Hualtulco

Town Square
near the marina

625 miles from La Cruz.  This morning we start our crossing of the Gulf of Tehuantepec, traveling from Hualtulco to Puerto Madero, the last stop in Mexico. 

The Tehuantepec is very well known here in Mexican waters.  It is the home of fierce gap winds respectfully called T-peckers.  T-pecker winds originate in the Gulf of Mexico, shoot 200 miles across the narrowest part of the country, through a gap in the Sierra Madre, spilling out into the Pacific.  It's a granddad of a gap wind, often reaching out two or three hundred miles with gale force winds capable of sinking ill-founded vessels. 

I'm a little apprehensive.  We are crossing at a favorable time of the year, but one never really knows for sure.  Also, our engine gave some trouble coming down from Acapulco.  I began knocking horribly.  I thought we were throwing a rod or something, so we shut it off.  It was at night, and we had no winds at the time so we were just bobbing along in a favorable current.  I was hoping we would get wind in the morning and we could sail into Hualtulco, but they didn't come up.  The current was carrying us into the Tehuantepec, not a good thing, so we tried the motor at low rpm's.  I knocked for a while, then quieted down.  We upped the revs and made port just fine.  We think the noise was caused by bad fuel that we may have picked up in Los Hadas.  When getting fuel I tapped the very large fuel tank and heard the echo that an empty tanks makes.  We probably were getting the dreggs of fuel that had been there for a very long time.  I ran the fuel polisher to clean it up, but apparently did not run it long enough.  I have changed all our fuel filters and run the polisher for a long time, so hopefully the engine will be ok.

As one of the dock guys here says: "Hasta bye-bye".