Taking on the Gulf of Tehenapec
Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Wed 31 Mar 2010 01:27
deep end, and take on the Gulf of T. Today it is 40 to 50 knots out there
coming over from the Caribbean funneling through a 75 mile gap in the
mountains and pushing 500 miles out into the Pacific. It averages a year
force 6 wind, and with this comes significant short waves, today it 20+ feet
out there, but it is wind waves, and the last thing you want to do is be
caught in that. It is rated as one of the worst 7 water crossings, so we all
respect this and sit and wait for the weather window, we get lots of input
and then band together as a group of boats and regularly communicate between
each other, one for companion ship but also to safe guard each other if one
has an issue eg engine problems, we can help.
We have 5 boats going on this window, :
Indian Summer: Sloop 42
Sunday: A Trim ran
Telicom: A Yawl Ketch 36
Gijima: Sloop 46
Tomorrow we will meet on our plans but basically the strategy is "one foot
on the beach" we will go about 10 miles off shore and go around the coast,
at 10 miles we still in 100 feet of water this is a shallow bay 200 miles
across. We will have many shrimp and panga boats out there which will make
the travel interesting especially at night, as if there is a weather window
everyone is out there, all trying to make a living.
The trip will be 3 nights and probably 3 day shifts we hope to pull in
Saturday catching the evening/ sunset slack tide to get over the bar and
ride the surf in this adds another challenge.
You will get updates all along and there will be a celebration as we get
into safety.
Today I lugged 40 gallons of diesel by by 5 gallon jerry jugs this involved
working with resident cruiser and his truck going to PEMEX station filling
up and then doing the same trip back and lifting them all onto to boat and
filling the tank, but we now have plenty and it is good upper body exercise.
We found a pool for the kids to play in all afternoon and this relieved the
heat and we went back to markets for dinner and picking up fresh produce.
So standby for tomorrow.