May 30-June 5, Ixtapa to Huatulco  6 day stormy passage

Finally we can leave.  There is no dredging so we can leave on the high tide.  We are full of gas.  The hurricane is gone and the ports are open all the way to Huatulco.   Back out the narrow channel we go and right into huge swells.  Everything that was not properly stowed goes crashing to the floor.  Luckily we have learned that lesson and there is very little that actually crashes.  It is wild enough that I decide that a pre-emptive seasick patch would be a good idea.  I had forgotten that they make me sleepy and give me a very dry mouth and a funny taste but I don’t get sick.

We hoist the sails as soon as we get clear of the harbor, not an easy job in such rough seas.  We have 8-10 knots of wind, but typically coming directly from the direction we need to go which means we have to head way offshore.  Nonetheless, Alan has a lovely brisk sail while I nap.  Late in the afternoon we saw large rays leaping out of the water.  We had seen brown rays previously but these were stunning black and white and leapt 5-6 feet out of the water,  spinning and twisting.  I had bought a tortilla press in Zhuatenajo and actually made fresh tortillas for dinner.

The wind dropped a bit at sunset and then died away to nothing about 3 am when I finally gave up trying to nurse Rhapsody along on 1 knot of wind and turned the engine on.   The seas stay calm and the wind dead through the night and into the next afternoon, when it picks up again and we can finally turn the engine off.  Of course it dies again at sunset.  And so it is a game; wind down, engine on, sail down.  Wind up, engine off, sails up.  Since it takes two people to raise or lower sails or chance tacks, it has to be done to coincide with the change of the watch.   During one of these sails down, sails up maneuvers the halyard jams on the mast steps which Alan has installed at the very top of the mast.  In the end, we decide to reef it, leaving it half way up and half way down.

We are visited by lots of dolphins.  At night we can hear them breathing,  even though we cannot see them.    During the day we see turtles floating by, often with birds standing on their back going for a ride.  We also see the rays jumping at sunset each day. We are heading toward the dark of the moon and it comes up later and later each night, leaving the sky to the stars.   As we pass Acapulco there is an increase in shipping traffic and we have to alter course several times to avoid them. One huge car carrier passes within a mile of us.

We have started to track the barometric reading on our handheld GPS and it has dropped down to 1008.  Since we have not been consistent about it up until now, we are not sure what that means but it does not sound good.  Normal is around 1012.  The weather maps that we looked at in Ixtapa showed clear weather for the rest of the week, but it is becoming more and more cloudy.  Big puffy clouds build up over the land during the day.  Then on the third night the storms hit.  First lightning, then pouring rain.   And so for the next 3 days we have lovely weather during the day and violent thunder storms at night.  The crazy thing is that we often had patches of clear sky with star in the middle of the storms.  I had packed away our foul weather gear foolishly thinking that since we were in the tropics in the summer we would not need it.  Silly me.  Eventually I dug it out of the back of the closet.  Luckily it is not really cold, just WET. 

The scariest part is the lightning.  We have heard stories of boats getting struck by lightning and having all of the electronics fried.  We are not sure what to do to avoid it.  One of the recommendations is to attach one end of a battery cable to the shrouds and drop the other end into the water.  I think the theory is that if we are struck, the lightning will just go right down the cables and into the ocean without hurting anything on the boat.  I am not quite sure I believe that this will work but it doesn’t matter because of course we have no battery cables.   Alan has started trying to use the radar to avoid the storms, but it is not working.  The storms just seem to hang right over us all night long.  We have the engine on most of the time now, since the wind comes in erratic bursts and always from the wrong direction.  At least the seas are fairly calm.  We do not have to contend with huge swells along with all the rest of it. On my watch on our last night I become very aware of the mizzen mast creaking.  I have never noticed it before.  Alan says that it is a wooden boat and wood boats creak, especially if they get wet.  Nonetheless, I am convinced that a change to the rigging that we made before we left has but an undue strain on the mast and we will now pay the price.

In addition to the weather, there are still ships to watch out for, including Mexican Navy ships which are exempt from using the AIS system.  And on top of everything else, our iPads start to have battery issues.  Suddenly they will not charge.  We plug them in and they look like they are charging, but about 15 minutes later they are no longer charging.  Often they display a message saying that we are using an unauthorized device.  It’s the same plug that we have been using for months but we try switching plugs and cables and whatever we can think of.  We use one as long as we can and then plug it in and use the other until it runs out.  Needless to say, we are neither one of us getting very much sleep and we started off tired, thanks to all the bugs in Ixtapa.  Off watch times are constantly interrupted by emergencies.  Meals are mostly boil-in-the-bag, power bars, energy drinks and coffee.  Finally on the morning of day 6, we reach Puerto Angel right where it should be.  We have completed a 6 day passage, our longest yet and survived 3 nights of rain and lightning.  High five!