MARINA MAZATLAN!

Mirador  is tied up to a marina dock for only the second time since leaving San Diego almost 18 months ago. We arrived at about 7 AM Thursday, April 24 after an unplanned stop at Isla Isabella while enroute from Punta de Mita to here. We left the anchorage at Punta de Mita about 10 AM Tuesday April 22 with the intent of sailing directly to Mazatlan, a distance of about 165 nautical miles.  Things went very well until about 10 PM Tuesday night when Kathy called us from Ryokosha which was anchored on the east side of Isabella.  Kathy wanted us to know that the two harbor entrances at Mazatlan had been closed by the Port Captain and were not expected to re-open until Friday morning. 

Apparently a large and unexpected westerly swell had suddenly developed sometime on Monday.  Several boats that tried to leave the El Cid breakwater on Monday were tossed around rather badly and almost pushed onto the breakwater rocks.  The report was that 12' to 14' swells were topping the El Cid breakwater.  That entrance is difficult when any type of swell is running. 

A boat has to approach the entrance with the west swell dead behind them and the solid breakwater directly in front of them.  When the boat is only 20 yards from the rocks that make up the south half of the breakwater you have to turn 90° to port to enter the 20 yard wide mouth of the breakwater.  That puts you broadside, with high rock walls on either side of you,  to the swell for about 30 yards at which time you have to make a 90° turn to starboard to head down the 30 yard wide channel that has sand bars all along the north side.  The channel from the deep water to the breakwater entrance also has sand shoals on either side of it.

When we entered on Thursday morning there was no perceptible swell while in deep water off Mazatlan.  However, as I followed Ryokosha at a distance of 100 yards I saw the swells piling up on the sand bars and occasionally breaking half way up the breakwater.  Ryokosha and Mirador tried to time their approach to the breakwater to be in between swell sets.  However, when Ryokosha turned broadside to the swell to enter the breakwater they were caught by a five foot wave and moved sideways about 20 feet.  They also rolled about 30° as the swell broke under them.  Mirador was also caught by a smaller swell and given a firm push toward the south breakwater.

I can now see why the Port Captain closed the entrance for 60 hours. 

Lisa from the 28' Bristol Channel Cutter Metaphora was with me on the trip from Punta de Mita to Mazatlan.  Wednesday morning; Mike,  who is Lisa's boyfriend,  left Puerto Vallarta in Metraphora  for a single handed four week cruise to Hawaii.  Lisa was enrolled in a 2-week intensive Spanish language school at Mazatlan and needed a ride from PV to Mazatlan. 

She met me at Punta de Mita on Tuesday morning after taking the one hour bus ride from the Paradise Village Marina to Punta de Mita.   I was going to take the dinghy in to pick her up on Tuesday morning but she called me on the VHF from the beach and said the surf was too high for a dinghy to land or leave.  She was finally able to hire a 25' panga to bring her out to Mirador but even that boat had to wait 20 minutes for a break in the surf so they could get off the beach. 

<=== Here is Lisa playing volleyball at Tenacatita.

We had very nice sailing conditions from just north of Punta de Mita until after dark.  We used the 165% drifter with an apparent wind angle of 60° for about eight hours. 

I was a little skeptical when Kathy told me that the Mazatlan entrances were closed because we just didn't see any kind of swell out in the ocean where we were, about 20 miles off the west coast of Mainland  Mexico.  Ryokosha had been into the El Cid harbor several times and knew how bad it could get in a westerly swell and finally convinced me to stop at Isabella rather than proceeding north to Mazatlan.  The other problem with continuing north was that we didn't know when the harbor would re-open and there is no place  within 120 miles of Mazatlan that is a secure anchorage in a southerly or SW swell.

 The swells that were causing all the problems were being generated by a storm in the NE Pacific near Washington State.  The swells were rolling down the US West Coast and were 12' to 14' along the west coast of the Baja Peninsula.  When they reached Cabo Falso, the southern tip of the Baja, they refract and curve around the bottom of the peninsula and  then sweep NE into the Sea of Cortez. Refraction of a wave occurs when the part of the wave closest to shore slows down due to the drag along the bottom in the shallow water, while the off shore portion continues on at full speed.  The shape of Cabo Falso and the south part of the Baja allows the waves to continually curve SE, then east, then NE as they round the cape.  Thus we have 10' breakers at Mazatlan, 190 miles ENE of Cabo Falso.

We thought maybe we could get into the Mazatlan Old Harbor entrance which faces due South but no one knew for sure if that entrance was open and what the break was like there.  The only harbor between Mazatlan and Punta de Mita is San Blas and that bar is even worse to cross in a big swell than is Mazatlan.  So, we decided to stop at Isla Isabella and wait until we knew the El Cid bar was open again. 

The problem with going into Isabella was that we didn't get there until 1 AM, the moon didn't rise until 3 AM, I had never been in the anchorage, there were already five boats in the smallish anchorage, there are two 150' rocks that stick straight up out of 40' of water, and there are lots of big rocks on the bottom and you really only want to drop your anchor where you can see sand under your bow. 

You can see the two rocks, called the Spires, in the picture to the right.

Paul stood on the bow of Ryokosha at 1 AM and pointed his spotlight at the spot where I should drop my anchor.  He and Bob from Magic had dinghied around before dark and located a good anchor spot for Mirador.  All six boats in the anchorage were within 10 yards of at least one other boat.  But there was no wind, no swell, and no current so we had no problems.

Wednesday morning a bunch of us went snokeling around the the Spires.  The water was 77°  with at least 50 feet of visibility.  It was pretty interesting because the taller of the two spires comes straight up from the bottom in about 30 feet of water.  Paul managed to spear a nice parrot fish but then dropped half of it over the side of Ryokosha as he was filleting it.  He said it had something to do with the knife slipping and stabbing himself in the hand?

The morning SSB radio net reported that the Mazatlan Port Captain planned to open the harbor at 4 PM on Wednesday so we planned to leave Isabella around 2 PM.  It is only 92 miles from Isabella to the El Cid breakwater so we had lots of time to sail slowly NW and still arrive at El Cid on a good tide.  The winds cooperated and Mirador made a very gentle 3.5 to 5.5 knots directly on course to El Cid with seven to 10 knots of wind at an apparent angle of about 60 degrees. 

Just out of Isabella we caught a 3½ pound, 22", Sierra and therefore had fish for dinner. The great WSW wind held until after dark when the Pacific Ocean turned into a flat calm lake.  Since we didn't want to arrive at the Mazatlan Headland light before 5:30 AM the Yanmar ran at a very sedate 2100 RPM all night while a helpful current kept Mirador moving NW at 6.2 knots. 

Mazatlan is a very busy port so there was lots of large shipping traffic moving up and down the coast about seven miles west of our position.  The only interesting shipping traffic appeared on the radar at about 1 AM when a very large target appeared seven miles dead astern of us, closing with Mirador at about four knots.   I was unable to see any lights at that bearing, even when using my 7 power Nikon binoculars.  The night was clear and I could easily see the lights of other boats seven miles to the west of us and 3 miles to our north. 

I set up a radar plot on our big plotting board and kept a running plot of the ships course until it was less than one mile astern, still on a collision course and still closing at four knots.  I started hailing, on VHF 13, 16, and 22,  the boat at 3 nautical miles but never received a response. After the unknown ship was within 0.8 miles and I could still see no lights I became rather concerned. 

I used our million candle power spotlight to illuminate our main sail and then pointed the spot in the direction of the dark but scary boat.  About a minute later, when the radar target was at 0.75 miles I was able to make out a very faint red AND green light, dead astern of us.  I again illuminated our sail and shined the light at the red/green light closing from astern.  I still received no answer to my VHF calls.  Then I noticed that the radar target had started to deviate to the east.  The mystery boat eventually passed us at a distance of 0.7 miles to our east. 

It appeared to be a 50 to 60 foot trawler with some cabin lights on but ever so faint running lights.  They never did talk to me on any of the VHF channels. 

After that we had a very quiet run up the coast.  We slowed way down after passing the Mazatlan headland light at 5 AM.  We closed to within 1/4 mile of Ryokosha when we passed just north of Isla Pajaros, about a mile off the El Cid breakwater.  It was quite reassuring to have Ryokosha leading us in because when I tried to find the breakwater lights, just before sunrise, I had trouble sorting out the hotel lights, the car lights, and the breakwater lights.  And, as I described earlier, there is little room for mis-judgment with the sand bars on either side of the approach and the required hard left turn just 20 yards from the rocks.

Marina Mazatlan is pretty nice and quite inexpensive.  It is only costing me $11.60 per day to be at a nice new dock with good water but no power.  The marina has great showers, good security, a nice book trading library, and of course, horse shoe pits which are the venue for regular afternoon games.

All the Mazatlan buses stop at the traffic circle just outside the marina.  It is only 35 cents to a major shopping area and 75 cents to downtown Mazatlan or anywhere else in the area.  The buses are clean, air conditioned and come by about every five minutes.

I have renewed my FM3 Visa here and will pick up the new one on Friday.

The good news about my ICOM HAM radio is that the ICOM repair facility here is very good and fast.  They were able to quickly diagnose the problem.  It appears that salt water splashed into a digital radio is not good for it.  One of the four circuit boards showed several spots of serious corrosion where, apparently, the salt water from my "pooping episode" near Bahia San Fransisquito last September, found it's way into the radio case.  Take a look at the September 9, 2002 WEB update, click here, to read how my momentary lack of caution seems to have wrecked my radio.

The ICOM repair shop has a non-working ICOM 710 that they will try to salvadge parts from to fix mine.  I will find out by Friday, May 2, whether they were able to bring my radio back to life.

I finally got my mountain bike out of the quarter berth and have been riding it around town.  Both the bikes are in great shape, there is no corrosion nor rust.  It only took about 15 minutes to dig the bikes out and get them ready to ride.  I wish I had been this ambitious last spring and summer.

I have taken the Portabote all apart and will rebuild the seats and transom while in in  Mazatlan.  There is a good lumber store not too far from the marina and they will deliver the sheet of 1/2" plywood and half-sheet of 3/4" plywood I need.  I can't get marine grade plywood so Paul and I will seal the entire transom with fiberglass and epoxy. 

I won't be leaving for La Paz for at least another week due to all the boat projects.  And, Mazatlan is a great place to hang out.