While we were in Acapulco we went to see the Cliff Divers which was a tremendous, worth while show for about US$1.50. It is operated as a co-operative and the divers split the revenues and duties of diving, taking tickets and autographing photos. They are five performances daily and the final two in the evening they dive with torches. The divers walk down the steep steps through the crowd then clamber over the waist high rock wall and dive into the water. This is just the start of their “trip” to get to the diving platform. The divers swim across the perhaps 20 foot area that they will later dive into and climb out on the rocks, then they climb up the rock face to the diving platform. The dives are done from 25 meters and the very top, 35 meters. It’s so amazing as the cliff angles out towards the bottom a bit and to the divers have to jump out, but not too far out as they need to land in the relatively narrow section between the two rock cliffs. Plus the water is surging in and out while they are doing their dives. At one point two of the divers dive at the same time, not sure which of them gets to decide what is the moment to dive. There are two small shrines at the top of the diving area, no wonder.
The afternoon we left Acapulco, the Queen Elizabeth II was anchored in the bay. She is a very impressive passenger vessel and does not look at all like the modern day cruise ships with their straight sides, boxy appearance and space age observation domes. She has a sleek bow and rounded canoe stern with a dark blue hull and white super structure, very elegant. It was a real treat to see her “in the flesh” and we circled around her on our way out of the harbor. She looks fast and sleek with the lines that a ship should have.
Huatulco, our next stop, was a nice spot to spend a week waiting for a good weather window for crossing the Gulf of Tehuantepec. The tricky thing about the Gulf of Tehuantepec is that the winds can blow gale force (30-35 knots) on a regular basis and up to 50 knots on very short notice and it is also a huge area that is shallow and the waves can really build up. The saying is that you cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec “with one foot in the sand” meaning about one mile from shore. If you are out further and the wind comes up it is most unpleasant. We were quite fortunate and actually had light winds and motored much of the way. Huatulco is a community planned by the Mexican tourist agency and they are hoping that it will become another Ixtapa or Cancun. So far they have the roads and sidewalks but not many people yet. It is a charming small city with lots of parks and has a very different feel to many of the places we have been in Mexico. The town is about a 20 minute walk from where the harbor is and they were doing lots of work when we were there to get ready for a music festival that was starting the Sunday after we left. The change in the eight days we were there was amazing. There are numerous beautiful white sand beaches in the area, each in their own cove. Our time there was very pleasant and we enjoyed exploring the area. While there, all of the boats got together to gather supplies (tarps, buckets, wash basins, food, etc) for a village near Barillis Marina in El Salvadore that was destroyed by the earthquake. Most of the boats were heading to Barillis Marina on their way down the coast and did a number of work parties to help rebuild the town once there. Even though we did not stop here, it was a good feeling to be part of our small relief effort.
Today, Sunday 4 February, we are sitting in the Unnamed Anchorage off the southern coast of Nicaragua waiting for the wind to die down. We came in yesterday morning as we were tired of sailing directly into 25-35 knots of wind and 3-5 foot seas, damp and it’s a bit slow. Poor Altair is very salty, we were fortunate enough to be able to take showers but do not have enough extra water to wash Altair off. Yesterday we cleaned up a bit and took a nice nap in the middle of the day to catch up on some sleep, then had a nice long basically uninterrupted sleep last night. Today has been much windier than yesterday with the wind blowing a steady 20-25 knots and gusts up to 40 knots in the anchorage. We are certainly glad we are in here and not out there today as there are white caps in this little bay today. Paul hitched a ride in to town this morning with one of the pangas returning from fishing to see if there might be any fresh veggies, but no luck, although he did come back with a couple of Nicaraguan beers to try. He did have nice visit on shore in the local village and talked with a number of the fishermen about the weather. It was a test for Paul’s Spanish as no one spoke any English in the village. A number of the fishermen could not understand why we a sail boat would be stopped because of the weather, but one of the fishermen had sailed before and was able to explain to them that when you have 25-30 knots of wind from behind the boat its great but when you have to tack back and forth into that much wind it is very uncomfortable and slow going.
We have become quite the socialites on the different SSB radio nets. There are about five nets each day that we can pick up if you care to listen to that many, but we generally check in with two nets. There is excellent weather info and everybody has an opinion, the consensus while we were waiting was that the weather would be getting worse before it would get better. So, after spending two nights in Unnamed Anchorage, we left in the calm of the evening and had a great and lively sail down the coast and across the Gulf of Papagayo. The winds varied from 5 to 35 knots throughout the day and it was a good opportunity to try the different sail combinations in those conditions. We found that we were very comfortable with the storm jib and triple reefed main. It began to feel normal to be underway with this sail combination and the wind at 20 knots with gusts to 30 or 35 knots. We are very glad that we came straight through when we did as some of our friends that stopped in El Salvador and have now been waiting an extra five days for the winds to die down so they can leave and continue their path south.
February 9 - We are writing to you as we sail along the coast of Panama towards Balboa, Panama. It is a beautiful sunny day and we have just stopped for two days in the islands here in Western Panama which remind us very much of the San Juans and Desolation Sound -- dense foliage that comes down to the water’s edge at high tide and lots of islands or land with high peaks in view. Of course it is a bit different in that when the tide goes down, white sand beaches emerge, there are coconut trees and the water is turquoise blue and warm. But other than those few minor differences, it’s almost the same.
Paul and Suzette S/V Altair