowed hard and got the boat ready. More than ready, we did everything.

Then Mexico screwed up the plan: they couldn’t complete the paperwork in time to make the weather window. Just one little clearance paper. That’s all we need. It isn’t even an international clearance, just a zarpe for our next Mexican port. They couldn’t do it on Thursday, couldn’t tell me why, so we started on it at 8:30 Friday morning, already late. Then I wound up sitting for hours in one office after another while people typed on their old Underwoods. By 1:30PM we still weren’t cleared to leave and the Port Capitan wanted to bring his drug sniffing dogs to search the boat, so we scrubbed.

We told them we’d leave on Monday.

If everything goes a little better than it did on Friday we’ll get out of here on Monday night. The window isn’t as good, the winds will be light and from a contrary direction, but we’ll have more time, so we’ll go.

Meanwhile, we wait, and after all the stress about deciding when to go, then not going... it put me into a really foul mood. I sat in a funk on my settee berth and thought about all people I’d like to kill. I drank some Tequila. Nothing helped.

But, I’m over it now, and Judy is OK, she thinks if plans get changed it all happens for a reason anyhow, so we’re fine.

Monday, unless the weather changes dramatically, we'll try again to cross the Tehuantepec.

Click here for more photos.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Chiapas

November 1, 2014-Getting Ready to Go.

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Working on the B & G

“Why is the wind speed showing zero?” I thought, “There’s obviously a little breeze, we’re sailing in it.”

I looked up at the mast head and the wind speed cups looked back at me; they were stationary.

Houston, we have a problem.

I walked forward and shook the head stay, giving the mast a good jiggle, the equivalent of hitting it with a bigger hammer. The cups rotated about half a turn, then stopped again. This time nothing moved them.

When you have thirty year old instruments you are not surprised to see them break. Not happy, but not surprised. A trip up the mast and back down with the recalcitrant mast head unit in my hand revealed nothing in particular; the cups seemed to turn fine. Maybe the bearing was a little loose; after all it’s been up there spinning for thirty years. The anemometer was the one part for which I had no spare

I wrote Myles, in Florida, who has been faithfully sending me B&G parts for about 20 years. I wasn’t even sure if he hadn’t retired by now, but he did reply a year ago when I had the last problem, and, sure enough, he wrote right back to me yesterday too.

“No, I don’t have an anemometer to sell you but I might be able to put a bearing in that one of yours, if the screws still turn, and if you are in the US where we can send things back and forth.”
Wrong on two counts: The screws seemed pretty stuck to me, and anyhow, I wasn’t going to be in the US anytime soon.

But I dove into it. On the workbench I laid out all my parts. I replaced what I could and cleaned and serviced the rest. The thing was, when I got finished, it seemed to work fine. The slightest breath would make the cups turn. OK, I’d still love to find another anemometer, but meanwhile, we’ll put this one back up, which we did, and it works perfectly.

How did this happen? Judy provided a possible clue: She said she noticed that there were a bunch of cobwebs all over the cups when I brought it down. Yeah, I noticed that too. Do you suppose a spider lashed that thing to a stop?

We also tried out the new mainsail. In fact that was the purpose of the trip. There wasn't much wind, but enough to see the shape. The guys at Fareast Sails in Hong Kong built a nicely shaped main, but it’s small. Not so small that we can’t use it, but small enough to aggravate me every time I look at it. It clearly does not match the dimensions I sent them and that is disappointing, but, I guess when you buy from a Chinese company, and they already have your money, you don’t have much leverage. I’ve been writing to them and they say it’s fine, and anyway, they seem to think, through some twisted logic, that if it isn’t fine, it’s my fault. Their emails skipped completely over my point that it does not measure to the specs. Well, we didn’t pay much for this sail, so maybe we got what we deserved.

We also worked on the dingy, trying to fix some leaks but when I mixed up the epoxy the mix went off and started fizzing and smoking. Funny, I thought I had the portions right. Next thing I knew it was hot and hard and had melted the plastic cup. Good thing it didn’t catch fire. The next batch was better.

Tehuantepec

So that's life in the marina; other than fixing things and socializing with the other cruisers who have finally started to show up here, we’re just waiting for the Tehuantepeckers, those strong winds which are blocking our path north, to die down. When they do, we’ll head out, ready or not.

Click here for more images.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Chiapas