Monday, October 24, 2011

Chiapas Mexico!!

Well we finally have left the dock of Bahia Del Sol and are heading up 236 miles north up the coast to Chiapas Mexico.  We had a very very easy bar crossing leaving El Salvador, us and SV Kona left around 10am on the 22nd of October and had a 51 hour motorsail up the coast.  Both days and nights were perfect.  The first night was wonderful, you could imagine how many stars were up in the sky, I counted 12 shooting stars in my 3 hour shift.  And the sunsets and sunrises were some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. 
Beautiful Sunsets!!

another great sunset!

Off the coast of Guatamala we did see about 12 shrimping boats around 6pm on the first day, but after that we had the ocean to ourselves.  It was one of the best passages every, we even got the sails up a little both days.  Unfortuently we did not catch any fish, we did hook a few, but none that were keepers.  We saw a few dolphins, but not as many as we usually do, but we did see tons of sea turtles, what a site.  The third day we were about 30 miles (about 6 hours) from Chiapas and our engine started to over heat.  We shut off the engine and put the sails up, but with 3 knots of wind we didn't do much.  About 30 minutes later Jerry went into the engine room to check things out, the engine fresh water heat exchanger did not take any water ( it would have taken water if that was the problem for the overheating), we turned on the engine and the temp immediately started to go back to normal.  The only conclusion we think is that we must have gone over a bag or something that cased the through hole to plug up temporaraly. 

We pulled into the enterance of Chiapas around 12pm, there was a dredger comming our way so we had to turn around and wait for it to exit so we could pass.  We anchored around 12:30 and the Mexican navy came to inspect the boat and do some paperwork.  They left our boat and went over to SV Kona who anchored about an hour after us.  We then put the dinghy in the water to go to shore and try to finish checking in.  The Port Captian was closed so we had a couple of beer at a beach palapa and then went back to the boats.  We will try to finish checking tomorrow.

1 comment:

Darcy said...

Love your update and glad you had such a great sail. Can't wait to hear more...