Happy New Year! It is Tuesday, January 1, 2013. We are headed out of Costa Rica aiming north and west hoping to clear the Papagayo winds of Nicaragua while they are weakened in the next few days. As Jupiter's Smile motored out the mouth of Bahia Santa Elena with full staysail and the main reefed the wind was up and in our face a little off the nose, but we only needed to head into that wind for about eight miles before we could turn and run parallel to the coast of Nicaragua. Once on that course, even with a strong Papagayo wind blowing off shore, we would be close enough to that shore that the waves would not have a chance to build. That is exactly what happened.
We saw a maximum gust of forty-one knots at one point, but as the day turned to evening the winds settled some and we sailed through the night slowly, to try to time our arrival at Puesta Del Sol and its marina with a favorable tide the next day. As dawn broke, we could see smoke rising from the side of a volcano. We had heard the report on the radio of the eruption from a cruiser a few days earlier. As we got closer we could see that the smoke came from the top and then ran down the top third of the mountain before heating the air enough to allow it to rise. At least that is my explanation. The wind and air temperature at the mountain top may have been factors as well.
In any case, the gas and ash were annoying enough over the water and probably more so at our destination on land that we decided that we would just skip Puesta del Sol, travel on and see where we might end up next. The wind was mild and from the SSW and I adjusted course to to sail as close to the wind as I could to provide as much lift as possible and make headway, crossing Golfo Fonseca aiming to near El Salvador about 70nm away. This was another hurdle to be crossed and since the opportunity seemed to have presented itself favorably we would take it to pass beyond the region of Papagayo winds. The wind died just after sundown and with the motor running we continued. We used the excess power to run the water maker. Just before dawn the wind picked up out of the north so we sailed about three hours until the wind would not keep the sails filled. We resumed motoring and repeated this pattern over the next couple of days of motoring five or six hours and then sailing for two or three hours as the wind and seas dictated. Barb and I alternated watches through the nights with me at the helm until 10pm, Barb had command from 10 until 2am and then I had the watch until dawn. We would nap during the daylight hours when we could.
In the early morning hours on Friday, the 4th, we were sailing nicely and I was standing in the open companionway looking out the open window in the dodger just enjoying the breeze and the solitude of the quiet night. I looked up at the top of the mast and shined my flashlight to catch the position of the windex, indicating the direction of the wind. I was checking to see if the sails should be trimmed and saw the windex easily enough, but also saw three frigate birds soaring in the wind wake from our sails just behind the windex. Then I noticed that one was trying to land on the windex!
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| The windex is the arrow shaped wind indicator with the two wires to show the relative wind angle. |
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| A bird worrying our windex |
I feared that the windex would be damaged. Noise did nothing to scare the birds off nor did turning on the anchor light at the top of the mast. They seemed to be annoyed most by the flash from my camera. The next morning's daylight revealed that the starboard wire of the vane had been bent. The wind was down again so it was time to turn on the engine and we made water enough to completely fill our 160gal tank. We motored out of Guatemalan waters into Saturday and Mexico. At 2AM enough wind blew to allow me to turn off the motor and sail until dawn and we approached the breakwaters of Puerto Chiapas (Puerto Madero).
I called the Port Captain on the radio after he finished delivering a weather forecast, asking permission to enter the harbor and to proceed to the Marina Chiapas. I spoke in English and he replied in Spanish, but I thought I understood him to say that I had permission for both. As we furled the sails I could not understand why the windex was pointing in the wrong direction and immediately saw that it had been mangled even more during this final night. We entered the harbor and found the right turn to pass the fishing fleet on the left and the Navy Zone on the right. I had an idea where the channel was to the marina because of photos and verbal descriptions from other cruisers, but the charts showed dry land and without a depth sounder I was reluctant to go farther. I had been calling Marina Chiapas on the radio, but received no reply. It was just past 7am so we just floated dead in the water near the last fishing boat dock and waited. A well dressed fellow waved to us and we waved back. He next made a motion like a member of the ground crew at an airport indicating what I took to mean 'just head straight ahead in that direction,' the direction I had suspected was the channel into the marina. We decided to proceed at dead slow and by the time we reached the marina a woman on a sailboat in one of the outer slips noticed us. A member of the marina staff ran down the next dock, motioned us to a slip and by 8am we were securely docked in Chiapas, Mexico seventy two hours after our departure from Bahia Santa Elena. We had sailed past Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, but I expect that we will visit these places, or some of them on our return trip someday.
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