Back to Chacala

It was a great sail back north towards Chacala, and we are treated to dolphins!

Once there we were able to hook the anchor back at our favorite spot near the small beach for landing our dingy. We caught up with some friends on the sailing vessel Good Rain for a day hike to the volcano. Everyone talks about hiking to the “volcano”, but really it is just a big grassy depression with grazing goats not hot lava. It had been many years since we did this hike, and the most direct route to get there is no longer accessible (at least we weren’t lucky enough to talk the guard at the gate into letting us pass through). It took us a bit of backtracking to find our way, but it was a beautiful hike with some nice views of the bay and our boats at anchor once we got up high enough.

We spent the day with our good friends Frank and Patsy at one of our favorite beachfront palapa restaurants. We wiled away the day with great food, drink and conversation. Banda music is very popular here (and many parts of Mexico), an it never ceases to amaze me how loud a full horn band can be at someone’s tableside. It is loud enough to stop all conversation until their set it finished, paid for, and they move on. We have at times considered paying them to stop playing (at least until the end of our current conversation).

Now this guy sang with passion! It seems this picture would make a good meme, but I’m not sure what it would say.

While at the beach Frank and I decided to share a plate of fresh oysters. They were some of the best oysters I’ve ever tasted!

I was, with much effort, able to talk Jim into trying one. We had a bottle of tequila at our table, so I put an oyster in his cup with some tequila and hot sauce and told him to knock it back like a shooter. As is plainly evident in his expressions he did not enjoy it at all—I guess he should have just ate it off the shell.

Patsy and I are never happier than when the “dona guy” comes by

We all decided to dinghy back to our boat to enjoy the sunset with more conversation and sundowner—we were not disappointed

One drink in the cockpit turned into several and before you know it, it was dark.

Things always seem to go sideways when someone has to pee overboard…So Frank asks for permission to relieve himself at the bow of the boat. A few moments later he says, “hey guys, come check this out”. I let Jim and Patsy head forward first to let me know if it was safe for me to “check out” whatever was so interesting. As it turns out there was a lot of phosphorescence in the water this night, and with all the fish that hang out under the boat there was quite a light show in the water. (If you’ve never seen it, it is quite amazing seeing fish swim around in lots of phosphorescence looking like torpedoes of light zipping through the water. Even flushing the toilet at night can be a wonder as you stare into the bowl while pumping water through thinking how much the phosphorescence looks like stars in the night sky.) All of a sudden Jim says, “watch this!” and he does a cannonball over the side of the boat to present us with an even bigger light show. Eventually we lost interest in the phosphorescence and went back to the cockpit where the evening was winding down.

In the middle of that night I woke up and noticed Jim was on the deck with our spotlight.

Me: What’s going on?

Jim: I think I had my passport and wallet in my pocket when I went swimming last night.

Me: Doesn’t your pocket have a zipper on it?

Jim: Yes.

Me: Was it zipped?

Jim: No.

So at 2:00 AM we went out in the dingy with our spotlight, and headlamps on in hopes that it may have washed ashore to be deposited on the rocks or beach in a tide that was just starting to go back out. First we rowed around the perimeter of the rocks without any luck. Then we got out and walked to the beach to scour the shoreline and surf. We came across one of the restaurant owners who was out on the beach picking up cans and trash. He hadn’t seen it, but told us which restaurant all lost and found items from the beach were sent to so we could check back later in the morning when everything opened up. We didn’t have much hope of actually finding it, but we had to check in the off-chance of finding it. We did get some sleep later that morning before discussing what our new plans would be.

Best case scenario at this point was that the wallet and passport had either been washed out to sea or buried deep in the sand beneath our boat never to be seen again. In his wallet were our main debit and credit cards which would need to be cancelled, however, there is no way to receive their replacements here in Chacala. Fortunately, we had some pesos on board and decided to pull out as many pesos from an ATM as we could before cancelling our cards while I continued to monitor our bank accounts daily. We also had an emergency credit card on the boat that we don’t carry with us. Frank is a diver with some gear onboard, so he came over and did a grid search on the sand beneath and around our boat. He also wasn’t able to find it noting that there was quite a strong current on the sea floor (a current that will become important later in our story).

While the possibility of Jim’s wallet and passport ending up in the dishonest hands of an identity thief isn’t a good feeling, financially we figured we would make it home just fine. The passport was another problem altogether. You are supposed to report lost or stolen passports immediately for them to be flagged by the government. As cruisers we carry copies of our driver’s license, passports, and birth certificates with us, however we wondered if we could enter the US with only photocopies, particularly if the passport had been flagged as lost/stolen (as our regular readers will recall we do not have the best luck in crossing the border into the US with any degree of ease). We decided to head back to Mazatlán where there is a consulate office to begin the process of getting a replacement passport, (I’m glad we chose heading north instead of going back to the closest office Puerto Vallarta which would have put us too close for comfort to Hurricane Agatha) and Frank and Patsy decided to buddy boat back to Mazatlán with us, (this journey is a story for our next episode).

Back to that strong current under the water at our anchorage. We noticed that the currents were definitely different this time around in Chacala because of the twisting motion of the boat and the strain on our stern anchor. (a stern anchor is typically used in an open anchorage when the direction of the wind is likely to put you sideways to the swell of the ocean. Your bow anchor keeps you from floating towards shore, while the stern anchor keeps you pointing in the most comfortable direction—at least that’s the goal.) We had no idea how much stress and chafe our stern anchor was under until I happened to look at it one morning and noticed that it was 2/3 broken through. Crisis averted. Jim was able to do an end to end splice on the rope to repair it so we were able to continue using it for a couple more days while we were awaiting our weather window to sail to Mazatlán. We wondered if this strange and strong current was isolated to our location, or if the other boats at the other side of the anchorage were experiencing it as well. It is hard to say, but Frank and Patsy had a stern anchor issue there as well. The morning we were scheduled to hoist anchor and sail south we noticed that Frank’s and Patsy’s boat was sideways to the swell (not so uncommon once you bring in the stern anchor), but their dinghy was back in the water after being lashed on the foredeck in preparation for sailing. We knew there must be a problem. Turns out their stern anchor had cut all the way through under the water down near the anchor. This of course happened at two in the morning making for an uncomfortable and sleepless night for them. Fortunately the anchor was buoyed so they were able to retrieve their anchor (with considerable effort) first thing that morning. After a slight delay of returning their dinghy to the deck we were off towards Mazatlán on a journey that none of us expected or hope to go through again. But as I said, that is a story for next time…