VILISAR ON THE WAY TO THE GALAPAGOS
Wednesday, 29 March 2006

Below there are articles about our stay in Acapulco. But by the time you read this blog S/V Vilisar will likely already have started on her 1,300 mile offshore voyage to the Galapagos Archipelago that lies right on the Equator. Kathleen, Andrew and I, plan to leave this weekend sometime and we estimate the trip will take two or maybe three weeks of offshore sailing. Traversing the Doldrums (the ITCZ or the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone) is a slow business and most sailboats simply motor through. Although we topped up our fuel tanks yesterday here in Bahia de Marquéz near Acapulco, we intend to try to sail the whole way if we can. Anyway, at even just moderate motoring speeds we probably have a cruising range under power of only 600 miles.

After a few weeks in the Archipelago de Colón, as it is officially called, we shall sail eastwards along the Equator to the Ecuadorian mainland. While the trip south and east from Acapulco to the islands is iffy enough given the weak winds, it could be that the 600 mile trip to the mainland might require sailing to windward for at least a week or ten days in the SE trades and again the Equatorial current. We shall see. I cannot get a clear reading on this second stage. Some guides say we should have good winds at that time of year (i.e. the SE Tradewinds will be on our starboard beam and the Peru or Humbolt Current will not impact us) while others say we shall likely have to motor the whole way with the winds and currents on the nose. Hmmm! We shall see. First we have to get to the Galapagos.

We have been preparing Vilisar for this voyage, our longest passage to date (we did a week-long passage from British Columbia to San Francisco and another of the roughly the same length down the Pacific Coast of Baja California). Andrew and I have cleaned the bottom and the propeller of the slime and marine growth that collects while we are at anchor. I have checked the rigging and topped the oil in the Lister air-cooled diesel engine. Kathleen has been re-organising the stowage so we have the emergency sails and other gear readily available and stowing provisions so they will keep well and be reachable. Andrew has been doing odd-jobs around the boat. He and I will rig a floating line from the bow that will rub along the waterline for 30 minutes each day to keep gooseneck barnacles from forming, we hope. But Vilisar is already quite well prepared because she is a stout ship and built for just this sort of voyage. The one job I need to complete is the writing of the Float Plan. It will be emailed to Kathleen’s sister in Los Angeles. If for whatever emergency reasons we set off the 406 MHz EPIRB device, the Coast Guard centre in Maryland that monitors these signals will call Vickere for the F.laot Plan. Sure hope we never have to do that.

We shall blog if we can when we get to The Galapagos.



ACAPULCO
Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, Sunday, 19 March 2006

We have approached Acapulco with some amount of trepidation: we have heard that it is cruiser-unfriendly and expensive. Our ordeal of trying to anchor in the inner harbour and then finally having to take one of Angel’s mooring buoys confirms our worst fears. Now we shall have to pay for the mooring buoy AND pay to go ashore at “La Marina” ($8 and $5 per day respectively). Not much unless you consider the state of our finances or compare it with the cost of a slip at the Club de Yate, the old-line and reportedly stuff Acapulco Yacht Club. Just landing your dinghy there costs $30 per day.

We are tired, irritable and a, curiously, little depressed after our uneventful overnight motorsail down from Pampanoa. Every overnight voyage involving watch-standing is like the first morning of a camping trip: you have still not settled into any routine; your tent has leaked in the night; your bed was hard; and you ask yourself as you stand beside the breakfast campfire with smoke blowing into your eyes while you drink your first cup of strong, sweet tea – you ask yourself, “Why in the name of everything I hold dear did I ever consent to go camping!” We are used to this now. We recognise the symptoms. So we don’t rush to get ashore. We nap during the first day and get to bed early the first night. When daylight of the next morning arrives everything looks much more cheery.

This second morning is the day that Kathleen’s mother and sister arrive at the airport so we are eager to find out how to get to the airport. We talk to Al on S/V Morova a couple of times before saying farewell: he is leaving from Acapulco today for Costa Rica and then the Galapagos Islands. We also meet Victor on S/V Procrastinate out of San Francisco. Nomen est omen, he has been hanging around Acapulco for several months before heading south. Partly he is getting some stainless-steel work done but partly he is just procrastinating, he tells us laughing at himself. Vic is a fountain of information about the town, and gives us instructions about getting most of the way to the airport without actually taking a cab. He also tells us the real price for a cab back to the marina when our guests arrive and warns us to negotiate; the cabbies will ask for twice the going rate.

We set out on a Costera bus that runs all along the waterfront right round the bay, up over a mountainous pass and down the other side with a view to the right over Bahia de Marquéz and ahead to the hundreds of miles of beaches running south-southeast, the new town of hotels and condominiums and, in the distance, the airport runways. Unfortunately, the local busses do not run all the way out to the airport, he tells us (we find out later that this is not actually true), and we have to get off in the village of Marquéz. After spirited negotiations we pile into a cab in the street that runs behind the wall-to-wall beach palapas. Fifteen minutes later we are inside the terminal. Vickere arrives first after her red-eye flight from Los Angeles via Dallas and Kathleen, Senior, arrives an hour later from Baltimore. Another round of negotiations with a cabby and we are headed back to the Old Town. Like all Acapulco cabbies and nearly all Acapulco bus drivers, Juan drives like we are in the Rally Montecarlo.

Our general plan is to spend a couple of days in Acapulco to see the sights and then head over to anchor off the beach in Bahia de Marquéz so we can swim. That is also where we shall stay until Andrew arrives in two weeks. We are just as close to provisioning stores there and we are also halfway to the airport too. You don’t have to pay to anchor either.

In the end our visiting firemen decide that some sightseeing is enough, but as soon it threatens to turn into work they would just as soon take a pass and do nothing. So we take our leisurely morning coffee aboard Vilisar, and go ashore to look around in town. First we go to the big Mercado Centrale. Instead of a single covered market as we have experienced elsewhere, however, we find that Acapulco’s market is street after street after street of stalls. Our rough plan is to pick up a few supplies, have lunch and then head for the Mercado Artesenia, the souvenir market.

The Mexican mercados have lots of Taquererias (taco stands) as well as other counter-restaurants that serve more elaborate stews, soups, etc. They are usually very inexpensive, the tortillas are made right in front of your eyes and the food is cooked by the lady serving you. Often, in fact, there might be several generations of the same family working there or just hanging out.

In a darkened passage between rows of stalls, we come upon one restaurant where a lady of about 60, the grandmother perhaps, is sitting in a plastic lawn chair in the aisle next to a red plastic tub half full of water. In it sits a plump baby of about six months or less. It’s her bath-time. Behind the nearby counter is a young man who is salting down several trigger fish to make a bacalao-like dish, his mother (I assume) who is cooking and serving the customers, and his aunt (I assume) making corn tortillas by hand for our meal. The tortillas that come with your stew, are still piping hot and much thicker than the machine-pressed tortillas from a bakery. Those latter are as thin as paper and taste roughly the same. These are delicious. The mother of the baby is also around and breast-feeds baby after she comes out of her bath. Baby’s mum appears to be about 16 years of age. I think we have four generations of women at this counter-restaurant. But this is not at all unusual. The workplace here is the family hangout.

We pick out things on spec from pots. I am fairly experimental and point at one saucepan of gravy. I ask what it is but do not understand the answer in Spanish. It is dished up with rice and frijoles. Basically, it seems to be bundles of flowering cilantro with a bit of ground red meat all swimming in a very spicy, red gravy. When I ask what it is after I start eating, the lady says in English, “Mule!’ This rather dampens my appetite, I must say, but I finish it off. I think eating bunches of cilantro flowers has turned me into a burro. Kathleen, Jnr, chooses shrimp cakes that are very dark and so spicy that she cannot get them down. Despite not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, she leaves it on the plate. Our farewells are noisy and involve the whole family. Only baby stares at us poe-faced

By the time we leave I have taken everyone’s photo, thy are all (except baby) nodding and talking and laughing and looking at the digital photos, and we have been temporarily adopted by this market family. Visiting a Mexican market is so different from your average shopping drudge to the huge and impersonal supermarket back home where you never talk to anyone until you get to the checkout and then you exchange only a few grunts. “How are ya today?” “Fine. You?” Yepp! Good. You want paper or plastic bags? Do ya have a discount card?”

Our shopping tour takes us to some fruit stalls and then we spend an hour or so wandering around in the heat and the crowded noisy side streets trying to find our way to the Mercado Artesenia. The day is advanced now and the sun is beating down. I suspect the temperature must be around 90º F. We walk around the market district, and ask directions of uniformed bus line officials (they say we should take a taxi!) The guidebook is no great help. Neither are passers-by who give us totally confident directions that we are either not following accurately or are completely useless anyway. They never seem to agree with each other anyway. Eventually we take a bus back to the Zócolo (central plaza) where a man named Feliz picks us up, and offers to guide us to the mercado we want. His sister-in-law holds a stall there. Feliz is a grandfather at fifty-one. Thirty years ago he worked for three years in the logging industry of Pennsylvania. This is incredible since he is quite petite. He is charming and speaks excellent English. He helps us the whole afternoon for a tip as we separate.

By the time we leave him it is dark. While the ladies go to a restaurant, I dally at an internet café. Over dinner near the Zócolo we watch folklore dancers and wannabee pop-singers on a stage. The costumed dancers are cute; the singers are excruciatingly bad. Singing out of key is both a technical problem for Mexican singers (they pitch too chesty and slide up and down the scale). But it is also a cultural thing. It’s the style. Everyone has had enough for the day, and we decide we don’t care if we see the cliff divers.

After a slow start the next morning we slip our mooring buoy and move off under headsails and under the awning. Around the bay, around Punta Bruja (Witch Point), into Bahia de Marquéz, sail down to the beach at the far end and find an anchorage. It’s a holiday weekend (Constitution Day and Benito Jaurez’ birthday). The beaches are packed – and I mean packed - and the waters are full of sea-do’s, water-ski boats and towed bananas. Vilisar is being buffeted constantly and rolls around a lot. But there is not much one can do about it. Mexican boat drivers seem to enjoy using anchored sailboats as a slalom course.

After drinking gin & tonics and playing canasta all afternoon, just we row ashore before dark to find something to eat (and more tonic for our Ginebra [gin]). We are unsuccessful at the second task but we do find an acceptable though not outstanding meal at a palapa. We watch the tail end of the sunset and enjoy the balmy breeze we while eat our fish dinners. Back out at the boat I smoke a cigar and read on deck while the ladies get ready for bed and talk for an hour or so in the main cabin.

MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES; ANDREW’S ARRIVAL; FUEL AND WATER
Bahia de Marquéz, Guerrero, Mexico, Wednesday, 29 March 2006

Making hay while the sun shines

Back aboard Vilisar after Kathleen’s mother and sister return to their worlds so far away in Los Angeles and Baltimore, our financial pinch swims back up to the top of our consciousness. We take the bus ashore and head into Acapulco by bus to pick up supplies and visit an internet café (there isn’t one in Marquéz). The bus ride up over the mountain pass and down into the bacy of Acapulco is spectacular, at least. And the ride costs only 8 pessos (for 10 pesos, we find out later, you can jump in a collective, a regular taxi that runs standard routes and picks up and lets down passengers on the way. Two things occur in Acapulco that restore our picture of the city and help out the pocketbook.

We are waiting for the return bus to Marquéz at a bus stop on the COstera. A man comes up and begins to engage us in conversation. “Hi! How are things? Having a good time in Acapulcop?” In other words, a Vaquero for time-share presentations. We know the lingo now and, anyway, he is wearing a shirt with the name of a holiday resort chain. WE have each other cased real fast. We are now “playing the game”, as it’s called in the trade. He gets a commission for bringing sheep to the shearing. In return we get come financial incentives as well as some gifts. Normally these guys work for only one marketing team. But of course, “playing the game” for them means finding a a lamb willing to visit a lot of presentations. He has his buddies amongst the other touts and they can cut a deal. Our job is to set our price. We very quickly get ot $ 150 for the pair of us. He will pick us up the next morning an d his buddy will pick us up two morningns later. One day after that the first guy (I shall leave their names out of this) will take us to his second presentation. Eadh one should bring us $ 150.

And the first one really does. The hotel actually pays us so we don’t have to chase after the tout. Our confidence increase, we go to the next two only to find that we have to chase after our money. No luck. But in the end we wind up with one hundred and fifty bucks, some Tequilla, two t-shirts and a bundle of irritation about being scammed again. It has cut into my time for working on the boat before Andrew gets here and before we leave for the Galapagos.

The second manna-blitz comes via the internet. I happen to be on line when a translating agency in New York City is looking for someone to take on a largish job. I get the nod that should be worth about $ 1,500! I spend five or six days aboard Vilisar with a little office set up under the awning in the cockpit and grind out the work. It’s from a legal practice in German and I actually know some of the guys by name. In fact, one of them now has his office in the same street where I had my office as general manager of Frankfurt Consult so many years ago now. Small world! I find also that I can get intermittent wi-fi-internet access right from the boat. That really saves time.

If the agency pays me promptly, we can afford to buy the airline tickets for Antoania nd Wiliam to Ecuador. And we can refuel and reprovision for the trip.

Andrew’s arrival

Yesterday, 28 March, Kathleen heads out to the airport and picks up Andrew. So happy to see him again! And glad he will be crewing with us to Ecuador! Although he crewed with us to Alaska in 2002 and was aboard in 2003 as we sailed British-Columbia waters, now nineteen, he has not been aboard Vilisar since he was sixteen. He always had summer jobs back home. He has turned into a young man.

He was carrying a small backpack with his few essentials and a huge heavy army duffle bag with all the stuff we asked him to bring with him: a digital-camera chip-reader; oil filters for the engine; cruising guides and books on the Galapagos and Ecuador that Kathleen had ordered on line while she was in Germany. He also brought me some cargo pants, crunchy peanut butter and a few other important items. He also comes with his personal update of what’s going on in his life. In return we try to introduce him to Canasta. After one round he collapses into bed. They just don’t make them that rugged any more!
He and Kathleen headed into Acapulco by bus today for him to look around and, of course, to leave me alone to finish my job. I am writing this while I wait for them to get back so Kathleen can proofread my work.

Fuel and water

Tomorrow we will take delivery of diesel fuel and agua purificado. On the first day that we rowed ashore we met Armundio, He is a fisherman with a little terrace restaurant right at the top of the concrete dock. I asked him if there is any other fuel dock than the Club de Yate in Acapulco: sailboats have to make an appointment fro refuelling since they take up space that big power yachts could use to spend money on diesel fuel. Amundio said he could ferry jugs of diesel out to us in his panga and water as well. We are all set up to do this tomorrow, Thursday. He says we should be at the dock at 0700, i.e. before the wind picks up. He has some 50-litre plastic jugs and we can hoist them onto the deck and siphon the fuel into the tanks. We are used to pouring jugged water into the water tanks. We will hire him and his boat for Pesos 100, the water will be the local price of Pesos 16 (no deposit on the jugs) and Pemex diesel costs currently about Pesos 5 per Litro. We will bunker about 300 litres.

Andrew and I were at the dock as agreed with Armundio at 0700 yesterday. I thought his friend was going to bring a pickup down for us to get diesel form the Pemx station out at the main highway. He showed up with an old VW “Beatle”. Nothing daunted we stow three 50-litre plastic jugs on the rear seat. One of them had no lid and looks pretty old; I am sceptical and speak to him about it. “Oh. no! They’re fine!” Pepe exclaims. I stay silent. The other two look all right. We finally find a screw top and off we zip in best Mexican racing car-driving style. In his youth Pepe was a bellboy at one of the big Acapulco hotels so his English is not bad and I learn a few new expressions in Spanish from him during the white-knuckle ride. AT the Pemex station, the attendant hands Pepe the hose and he reaches in and fills up the three tanks to a total of 150 litre and Pesos 805. Back w go to the doack, With a handcart we move the three jugs to the endge and Armundio brings his panga around and heaves them aboard. Out at Vilisar they are heaved up on the bridge and the fuel siphoned one jug after another inot our two tanks. The old red jub has some leaky creases near the top and makes a mess. The inside is dirty as well and I am glad I used the filter-funnel for that jug. On the sieve at the end are leaves and dirt particles that I am l=leased have not made it into the tank. Bank we go for another load.

After a second round I pay Pepe Pesos 200 for the use of his car and jugs (the price agreed by Armundio with his friend Pepe). At 0930 we see that the water truck has arrived at the dock and Armundio and the driver are loading thirteen 5-gallon bottles of agua purifacado into the panga. Armundio brings it out. The water costs a reasonable Pesos 14 a jug. WE havge agreed to pay Armundio Pesos 100 for his organisational skills, his help and his panga. Except for the dirty jug, everything has worked smoothly. Since we do not have enough cash on hand to pay for the all the fuel and water, the VW bug and Pepe and then pay Armundio, he says, “No problem. You pay me when you have dinero. No problem.” A sweet guy. Always barefoot, about fifty and, not easily ruffled or harried, always with a ready smile. One of those guys who make Mexico so pleasant to visit.

Bernard aboard S/V Honu showed up solo from Zihatanejo on Thursday after an overnight passage. He was able to sail the whole way except for the last twenty miles when he hand to motor as the wind came around from the east. He will stay a night here and then moor over in Acapulco. Then it’s off down the Mexican coast to Central America and eventually to Ecuador by the end of June. We get together in the evening for a meal together and a few beers. Unfortunately I drank too much while I was getting the stir-fry ready and had a big head this morning.

I get my big translation done and send in the invoice. This will pay for the kids’ flights to Ecuador. Too bad I cannot seem to get online by wifi here in Bahia de Marquéz any more. I’m connecting but can’t download the pages. So I had to go all the way into Acapulco by bus to find an internet café.

Today, Saturday, we have been working on Vilisar and may not go to town. Right now (1300) both Andrew and Kathleen are asleep below. I’m getting hungry. Time for a peanut butter sandwich.