We made it across the Tehuantepec! In Huatulco

Leaving Puesta Del Sol Nicaragua after wonderful but short visit with friends, we found ourselves celebrating the new year by exchanging watches (my turn to wake up by Ron blasting a horn-- and Ron's turn to go to sleep). Fireworks were shot into the air off the coast of El Salvador for the first 20 minutes of the new year, then all was quiet and back to the business of transiting the coast on our way to Puerto Chiapas where we planned to wait for a weather window to cross the dreaded Tehuantepec. Chiapas was a new port for us and was a definite culture shock--we were in Mexico!! Lots of people on the beaches, lots of palapa restaurants and noise! A big change from the quiet deserted beaches of Central America. The anchorage was buggy but calm. Checking in was simple, a trip to the Port Captain, $20, taxi to town and the airport for 10 pesos each--the atm machimes had no money in them in Madero, thanks to the holidays, but the airport had plenty cash in their machines so we stocked up for our visit to immigration in an adjacent building to the airport where we paid the $26 per person entry fee and got our stamps in our passports. After hitching a ride with a nice Mexican man back to Madero, we found the internet cafe and hooked up to the net where we discovered we had a two to three day window to cross the TPec. Therefore that meant we had to pay our APY fee and go back to the port captain to let him know we needed to leave that same day. Another visit from the navy for drug inspection and we were on our way.
30 hours later following one foot on the beach rule(staying at the 30' depth so if a TPec were to blow we could easily go anchor and wait it out). The wind started sneaking up on us and before we knew it, we had a little TPecer so we had to go anchor once we were west of the San Francisco shoals. Funny how those winds catch you. One has to be vigilant. May I interject, the prediction was only for 10 kts of wind, and even double that would be 20 but it was much more than that. You never know with the TPec! We were really glad we kept one foot on the beach......We had a great night's rest and by the next day the winds lightened and we continued on our way, only having one small event---a bolt vibrated out of the engine letting out oil into our bilge, and loss of oil pressure. Once we added oil the engine wouldn't start so Ron had to clean the electrical contacts for the starter and then we had contact .Its always scary when the engine doesn't start!
Next day was incredably relaxing on calm flat sea and enough wind to sail with just a touch of engine. The night's open road stead was at Bahia Chipehua, an incredible sand dune area where you could literally ski to sea right into the ocean. Later we reached the Huatulco anchorages and then the marina. Let's have a margarita and a Burger!
Waiting for Erica to arrive on the 19th........................