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Sunday, May 07, 2006 Pictures
of Marina Puesta del sol
   Posted by Manatee at 6:21 AM 0 comments Leaving Marina Puesta Del Sol Today at 1pm we will take a taxi to Managua (3 to 4 hour drive) and get a room there while we work on travel arrangement for the next leg of our journeys. I will take bus to Costa Rica for about 10 days. Chris, Karen, and Gary will try to catch an earlier flight home. We'll be signing off for now. Karen and her Family will return in June to begin there Family cruise for about a 15 months. By the way, I have to say Marina Puesta Del Sol is an awesome Marina. The service and facilities are great. Way better than most Marinas I've been to anywhere. Yes there is swell in the channel entrance when the surf is up but it was no problem at all. Adios Moni ---------- posted by Manatee at 5:55 AM 0 comments Friday, May 05, 2006 Manatee and Chris, Captain Karen, Gary, and Moni  There is Manatee! Isn't she beautiful?  This picture is the crew that sailed Manatee from Puerto Vallarta to Nicaragua. Chris is on the far left. Next to him is Captain Karen. Then Gary (Chris' Dad), and Moni posted by Manatee at 8:40 PM 0 comments The 5th minute of 5pm on the 5th day of the 5th month We entered the channel for Marina Puesto Del Sol on the 5th minute of 5pm
on the 5th day of the 5th month. By 5:45pm we were docked. I'm off to the pool and showers.... This place is very cool. Like a big Plantaton with a nice restaurant, pool, beach, facilities and there is awesome surf out there too. We had a delicious dinner and celebrated the success of the trip. There is an active volcano in the area but it is shrouded in ash and Vog (volcanic smog)so we can't see it. There is a large estuary with Mangroves here. Looks like nice kayaking. Watch out for the Crocadiles/gators though (maybe?). Position: Marina Puesto Del Sol, Nicaragua Moni ---------- posted by Manatee at 4:32 PM 0 comments Update 5/5/06
The water temperature is up to 89 F. The winds were very light today so we motored all day and used the sails just to stabilize the boat from swaying side to side in the swell. We had fish steaks marinated in soy sauce for dinner. The fish fillets almost had the texture of steak. It was very good. As we prepared for the night watches Karen and Chris noticed that the track on the boom that holds the main sail down was pulling up one section. We think some bigger screws may be needed. She did not want the "popping" of the sails as we rock side to side to do any more damage. We we are motoring with jib out. That seems to be working well. We have a light wind on our starboard beam that helps stabilize us and give us a little push. We are doing about 7 knots. We want to get to Nicaragua in time to clear customs before they close for the weekend. Our ETA is Friday late afternoon/early evening. Right now it is about 4:30 am and I am skirting a big squall that takes up about a third of the radar display. Conditions are good on our current course. It is very dark and there are no stars. Just some ominous dark clouds. I'm going to miss my boat routine of getting up reading, chatting, having breakfast, setting sails if necessary, reading, chatting, listening to cds, fishing.... Lunch... set the sails, reading, chatting, guitar, maybe a nap, Afternoon watch ....dinner...get some sleep and then get up at 3am for night watch until 6am then a short nap before breakfast. The toughest time is around noon because there very little shade the boat. The sails don't cast much of a shadow at noon. The decks are very hot on bare feet. Aye Calor!! Position at 10:28 GMT Moni ---------- posted by Manatee at 5:51 AM 0 comments Thursday, May 04, 2006 - Update 5/4/2006 We caught a 30 to 40 pound yellow fin tuna today in the late morning. It was exciting. It took a lot of work to reel him in. He put up a good long fight and pulled hard. When we got him aboard and got the hook off we decided to let him go because it was just too much fish for us. Luckily we caught another of the same type a few hours later. We are doing better with our fishing now that we added a lead wieght to make the jig stay a few inches below the surface as we troll. This time we did not push our luck and kept him. We had good fresh Tuna for lunch. We saved the egg salad sandwiches we just completed making and had them for dinner with homemade french fries. We ate well today. The winds are about 10 knots but the seas are so flat. We sailed with the main, jib, and mizzen almost all day doing 5 to 6 knots. We shook out the first reef and so are using the whole main. We diverted around a squall during the second night watch. Seas remained calm though with about 2 foot swells. Sometimes you don't feel like the boat is moving but we are cooking along at 5 knots. We are off the coast of Gautemala now and should be entering the waters of El Salvador tomorrow afternoon. I think we'll get to Nicaragua Friday or Saturday. We will want to enter the port in daylight. While cruising out here air is very clean most of the time. We can smell cities as we pass or approach them. We smell occasional forest fires. Sometimes we even smell the strong aromas of a passing fishing vessel (stinky). So far I've seen three shooting stars in about 30 minutes. That's more than I've seen the whole rest of the trip. The engine is working like a charm. We check the oil regularly and have to put a bout a quart in once a day roughly. The temperature and oil pressure stay pretty constant. There one other gauge called Drive oil and it reads about 160 PSI consistently . We got an email about and earthquake in Tonga that potentially could have generated a Tsunami in the Pacific. We later got another message saying the danger had passed and cancelling the warning. Well that's all the rambling I have for today. Moni Position at 09:48 GMT: Moni posted by Manatee at 5:00 AM 0 comments Wednesday, May 03, 2006 - Update 5/3/2006 Today the water was very calm. The swell was only about 2 foot. We did about 6 knots all day. After yesterdays excitement it was nice to have a restful day. The only casualty from yesterdays excitement was a portable cd player that got drenched with saltwater that came in through an open hatch. It is amazing how much speed you gain just by the lack of waves. The winds were light but it was enough to sail almost all day with very good speed. We shook the second and third reefs out of the main and flew the jib, staysail and mizzen all day and so far through the night. We got to relax and enjoy the coastline going by. Lots of reading, guitar, napping, and cooking today. The lightning is finally behind us now and the night sky has stopped flickering and flashing. Our watches were pretty uneventful except for the occasional pair of dolphins making an appearance. There is also a pair of frigate birds flying over us most of the day. I love seeing the dolphins at night with the bio luminesce. I would love to see a whale under these conditions too. We see a few sting rays jumping about three feet above the surface and slapping back down on the water. I think they do this to rid themselves of parasites. We managed to catch a small fishing boat on our fishing line today. The fisherman on that boat realized it immediately. I wonder if he heard the ratchet clicking on our fishing real. He stopped and lifted his outboard up and the line came free. After reeling in the line and checking it for damage (there was none), we dropped it back into the water. He gave us a friendly wave and speed off. Fortunately or unfortunately we did not catch anything else today. We steered thorough some water that was roiling with fish hoping for a bite. We had pancakes for breakfast and BBQ Mahi Mahi for lunch. It was delicious
and very tender. We are eating very well. We have tons of salad and fresh
fruit every day. The fresh fruit is all gone now though. I hope we make it
to Nicaragua before Scurvy sets in. ;) Also, I swear there is a direct correlation between when I start practicing on my guitar and when the engine is started. :p Our position at 9:19 GMT: 14:53 N Moni ---------- posted by Manatee at 5:10 AM 0 comments Tuesday, May 02, 2006 - Update 5/2/2006 Well, we are in the Gulf of Tehuantepic now and we've kicked it up a notch. Today started out calmly but around 1pm the winds freshened and the sailing was great with the full main, jib and mizzen. Then we caught a Mahi Mahi. Excellent! We'll have some fresh fish. We filleted it and cleaned up while hove-to under sail. We lost some ground in the process. The wind continued to increase. We put in the first reef. We saw some gusts to 30 knots with winds averaging about 22 knots. The seas were very uncomfortable. The waves were steep and boat pitched and yawed constantly. We put in the third reef and dropped the jib and mizzen. We fired up the engine and headed close to shore as night fell. We found the best course was to stay about a 1.5 miles off shore and follow it closely with the radar. We are in about 65 feet or water. We have to say alert and check our position on the paper charts often to make sure there are no rocks ahead. We tried diverting out farther to sea to go around a squall we could see coming on the radar. The seas were very rough so we headed back in close to shore. We are doing about 5.5 knots and heading due east as we follow the coast. The temperature has dropped quit a bit as well. The water temp went from about 86 to 75 F. lightning bolts are striking the water around us. There is so much lightning that it gives a good chance to see coastline for about a second during each strike. I woke up to my 3am watch with a big dousing of saltwater on my face and chest. I was pushing my luck sleeping the hatch open, but it was very warm down below due to heat from the engine. I'm sleeping under the foredeck on the starboard berth. At least I'm wide awake now ;P . Everyone is in good spirits because we found a strategy that will get us through the gulf tolerably. our position at 9:05 GMT: We picked up a few avian passengers who decided to ride Manatee for a while
they have been with us most of day today. Finally, we learned a good lesson today. While we were reefing the main in those high seas it was quite difficult. Were harnessed in and felling a little queasy and being pelted by the the waves spraying over the foredeck. We did not notice that the extra length of the main halyard had washed over the side and was being dragged in the water. We noticed it later when one of us was leaning over the side "expressing disgust at the conditions". We were very lucky it did not wrap on the propeller. We counted our blessings and endeavored to keep things tighter and more ship-shape. When things get extreme like that there is little room for error. Moni ---------- posted by Manatee at 10:28 AM 0 comments Monday, May 01, 2006 - Manatee log 5/1/2006 About an hour before sunset today we came across a giant pod of dolphins. Over the area of about a square mile hundreds of them were jumping in the air doing flips and breeching. They were riding our bow wake and swimming all around Manatee as well. In every direction for about a mile we could see them frolicking. This went on for about 20 minutes. There seemed to be two different species or types of dolphins. Large spotted ones and smaller darker dolphins. It made us wonder what they were thinking and feeling. We marvelled at their ability to keep up with us as we motored at about 6 knots. We talked about whether they would ever figure out how to communicate with humans. Their apparent exuberance was infectious and got us quite excited. Today was great. We sailed all day with the spinnaker making 5 to 6 knots. We only had to motor as sunset approached. Then at about 3 am as we began entering the gulf of Tehuantepic a nice tail wind came up and we are currently sailing with the main, jib, and mizzen. The rest of the crew get to sleep in near silence now. The atmosphere is flickering constantly. We thought it might have been our steaming light but when we shut it off the flickering continued. There does not seem to be any particular source of the light. The sky is clear and there are a lot of stars out but the night sky just seems to be charged. It is interesting that the energy of the dolphins seems to match the energy in the sky as we approached and entered the Gulf. We are watching the weather forecasts closely because the Gulf of Tehuantepic is known for sudden gales coming up and creating very high and steep waves very strong winds. The forecast indicates we can expect 8 foot seas and 20 knot winds. We can handle that. The way to make this crossing is to hug the shoreline where the swell should be smaller. Also should we need to duck into port we won't have too far to go. Our position at 9:08 GMT is: Moni ---------- posted by Manatee at 2:52 AM 0 comments Sunday, April 30, 2006 - Manatee Update 4/30/2006 We pulled into Acapulco to get diesel this morning at about 9:30am local time. Just as we were about 100ft from pulling into the fuel dock a water ski boat sped past us and pulled into the space we were manuevering for. It is a very tight area barely enough room to turn manatee around in comfortably. We had to carefully do an about face and exit the area to wait for an opening out in a more open space. As we headed out a 3 story 100 ft cruise ship pulled in and grabbed the dock. The took about 500 gallons and emptied the fuel dock tanks. We realized if we were not aggressive we would not get to the dock at all. So we manuevered back in an hovered very close to the 100ft ship for maybe an hour and finally got a place at the dock. There were out of gas and said it would be an hour more or less. Unforturnatly the one guy who runs the pumps also is the one guy who runs the boat lift. He had left to pull a boat out of the water. A few hours later came back and by then boats were lined up on the water and men with gas cans were lined up on the dock too. We were very lucky we got our space on the dock or we would have been there all day. We also had to join the yacht club with the fuel dock and sign a contract in order to buy fuel. Luckily we had the time to do that while the guy was lifting the boat. Well we got our diesel. A four hour ordeal. It is amazing that Acapulco has only the one fuel dock and it belongs to a private yacht club and can ohly dock two or three 50 ft vessels in a very tight space. We hope the ski boat that cut us off and caused us the 3 hour delay had very nice day on the water;-o We had nice winds after being so patient in Acapulco. We sailed until sunset with the spinnaker doing about 6 knots. This was what we signed up for. We had a fish on the line but our lines got tangled and it got away so we had canned tuna enchiladas for dinner. Tonight we are motoring at 5 knots with a tail wind of 5 knots = no cooling breeze. A nice lightening show though. Our position is: |
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