Voyages of the EmmaJo & Crew
At anchor, Acapulco
At Anchor in Acapulco
Arriving in Acapulco harbor at 10:00 last night, we were finally anchored by 11:05 pm – exactly 36 hours after leaving Huatulco on Monday morning.
The 235-mile journey was pleasant, with seas less than 3 feet, winds less than 5 knots, and lots of wildlife for company. [Read more…]
Underway for Mazatlan…
After almost exactly 22 months, we finally threw off the lines and left Huatulco yesterday. We’re sitting in the pilothouse enjoying the second day of a pleasant 235 miles of our first leg to Mazatlan – hoping to either anchor in Acapulco if we need rest, or complete another 110 miles and drop the hook in Zihuatenejo for a few days.
Last night was magic…only one ship came up on the radar, the sea was like glass, and we got “torpedoed” by iridescent dolphins more than once. This morning there was a spectacular manta ray ballet, and we watched dozens of them leaping by twos to flap up to 10 feet in the air and land with a thwap. [Read more…]
Marina Chahue
Huatulco, Mexico
Huatulco Highlights
As we prepare to leave, I thought I’d better jot down our impressions of this great little spot, for those that are following our journey and hope to call in here one day.
Marina Chahue? Meh. Serviceable. That’s about the size of it. The showers and bathroom, in the words of a couple of ladies just finishing up a circumnavigation, are the third worst in the world.
The dust blows everywhere, 9 months a year. The surge at the dock eats lines. No pool. No restaurant. No shop. No amenities. Just a place to tie up, unmetered electricity and good potable water, and friendly security guards and staff who speak little to no English. [Read more…]
After a year of procrastination, we’ve finally upgraded our website platform from Front Page 2003 to Word Press! Those of you who’ve been waiting for new content have probably already given up on us — but we’ll try to be better at staying current, honest.
All of our original cruise logs are still on the site in their original format, and can be reached by follwing this link: Emma Jo Cruise Logs 2007-2010.
We’ll try to be better at updating the site, and we’re going to structure it so that the latest blog posts will appear on this page and titles and tags will show up in the sidebar over there on the left.
We’re both well and healthy, and sitting at Marina Chahue in Huatulco, Mexico. We’ve been here over a year, and will probably head north to Puerto Vallarta or Mazatlan in early 2012.
Marina Chahue
Huatulco, Mexico
A bit of a sad morning — I had to say goodbye to Ole as he’s off to work again. This time might be a bit longer separation, as he’s been asked to take on a special project in the Miami office until September. I know I’ll be fine here on my own: the town is charming and has lots to offer, the weather is great, and the security can’t be better. I certainly have projects to keep me busy, from varnishing the interior of the pilothouse to recovering the wall in the master head and stateroom, as well as writing projects I want to take on as an income supplement. [Read more…]
Marina Chahue, Huatulco
Mexico
It’s been an interesting week getting to know the marina, the neighbors, the town of La Crucecita, and the reasons for Mexico’s reputation as the “land of mañana,”
Marina Chahue is fairly new and modern, with limited cruiser amenities, lots of surge, and a staff who, though friendly, have limited facility with English. Patricia in the office has been most helpful, understanding my poor Spanish and responding with her equivalent English. I think we’ll get along fine. Our challenge is in securing Emma Jo in the slip, fendering her against the almost constant surge, and making sure we have enough lines out. Many of the boats here seem to stretch their lines across adjacent slips to dampen the movement, and when our delightful neighbors have gone, we’ll do the same. We’re about a mile or so from town, so weather permitting we can walk to grocery stores, restaurants, and beaches. [Read more…]
Marina Chahue,
Huatulco, Mexico
Well, we made it, voyaging 522 miles over 76 hours across the dreaded and respected Gulf of Tehuantepec. It was the longest passage Ole and I have made together, requiring three overnight runs and constant monitoring of weather, and I must say, we picked a superb window.
Crossing Tehuantepec with Hitchhikers
We left Barillas Marina at 6:50 in the morning, and were guided out to the ocean waypoint by their panguero. The sea state was fairly calm, consisting of loooonnnnnggg 12-15 second Pacific swells of 4-6 feet, with the wind picking up each afternoon, peaking just before sunset, and subsiding throughout the night. We never had wind over 15 knots (actual), and it was mostly from the west or southwest. Occasionally the wind and swells competed with the current, resulting in a chop that reached 3 or 4 feet on top of the swells, but none of it was overly unpleasant – we just spent a few uncomfortable hours bucking like a bronco from time to time.
We had three scheduled “bailout” ports along the way in case the weather turned, and as we approached Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala, Puerto Madero and Salina Cruz in Mexico, conditions looked great to just keep going. The challenge was to make sure we each got enough rest – sleeping 6 or 8 hours through the night is impossible on this kind of passage – so we just took turns standing watch, spelling each other with naps as needed.
Gertrude and Heathcliff, the Hitchhiking Boobies
We were joined by a couple of hitchhikers who jumped aboard somewhere around Puerto Madero and stayed with us for two days – we christened them Gertrude and Heathcliff…and in spite of arm-waving, horn blasts, and fierce yelling, they sat and shat all over the fly bridge, making themselves quite at home. I had to remind myself of “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” though, and not get too tough with them lest we anger the Tehuantepec weather gods.
Conditions were so favorable, we arrived at Marina Chahue in Huatulco and were alongside at 12:45 (our time) in the afternoon, in good enough shape to meet the neighbors, have a beer or two, and stay up until 10 pm. It’s now just past noon on Monday, April 19, and we’re still waiting for the officials to clear us in. They were going to come yesterday (but it was Sunday) at 3:00 pm, they were going to start coming at 11:00 this morning, but we haven’t seen a soul yet. Aah, Mexico!
Radisson Fort George Marina
Belize City, Belize
It is good to be sitting here at a dock where the only movement is from the unprotected passage of the trade winds and dive boat traffic with its resulting 2-foot chop and occasional bonk into the dock.
Why?
Because getting here was such a challenge, both physically and emotionally. And after the conditions we endured getting here, there is now no such thing as a bad anchorage or sloppy dock.
We left Bahia del Espiritu Santo at about 9:00 pm as planned, looking forward (?) to a 90-mile trip south toward a little hole-in-the-reef called Xcalac (pronounced shkah-LAK) to clear out of Mexico.
Ignorance is bliss.
Unfortunately, due to a loose nut on the chartplotter dial, our entry track from the previous day had somehow vanished, so we had to negotiate our way out of a very shallow lagoon in the dark. Not recommended, though Ole did a fabulous job. Once we got out into the briny blue, the wind picked up and the sea conditions deteriorated over the night, starting at 10 to 15 knots with 4-to-6 foot seas, and escalating to the point where the autopilot again went on strike. [Read more…]
At anchor, Bahia del Espiritu Santo
Quintana Roo, Mexico
It’s clear that every day contains lessons learned.
On Sunday evening, at 9:00, we weighed anchor from San Miguel in Cozumel, headed just about due south for Bahia del Espiritu Santo some 86 nautical miles down the coast. The first three hours we were in the lee of Cozumel, had light winds, and gentle swell from the south southeast, and we said to ourselves, hey – this won’t be too bad. Had some tunes on the I-pod, homemade oatmeal cookies, a pot of French Roast sitting in the thermos in the sink, and everything secured for sea. The swells, though 4 to 6 feet, were long and slow enough for us to actually enjoy them.
Then we discovered that the boat can take way more than either the autopilot or the crew.
About half an hour south of the tip of Cozumel, we were in the deep blue of the ocean, and the winds steadily increased to between 18 and 25 miles per hour, and the size of the swell began to overwhelm the autopilot. By about 2:45 a.m., with Jan on watch and Ole trying to catch some rest down below, the autopilot screamed that it had had enough, what with trying to maintain 6.5 knots while fighting off a steady east wind, a strong north setting current, swells increasing to 8-10 feet, and an annoying wind chop on top. [Read more…]
12:10 pm
San Miguel, Cozumel
(From Jan’s personal journal…)
Left Isla Mujeres about 11:00 am yesterday morning, in partly cloudy skies and fresh east wind of 20-25 knots, making for some rolly conditions as we headed south to Cozumel. The only casualty was a set screw in the port aft corner of the bimini, making Ole go up on the fly bridge to jury-rig a tie down during some pretty decent rolls.
We arrived in Cozumel just as the sun was setting, and anchored in 15 feet of swimming-pool clear water just off my favorite artisan store “Los Cinco Soles,” and sat through the departure announcements of Splendor of the Seas, anchored a couple of hundred yards off our stern. We laughed, realizing that Ole had no standby, no passenger duties, and no pager to go off in the middle of the night.
The anchorage is unprotected, so we gently rocked during the night, and more forcefully during the morning, as the Crown Princess arrived to the accompaniment of excursion boats zooming past us with abandon. [Read more…]