Huatulco to Acapulco -- Dropping off John at Puerto Escondido

4/25 AT SEA, NORTH OF HUATULCO, ENROUTE TO ACAPULCO. 11:30 PM

Aftermath of yesterday's party.

So, anyway... By the time the party was over we were all feeling pretty good and nobody seemed to feel very designated driverish which was not so bad when you consider we didn't have to drive any where since taxis are everywhere and we didn't have a car anyway.

The show cast stayed for about 10 minutes after the show so people could take pictures with them and so we took pictures cavorting with the almost naked Las Vegas style cast. <This last sentence is blatant fantasy.> Actually, the costumes were very folkloric. Most of the audience were from Mexico City and we met several interesting characters the most colorful of which was Alfonso, the dude that pratfalled his wife with a single blast of his belly. John took a demo belly bang and said the guy's spread was like running into a tank. Several hours later when we were leaving he and his wife were still dancing to the juke box.

Later we went for a walk down around the Hotel's pools and bar that were all deserted now except for staff tidying up the huge grounds. Phil beelined for a chaise longue and settled back muttering something about our protozoan ancestors sleeping with the ebb and flow of the sea. John and I went for a swim in the ocean and since there were a few people around just went in with our cocktail shorts rather than removing all clothing as would have been wiser. After rolling around in the surge for a while we both emerged packed from earball to asshole with sand, in fact we both dripped sand from every orifice all the next day in spite of having worked very hard in the Hotel's outdoor shower to remove the gritty stuff.

Back to today.

We arose on board a totally disheveled boat that we had left abruptly the night before. We put it together, and got underway. The engine started and worked industriously for all of 22 seconds. For the next hour we wandered throughout the anchorage starting the engine every few seconds and finally came to the conclusion that all might not yet be fine with the beast. We reanchored.

The plan was to go in to the town and find a diesel mechanic to help with the motor problem, but first to have breakfast.

The obvious best restaurant for this was one that was booming with business--all of it local. We started with orange juice squoze from sun ripened oranges. I in my greed had two tall glasses. Best I've ever had. Next we ordered our eggs and trimmings. An hour later we were served. That just about did poor Phil in. He was hungover hungry and as impatient as a seventeen year old waiting for dad to give him the keys to the car so he could go wreck it. He was almost literally beside himself and apoplectic by the time we rounded up Armando the local owner of several restaurants to help us locate a good mechanic. Armando was very helpful and ran all over the area getting us likely candidates. We ended up with two that would come to the boat at 3 and 5 respectively. (One was backup)

While all this was going on I went back to the boat to do my laundry in a bucket. 7 t-shirts and two pair of shorts later I was ready for another month of sailing and carousing. Fortunately my sheets were only a month old and not yet ready for the soap and water treatment.

When the boys got back we resumed our contemplation of the holy Westerbeke propulsion unit (motor). I was pretty well convinced that the problem was a bad fuel pump for various reasons not the least of which it sounded like a good idea since that is a pretty straightforward problem and I know what a fuel pump is. I don't know the words for most of the rest of the stuff in the engine compartment although I can sit and look at it and stroke my beard and jiggle wires with the best of them.

Phil had talked to several people on the phone by now trying to find absolution on the satellite airwaves. He talked with a factory mechanic and after a few conversations I heard him mutter "I wish I never bought your engine" which was equal to me really telling off an answering machine.

Anyway, he finally got to talking to some mechanic in San Diego who seemed less than a total blond and asked me to discuss the symptoms and speculations we had contrived. I spoke to the mechanic in pseudo dieseleze for a while and he came up with a couple of poignant suggestions that seemed to make sense, namely see if electricity is getting to the pump and if it isn't construct a jumper to bypass the regular relay. I checked and the electricity wasn't and constructed a bypass with some scrap wire and an old toggle switch, flipped the switch and, voila, that solved the engine problem. We hastily tidied the boat only to find out that a 45 foot behemoth of a sailboat had anchored over the location of our anchor and so we could not get underway.

We finally located the owners of the offending sailboat in a restaurant and dragged them kicking and screaming by their ears back to their big boat telling them to get off our toes. They whined that their electric anchor windlass was down and we politely asked them what their point was. In the end they motored to the end of their chain removing them from our vicinity but without weighing anchor. We were concerned that they may have fouled our anchor with theirs so I stood by with and axe ready to sever their anchor line should this be the case. The anchors were not foul and we weighed anchor and headed for the open sea. That was about 4 PM.

Now we're clamoring up the coast against a wind that is from precisely where we want to go fighting a wicked chop and under the constraint that we must make 5 knots per hour to get John to Acapulco in time to catch his plane. The first few hours have seen us barely making about 4 knots and an hour ago at the end of John's watch Phil and I awoke to find John at the wheel with the engine at 100 per cent crashing through the chop trying to make the 5 knots. We explained that this strategy would result in rapid exhaustion of our fuel supply and would scarcely increase our speed by a half a knot. John offered to leap into the sea and swim ashore to hitch hike to his plane but we assured him there would be a dryer alternative if it turned out that the winds did not change and allow us to make up for lost time. Now I'm sitting here in my bunk next to the laboring engine with the whole world gyrating writing about it. Stay tuned to see what really happens...

5:00 AM, A few miles further on...

Someone has seriously offended the Gods. There is no other explanation. It is my epiphany. We are not alone and there are puckish deities rampant on the Earth. If anyone ever finds this they can draw their own conclusions.

We are becalmed, totally becalmed as in "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink" or whatever. The sea is glassy, greasy glassy in the first light of the morning. The boat rolls mildly in the residual surface activity of the Bermuda Triangle. I'm afraid to look at the compass for fear it will be spinning aimlessly. The GPS just sits there and chuckles remembering, no doubt, when I opined that it was only good for finding the yacht club bathroom.

Phil sits across the cockpit from me in a daze. The only sounds around us are the creaking of the rigging, the muted buzz and clash of Phil's brain concocting schemes of how to put this boat out of its misery. Two pounds of C-3 explosive seems the simplest but we don't have any of that, and that begs the question of how we detonate it without putting an untimely end to our miserable abandoned existence.

We clearly should pay more attention to omens and portents. Why would we have had so many problems getting the engine started in Huatulco? Why, after getting it going would the wind be right on our nose for 12 hours? Why after the wind generated chop died out and we could finally make some serious progress toward Acapulco did the engine again stop, displaying the exact same symptoms as in the harbor but this time with the fuel pump working? Were we too close to having a mechanic touch the sacred Westerbeke and so were lured into the open ocean? Now it is quiet, calm and we are neither sailing nor motoring. What is next? Dare I speculate?

The sky and the water are pink and blend almost seamlessly together. There is the first faint curve of an incredibly pastel pink sun beginning to show. It appears to be a grotesquely malformed Kilroy with fingers just becoming visible. Yes, and there's the nose.

I don't know how I will get this floppy into a bottle, but I think the best chance to get our story out is to find a way to do that.

Puerto Escondido is directly ahead of us toward shore, 9 miles. Too far to use the dinghy as propulsion.

John sleeps below and does not know of this our presumably final adventure as the sun reddens into a fiery ball giving not heat but a peek in the pit for doomed mariners and yachts people. (Note the politically correct terminology)

We planned to drop off John at Puerto Escondido so he could catch his plane on Sunday. We may have to paddle in the nine miles to the port so he can catch a bus to Acapulco.

Now the brightening sun is sending a red shimmering path of light directly to us over the surface of the water and the sea looks like a pastel painting of the sunrise on a hazy morning painted with pink, green, purple, gray pastels with the only bright color being a glistening red/orange for the sun's depiction. I envision a picture much too beautiful for the Motel Six wall where it undoubtedly hangs secured by titanium bolts.

I always thought that water was clear or green in the shallows or blue in the day, but I can say now that is all those colors I've listed and more.

There are no birds, no splashes and the coffee is ready. It is great. Amazing how the little things seem so important when the end is nigh.

Many things are absent from this boat for the first time since I've come aboard. There is no conversation, no planning, no expectations, no goals to be pursued, no packages expected from FedEx. There is no snoring, no whining, no complaining, and the sight of the sun as it slowly rises is unbelievably beautiful. I can almost wish that John would continue to sleep for another hour so that the silence could continue.

Phil is reading and sipping coffee. I think this may also be the first time that he has simply decided to relax and let it happen knowing that he really has done everything he possibly could to make it all work for everybody.

The colors of the sun on our painting are now blurry bright gold. The sun is now too bright to look at directly and the first faint hint of the heat to come warms my face as I write. When I glance up to look at the panorama and then look down at the text display on the screen it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the change and the screen looks blank.

There are myriad small sounds of the boat that I have not noticed before. The sound of halyards banging the mast of course, but also faint humming that keeps making me want to slap my ear to catch an imaginary mosquito. A gulping as water sloshes in and out of the engine exhaust pipe. A very gentle slap of water on the hull from the small waves.

3:30 same day

We slowly made our way the nine miles to Puerto Escondido in order to let John off so he could catch a bus to Acapulco.

Since Puerto Escondido has a port captain the custom and usually the requirement is that when you come into the port you notify the Captain of the Port and present your papers to him.

Our problem was that we had no motor, very little wind and the port is very poorly protected from the southern swell so that all of the beaches have big surf. We were afraid, moreover, that if we just dropped John off and were observed we would have trouble with the authorities. We also weren't thrilled with the idea of having to dig out the dinghy from storage assemble it and blow it up only to have to stow it again right after dropping off John.

We entered the bay with the Gennaker flying which is about as subtle as a fireworks display. After passing the mouth of the bay a ponga was passing so we flagged him down and he took John off our hands. I called the Capitán del Puerto and explained our situation and the first reaction was that we had to anchor, present our papers including John's. After some discussion and explanation of our plight the Captain gave us permission to continue without formalities which probably saved us at least a day.

Later we were sailing along at about three knots having decided that without John we really didn't have any schedule to keep and so we could relax and enjoy the sail regardless of how long it took.

I decided to have another go at the engine problem and so called the mechanic in San Diego who had helped us before and told him how we again had the same problem although the first problem that he helped us with was solved. He gave me directions for dealing with a probable air lock which entailed bleeding the injector pump and the injector feed lines and so I went through that sweaty procedure and then the motor started but would not run normally and still died out.

After lunch I again called him and explained the new situation. He gave me three more procedures that might be the problem so I decided to bite the bullet and, since our sailing was relatively calm then just "do it" and work on them one by one.

I removed all of my stuff from my compartment which was the site of the engine access, the fuel tank access, etc. I assembled all of the tools necessary and one by one worked out his suggestions. The third one resulted in our starting the engine and having it work normally, the first time in two weeks. I called him back and left a message that I was willing to have his baby and was otherwise overjoyed that we could now cruise on through Mexican waters drinking rum drinks and listening to Cumbia music.

Now, we have the capability of motoring and we still have the wind on our nose. We have to tack back and forth to make progress, and we still have 175 miles to go. Nevertheless we have chosen to just mosey along reading and telling no-shit stories and sleeping rather than pounding through the water with engine roaring. It's great to be cruising at last...

With only the two of us, tonight will be less restful than usual but we don't expect any problems for all that.

Phil who earlier was occupying his time figuring out how he could have the boat shipped the rest of the way home is now sanguine about continuing, even if he has to single hand it some of the way.

Time for me to tack.

SATURDAY MORNING, 4/27, 8:45 AM

Damn, but I'm glad we managed to fix that engine. There was no wind last night. We wouldn't have made five miles all night long.

It was a great night. The moon was full, the seas were smooth and the engine was working flawlessly. The hard part was keeping awake.

Well, that was the hard part on my first watch anyway. On the second one from 2 AM to 5 AM I decided to keep myself busy. I set Spastic Mike who then set to with a will steering a course that would make a sea serpent proud, and started by making a cup of coffee. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, stumbling around in the dark and measuring coffee by Braille is not all that simple. Still, I did have a nice cup of hot water with milk.

Next I noticed a very brightly lighted vessel that appeared to be closing us. Radar revealed it was about 3 miles away. Nervously I watched it to see if it would change direction to avoid us. It didn't and the range closed to about a mile as I eyeballed it. I could see the red navigation light that told me that I was looking at its port side. That meant it should be slipping back and would cross behind us. The radar and my eyes said "No, that puppy is going to grind us into mincemeat". I fished out the powerful spotlight we use at times and shone it on the sail. "Hey, Turkey, there's a sailboat here! Do something!" No change.

Finally, the picture became clear. The red light I saw was not a navigation light denoting the port side of the boat, it was one of a pair of lights that said. "I'm a fishing boat with my gear deployed and I don't stop for anyone, not even you, little twerp!" (Red over white, fishing at night) The other mnemonic is "White over red, the captain is dead" (afloat but not under control)

So I put the helm over and reversed our course so I could get behind him and all was AOK. Next I noticed on the radar that there was a big contact bearing down on us from the front. I couldn't see it because of a heavy haze on the water. Finally I saw it at two miles. It was within a mile before I saw it alter course to our left and it gradually moved off our screen and continued safely astern. So far the watch was not boring me to tears. Phil relieved me and I retired below to sleep the sleep of the righteous.

Now we're 80 miles from Acapulco and expect to arrive tomorrow morning. Cindy will arrive on Monday and we will leave for Zihuatanejo on Tuesday. Wednesday should see us in Z-huat and I expect to fly out on Thursday.

Breakfasted this morning on cookies and juice oranges. This is only worthy of note since the juice oranges are the most amazingly sweet and tasty oranges I've ever had. They're ugly with a dark mottled skin that is thin and tough. You must eat them by cutting them into sections and biting out the meat. Peeling would be impossible.

3:30 SAME DAY

Took a snooze as we motored along. Woke up to find that the engine was not running. I felt a sense of dismay until I realized that we were heeled over and even though there was no chop at all we were cooking!

On deck I found that we were sliding along at 7 knots right on course. Phil had a grin on his face that a mortician couldn't remove. He smiled and said "Watermelon and Gin & Tonic" We did. His turn to snooze.

At this rate we'll be anchored in Acapulco at 11 or 12 tonight. We actually could have kept John on board and made it. Wish it were practical to go to the airport and catch him before he boards his flight at 7 AM.

48 miles to go.

ACAPULCO, 4/28 AM

We arrived at the Club de Yates, Acapulco at 3 AM. The final approach and entrance to the bay were uneventful and it was interesting to see the blaze of light from the hills surrounding the bay. We used the GPS to navigate and checked our locations with bearings on various light aids to navigation.

We felt our way in and anchored for the remainder of the night and checked in in the morning.

Now, since we really no longer have a problem with the engine, our chores are few. Until fate deals us a new hand we will just hang out since it's Sunday, and will get most of what we need done tomorrow morning. We pick up Cindy at the airport at noon and will return right away to check out so we will be able to leave that evening. It's so hot here that there is little motivation to stay. It will be cooler at sea and that will get me to my departure that much sooner.

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