24th Dec 2009
Don and I left Acapulco early the next morning to sail the 212 miles to Puerto Angel – there are several bays along the way that we could pull into if we became too tired over the next few days. I am beginning to wonder if we should insist the word “sail” has a new meaning entered into the English dictionary – the new meaning being “vessel under motor” – we seem to be doing very little sailing and lots of motoring – the continuous drone of the iron sail gets annoying after a while.
After me bribing, begging and pleading, Don reluctantly agreed to pull into a small bay for the night – the rate at which we were sailing (yes actually “sailing”) meant we would reach the bay in day light, sleep overnight and be able to reach the next bay before dark the following day – it would take us a lot longer to reach Huatulco this way but I hate overnight sailing !!! I need my 8 hrs sleep every night.
Upon approaching the bay the wind picked up and White Rose came to the occasion and picked up speed – we were honing along at a great rate of knots – too good to miss out on so I swallowed my pride and agreed to continue overnight – it was pleasant sailing with beautiful moonlight. I decided to make a nice pudding to lift our spirits and give us some sugar to last through the night. I made a fruit batter that had a golden syrup sauce – I put it in a very large container and reduced the amount of syrup to prevent any spillage as the boat keeled over – humm – for the first time ever the gibles on the oven stuck and would not allow the oven to swing freely with the boat – the boat leaned over and so did my pudding, firstly 2 cups of golden syrup and hot water hit the back of the oven, ran down to the base, across the bottom and when the boat leaned again it ran out the door onto the cupboard below down the front into the hatch and into the saucepan cupboard then onto the floor, down another hatch and I suppose eventually into the bilge – a wonderful sticky mess, not to mention the hissing, steam and wonderful burnt aroma which filled the boat. I cleaned up the mess on the floor and left the rest for calmer weather. Much to my disgust the batter was next to go – the oven smelled like burnt toffee. We did eat the pudding – sailing is a bit like camping – most foods taste good even though you would not consider eating them at home – also is was very dark!!
Later during the night the winds became stronger and seas lumpy – we were bashed about and wished we were anchored in a bay for the night. We tried to enter a popular bay for cruisers – Escondido and almost made it but it is dangerous to enter any unknown bay in the dark, the depths showed deep water even though we were not too far off shore, the swell rolled in probably making it just as uncomfortable as out at sea. We crept slowly towards shore with Don mumbling and grumbling every inch of the way – the final straw for Don was the pangas (fishing boats) laying down fishing nets in the bay – getting one of those wrapped around our propeller could spell disaster in the dark on a lee shore so we turned around and headed back out to sea for the second time. Turning around was fun – the boat nearly did a “touch-down” (when the tip of the mast touches the water) – when I say nearly – Don would totally disagree and claim it was nowhere close!! The next bay was described as “peaceful and quiet anchorage” that interprets to no swell so that is where we headed. To add insult to our horrendous night, we now had too much wind and arrived too early to go into the bay – the entrance is very narrow with outlying rocks – only approachable in daylight. We rocked and rolled for hours waiting for daylight – the swell was large and winds coming from the opposite direction – real washing machine stuff – horrible – it was difficult to lie down as I was thrown off the bed. All we could do was hang on and listen to the boat creaking and things falling with the winds howling at 25 knots plus.
Puerto Angel (pronounced ankle in Spanish) is beautiful, it consists of two tiny bays lined with palapas (grass hut food stalls) and many pangas on the beach and anchored close in. The only problem was it was still bit rolly – drnks spilt and stomachs heaved.
Don was horrified that I was determined to make a plum pudding for Xmas in a rolly boat. Xmas morning I made the pudding and as it was half a recipe, cooked it for just over half the normal time – being very conscious of our depleted gas supply. We went ashore and bought some pork (chicken and beef not being available or non recognizable when shown to us) – the port chops were dinner plate size – that should have been a warning – it obviously came from a huge pig – big, old and tuff!!
We waited until the cool of the night then cooked our Xmas dinner – the pork was like boot leather – the bbq gas ran out half way through the cooking process. The pork would have made excellent soles for shoes, the potatoes had a ¼ inch black bottom – canned peas were good though!! We couldn’t believe it when the main gas cylinder also ran out in the middle of the second cooking of the pork on the stove. The wine helped the dinner taste better – it was the last bottle of wine from Adelaide – Janet’s sister Roz makes the wine from their own grapes – it was wonderful !!
The plum pudding looked rather raw so I covered it with a strong brandy sauce and
Don was non the wiser – as it was physically impossible to eat most of the pork we had 2 helpings of dessert to fill us up, then went to bed resembling big fat balloons. Oh I did get a Christmas present and felt very guilty because I had not found a hammock, which is what I wanted to get Don – but on inspecting my present I quickly stopped feeling guilty – it was a can of oven cleaner he had bought that morning!!
We knew we were heading into turtle country but had not sighted any until we heard a thump, then a bump, bump, bump along the underneath of the hull – then much to our horror a large turtle came propelling out from the back of the boat – spinning out of control. Once he straightened himself up he popped his head up – obviously wondering what on earth he had bumped into and then proceeded along his way. It was very funny. We see a few turtles every day now – appearing as large algae covered disc floating in the water
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