Late April, 2014. The 55-mile transit from Puesta del Sol, Nicaragua, coastwise across the Gulf of Fonseca to the anchorage at Punta Amapala, El Salvador, was hot, humid, smoky, and uneventful. Four-foot swells from the southeast gave us a beamish rolly passage. Breeze came and went. Two other northbound cruising sailboats joined us at anchor in Punta Amapala's wide bay, as we all waited for a couple of days for a storm further northward, in Mexico's Gulf of Tehuantepec, to blow itself out.
We'd comfortably anchored in this bay before, on our southbound journey in 2010, but it
wasn't that way this time. Swells from the southeast – pushed by strong Papagayo winds down Nicaragua way, we reckoned – began rolling relentlessly into our anchorage. Like, really rolling. Enough to cause unsecured objects to fly around belowdecks. For 2-1/2 days. None of the three of us boats wanted to aim for the marinas at either Puerto Barillas or Bahia del Sol under conditions like these because both of those ports have sand bars blocking their entrances; steep rolling seas presented the kind of enhanced risk in both locations that none of us wanted to take. Instead we all reanchored as closely around the point as we could, which helped with the rolliness…somewhat. Meanwhile, 5 or 6 fishing pangas worked both sides of the point. I did not envy those guys, working in conditions like that.
The forecast improved for us all to raise anchor about 0400 on April 18, so that we could cover the 314 miles to Puerto Chiapas in Mexico and make landfall before sunset on (coincidentally) Easter Sunday. As we passed the entrance to Bahia del Sol, one of our companion boats decided conditions were calm enough to cross over the entrance bar there; I heard later that they ended up keeping their boat in Bahia del Sol for a few years!
We two remaining sailboats pressed on to Puerto Chiapas. Commercial and fishing vessel traffic was very light – only two shrimpers offshore of the river entrance to Puerto Barillas, and only two freighters and one cruise ship traveling 10 or more miles offshore. A foul current developed overnight with 6-to-7-foot southwest swells with a wind-driven chop. Around midnight, as 10-15-knot winds shifted from the southwest to the northwest and increased to the high teens, the autopilot in our companions' boat failed. Because of course, equipment failures always happen in the middle of the night. They pressed on and switched off hand-steering for the last couple hundred miles. They were pretty tired by the time they reached Puerto Chiapas, bless 'em.
Conditions calmed down for the final two days of our passage and we picked up our beloved fair current once again. A large manta ray entertained us with backflips shortly after sunrise on April 19. A few hours later we were amused by a southbound brown booby who had found a flat, rectangular Styrofoam lid in which he proudly stood, using it as a boat. He floated past The Fox with hardly a glance. A second brown booby paddled alongside, but The Skipper was not willing to share his new prize possession with anyone.
Easter Sunday morning dawned calm and was still very hot (80s-90s), but the landfall at Marina Puerto Chiapas was straightforward. This was our first time in this port; when we had left Mexico in 2010 we'd bypassed Puerto Chiapas because its marina had only been in the early stages of construction. It looked terrific now, and the Mexican authorities were their usual gracious selves inspecting our sailboat and getting us checked in. We were both very happy indeed to be back in Pacific Mexico, safe and sound and well taken care of.
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