My parents are some pretty hearty folks, but they like to get away from cold, windy plains of Wyoming each winter for my Mom's birthday in late January.  Typically they choose someplace tropical and we make a family vacation out of it.  For this years' trip, we all decided to meet up in Huatulco for a week of snorkeling, sailing, fishing, and chowing down on Mexican delicacies. 

There aren't many good anchorages after Acapulco, but I anchored up by a few small points of land and spent a few rolling nights to avoid having to do lots of night sailing.  While I'm sailing single handed at night, I end up taking consecutive 15 minute naps with a scan of the horizon between each.  This allows me to safely spot other vessels or changes of course in time to take corrective actions, but it also doesn't allow me to get a particularly good night's sleep.  Thus, I try and avoid it when I've got a relaxed timeline and the weather is reasonable.  

So I slowly trucked my way down the coast.  The ocean was choc full of turtles.  I bet I saw 200-300 during one day alone!

There were also some incredible sunrises and the whales and dolphins got pretty fired up about them as well.  

One evening in particular, I was sailing along through some really calm weather and i was sleeping up in the front of the boat, which is rare while I'm underway.  All of a sudden, I heard these odd whistling noises.  I figured it was some electronic thing acting up and I was worried that something was on the fritz.  I poked around through the instrument panel and couldn't find anything, and eventually I popped my head up through the front hatch.  All around the boat there were small dolphins weaving and bobbing through the waves around me.  I ducked my head back down into the boat and realized that the whistling noise was coming from the dolphins!  They were having a late night chat with me!  Perhaps I was conjuring it, or I was loopy from lack of sleep, but I could've sworn I heard some clicking as well. 

Eventually I pulled into the town of Puerto Escondido.  The anchorage had really marginal protection from the swell, but the town was really fantastic.  Thus, I happily spent a few days exploring the town, eating Tlyudas (like an enormous beany quesadilla filled with steak and other goodies), and listening to good live music.  PE is half fishing village and half tourist destination that gained popularity due to it's great surfing.  I had a great time cruising up and down the beach and ate more than my fair share of roasted smokey plantains.

During my time in PE, a friendly Canadian man by the name of Jim swam out to the boat to say hi.  He was spending a few months in town and had spent a good portion of his life delivering boats all around the Caribbean.  We shot the shit for a while, drank a handful of beers, and decided that he would join me on the day sail down to Puerto Angel - about 30 miles down the coast.  

In all of the tens of thousands of miles of sailing he had done, he'd apparently never caught a fish, and we promptly fixed that.  In fact, during the first hour of sailing, we caught at least a half dozen fish and decided to stop trailing a line so that we could focus on mixing micheladas instead.  

We had a gorgeous day of sailing and eventually we pulled into the idyllic cove (and beautiful town) of Puerto Angel.  Its a classic Mexican fishing village and was relatively unsullied by tourism which was refreshing.  I had planned to meet my parents in PA and thus, I had a full week to hang around and enjoy the sights, sounds, and flavors of the small town while I waited for the day of their flight.  I rowed into the beach each day to use the internet and eventually had a pair of palapa restaurateurs competing for my business.  I never ordered anything that was more than a couple of dollars, but they were each eager to outdo the other and I had some really incredible meals because of this.  They were always quick with a cold beer and a complementary salsa, and eventually they just realized that I was alternating between the two of them each day. 

Typically I have to move on a few days after getting to a town, so it felt good to put some small roots down.  By the end of my time in PA, I had gotten to know a good number of people.  Folks would stop me in the street and say hi or ask me about my plans.  They apparently don't see many cruisers in the harbor, so everyone was curious about the hairy gringo on the sailboat.

Eventually the time came for my parents to arrive, so I took my first real shower in 3 weeks and I took off in a taxi to pick them up from the airport with my new friend Hugo the cabbie.  We stayed at a cute little hotel in PA and had a glorious seafood dinner at one of the competing Palapas that night.  One of my favorite dishes in Mexico (oddly enough) has been the garlic soup.  They use chicken broth typically and they aren't afraid to really load up the garlic.  Along with some killer shrimp, a bowl of ceviche, and a grilled mahi fillet we had a great dinner and made an early night of it.  

The next day, we all piled into the superhighway and zipped a few miles up the coast to explore the town of Zippolite.  Zippolite is a very unique place - its decidedly a tourist town, but it isn't your typical tourist town.  It's full of hippies, nudists, partiers, and creepy old men.  There is no place without surf to land the dinghy, so we anchored her up just outside the surf and we all dove into the water to swim to the beach.  As soon as we emerged from the surf, a beautiful topless woman sauntered passed.  Eyebrows were raised and we elected to find our way to a palapa for a midday michelada and some people-watching.  Between lunch, playing in the waves, more than a few beers, and a lap up and down the beach, we felt like we had adequately "seen" Zippolite and decided to cruise back down to PA.  

My parents hadn't yet been introduced to the glory of Mexican roadside roasted chickens, so we rustled up one of those for dinner after some snorkling.  The next morning, we woke up fairly early to sail down to Huatulco.  The weather didn't quite match the forecast, and the wind was coming from exactly the direction we were hoping to go.  We did some tacking, some motorsailing, and zigged and zagged our way towards Huatulco.  Normally I'll average about 6-8 fish a day while I'm cruising and trolling a line, but on this day, when we were all really hoping to catch fish, we didn't get a single bite on the trolling line.  Around midday, we saw a big school of tuna feeding on a bait ball and the wind had fallen silent, so my Dad and I sped off in the superhighway to see if we could manage to hook one.  I'm not sure what hit the line, but it hit hard and immediately broke the lure off.  It must've been a shark or something very large, but we'll never know.

As we got closer to Huatulco, the swell continued to build (a Tehuantepecker had been blowing over the last few days) and it was working against a 1-2 knot current that we had been riding for the latter part of the day (which makes the waves build even more).  By the time we were five miles out, the wind had fallen to almost nothing and the swell had gotten outrageous.  The waves were 12-14 feet high and very close together, with some of them breaking over the top which made for some really tenuous sailing.  I hand steered the last few hours of the day, with my mom and dad holding on tight and scouting for really big ones.  It was a little mixed and one wave caught us from the side which pitched the boat over about 45 degrees.  

They were great sports about it and while I'm sure it was a bit of a scary experience for them, I think it also reinforced what a great sea-boat the Rascal is.  She rose to all of the waves like a duck, with gentle motion and a minimum of drama.  They were the biggest seas I've seen since I got to Mexico, and a good reminder of the ugly situations the can quickly occur in the Tehuantepec.  We checked into the marina and took a cab to an absolutely gorgeous condo where we spent the rest of our stay in Huatulco.  

The only downside of this condo was the view - really terrible in all directions.

We spent the next day running errands - getting a rental car, shopping for food and drinks for the week, checking the boat into the marina, and exploring the town a bit.  I was able to introduce my parents to the wonders of Oaxaca cheese - which is something like the string cheese we have in America, except 10-100 times as long, twice as delicious, and braided into an elaborate pattern.  We also went snorkeling at a little cove that was adjacent to the condo.  There were all sorts of interesting fish, but a good portion of the coral seemed to be sick or dying.  Regardless, it was a perfect little cove and we had a lot of fun splashing around and drinking beers.

We decided to head into town to explore for dinner and it turned into a culinary extravaganza.  The town of Crucecita, which constitutes the majority of the Huatulco area, is centered around a big town square.  There are dozens of restaurants and bars radiating out in all directions, so we parked the car and started walking.  We got a few drinks at a promising looking bar and then decided to continue our stroll until we came across an al pastor restaurant.  Al pastor is a kind of marinaded pork that is a tiny bit spicy, always juicy, and typically quite cheap.  Its cooked in a similar manner to a gyro or a doner - where they stack all the meat up on a big vertical spit, rotate it in front of a fire, and then shave off meat from the outside as it sears.  Because of the appearance of this vertical stack - its often referred to as a meat tornado - which is, of course, an apt description.

So we got a bunch of tacos to share, and because of their enthusiasm for Oaxaca cheese from earlier in the day, we also got a bowl of queso fundido with al pastor mixed in.  It was just as decadent and glorious as I had imagined and my parents were in seventh heaven.  My only gripe with this great restaurant was a bit of trickery they play to entice people in from the street.  

Beers in Mexico are basically always 12-15 pesos in a gas station or a convenience store.  A little less than a dollar in most cases.  At pretty much any restaurant, beers are 20-25 pesos - perhaps $1.50 on average.  Its quite rare to see a beer for as much as 30 pesos and you almost never see a beer for less than 20.  This al pastor restaurant, however, was advertising 15 peso beers!!!  "What an incredible deal," we thought!  "We better head on in there and drink our weight in those things," we thought.  But when these 15 peso beers arrived, we were totally crestfallen.  They were tiny beers.  They were just 6-8 OZs and we felt like we had been totally duped.  In retrospect, this trick had been played on me before with similar amounts of consternation.  

Our stroll continued until we came upon a place advertising "Argentine Tortas".  This piqued my interest and a big wood-fired grill out front with lumps of sizzling steak sealed the deal.  It was a tiny little restaurant, decorated with pictures of various world leaders eating big sandwiches, and we decided on an arrachera torta and a "mixed" torta that had two types of sausage, steak, and pork leg on it.  We were expecting a lot based on the grill and the decor, but when they arrived, we were blown away.  They were absolutely DELICIOUS.  They even had chimichurri as a condiment.  The grillmaster came by our table as we were finishing up and he was impressed to learn that this was our second dinner (our desert, we decided) and we realized that this wouldn't be our last torta of the week.  

The next morning dawned with a calm ocean and a nice breeze, so we decided to cruise further east along the coast to checkout territory that we hadn't seen on the sail from Puerto Angel.  We brought the snorkling gear along, and planned to do some fishing as well.  We had a lovely sail and my dad landed a gorgeous pompano that we decided to keep for dinner.  

We decided it would be best grilled with butter and garlic and that exactly what we did.  We even had some potatoes and veggies to round things out.  

Sunset that night didn't disappoint and we had a great evening chatting with other folks and drinking wine by the pool.  

The next morning, we went out to a big, delicious breakfast of chilaquiles, entomatadas, and enchiladas.  We needed to fortify ourselves to provision the boat for the next few legs of my journey.  Thus, we spent the rest of the morning bouncing around to different grocery stores and stocking up on canned goods and other things that didn't require refrigeration.  By the time we had it all loaded onto the Rascal, she was sitting a little lower in the water and we were all sweaty and exhausted.  A couple beers and a quick swim in the pool cooled us right off and we departed to the airport to pick up my brother!  He was a little late in joining us because his company, Wedgies, had partnered with The White House to do live polling on the internet during the State of the Union.

We cruised on down to a beach that was close to our condo and had a few snacks in a Palapa restaurant to get Porter warmed up to Mexican living again.  We ended up in the main square of town again and had an absolutely stupendous dinner - with steak, squid, and shrimp - at a slightly more upscale restaurant that looked down across the throngs of people milling about.  Everything was delicious and we rounded out the evening with a bunch of Popsicle from a street vendor that was meandering around.  

The next day was dedicated to more snorkeling, some beaching, and lots more eating - in true Haney fashion.  We covered some really interesting territory up and down the coast and searched out a few beaches that were a little more secluded than others.  Heck, we might've even enjoyed a few beers.  

We even found time to relax by the pool and take in another sunset.  

The next day, we decided to try and explore even further east along the coast and after about an hour of driving, we came across a tiny village and an absolutely gorgeous long beach.  We spent a bunch of time walking, playing in the waves, and just soaking up the rays.  

In fact, we even had a couple breakfast micheladas in a little palapa by the beach and were surprised to find that they were the tastiest of the whole trip!  Eventually our stomachs started grumbling like they always do and we worked our way back to town for a big lunch.  The "Oaxacan platter" was a glorious thing to behold, with everything from tamales to cecina represented.  

You'd think that we wouldn't even be hungry for dinner after a lunch extravaganza of such stupendous proportions, but lo and behold, the siren's song of the Argentina torta restaurant lured us in again and we tried the "bife de lomo" version this time around - which was flavorful, succulent, and perfectly cooked.  By now, you've probably noticed that Haney family vacations revolve primarily around eating, but lest you think we're completely single-minded, we also took in a glorious sunset that night.  

My stove on the boat runs on kerosene, which is safer than propane, but also quite challenging to find in out-of-the-way places like Huatulco.  There is some sort of other fuel in Mexico called "petroleo" which translates as oil, but seems to work well enough in the stove, but nobody around town had it.  There was one last place that we needed to check, and it happened to be in a big market, so we decided to have a big breakfast while we were there.  We were barely able to get a table at one of the dozen food stalls and there was a lot of hustle and bustle around the market.  We were unable to find any kerosene, but the breakfast was top notch.  It consisted of some entomatadas, a big beef soup, chicken with vegetables, and chicken with beans and onions with fresh squeezed OJ all around.

During our sailboat excursions in and out of the marina, we noticed a few little secluded beaches that didn't appear to be accessible from the road through town.  Thus, we decided to pile the whole gang into the superhighway and zip out to investigate them from the sea.  After a little bit of motoring through some light swell, we made a beach landing and found the beach to be gorgeous and secluded, but a bit too wavy for snorkeling.

Another Tehuentepecker was blowing out in the gulf, so the swell continued to rise and we decided to drop the superhighway back off in the marina and head east to see what it was doing on the big beach that we were so fond of.  The waves had grown quite large and there was a big current pushing through which made the body surfing conditions pretty exciting.  We powered through however, and spent a while lazing around, playing cribbage, and eating more beach-side delicacies.  Porter continued to lose cribbage games left and right and I skunked him more often than not.  

By the time that evening rolled around, the waves had gotten completely out-of-hand and looked a lot like they did during our initial sail in.  We saw a few boats bashing through the swell and we didn't envy them one bit.  

There was an old lighthouse pretty close to the condo, so we decided to hike up there to see it and take in the sunset.  The views were magnificent.  

My parents had to leave the following day, so we decided there was only one reasonable meal to send them off with - the al pastor, queso fundido, argentine torta combo.  And that's exactly what we did.  

The next morning we decided to hang around the condo and do a little bit of snorkeling in the cove to cap off their trip.  The weather (as always) was perfect and there were a few little pangas moored there.  

After a quick shower and a shave, Porter and I shuffled them off to the airport, and they returned to cold, snowy Wyoming.  Porter had an extra day so we decided to make the most of it.  

Porter volunteered to take care of weather and routing for my next few long passages, so we poured over pilot charts and weather models and decided how I wanted to route my way through.  I'll be sending him location updates as I cruise along and he will send weather updates each morning so nothing catches me by surprise.  We went out drinking and carousing that night and got into some more delicious food in Crucecita.  Porter also managed to lose another few cribbage games and I'm finally ahead of him in our overall lifetime tally.  

A nice guy from the marina had spent a bunch of time calling various hardware stores in the area and he finally found some petroleo for my stove in a town that was about an hour to the west.  It ended up being close to Zippolite, so Porter and I made a big morning of it, with breakfast on the beach, some "sight"seeing, a few micheladas, and the glorious procurement of 20 liters of precious petroleo.  

Sadly, the time had come for Porter to return to the states as well and I dropped him off at the airport.  It was a delicious, exciting, whirlwind of a trip.

I'm totally free right now.  Free to do whatever I want, whenever I want.  Nobody is depending on me for anything.  I don't have any bills to pay.  I don't have any job to get up for in the morning.  If I want to go explore a deserted island, I can go and do it.  If I dig into a good book, I can lay around and read all day.  My life is entirely my own and that's an incredible feeling. 

There is a stretch of water in the far south of Mexico called the Gulf of Tehuantepec.  Most of Mexico is very mountainous, but the land that adjoins the "T-pec" is mostly low sand dunes.  Thus, all of the trade winds that blow throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf tend to funnel through this 100 mile stretch of dunes and accelerate out into the Gulf of T-pec.  The gales created by this phenomenon are called Tehuante-peckers* and are notorious for their exceptionally high winds, frequently exceeding 60 knots.  These Tehuante-peckers will often blow for as long as a week or two before a weather window opens up to allow for a safe crossing of the 200 mile wide gulf.  
*I didn't just make this up, people actually call them that.

About a week ago, I was looking through my pilot charts (charts that show the average wind direction, speed, currents, etc) for the voyage south.  I was specifically curious about the T-pec and, after scanning a bunch of other pilot charts, I realized that it was statistically the most dangerous stretch of my voyage between Washington and Chile.  I didn't expect this result and it got me thinking.  

For the last year, I've been planning to explore Central America on my way down to Chile, with stops in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.  I know that this is a beautiful stretch of coastline and I'll be able to meet up with a bunch of friends, likely spending a lot of time on the beach drinking beer and generally having fun.  But there has been something nagging at me from the depths of my subconscious for the last few months as well.  

I've been sailing around in Mexico since June.  It has been beautiful, relaxing, and delicious, but it hasn't been challenging, new, or mentally stimulating.  At the outset of this trip, I felt constantly challenged by navigation and I was learning new skills every day.  During my time in Mexico, I feel like I've slowly been stagnating.  

Thus, I've made the decision to cut the Central America portion out of my trip and take a much more direct route to get to Chile.  With this plan, I'll sail directly from Southern Mexico to the Galapagos (1000 miles to the south which ought to take me about two weeks).  From there I'll sail directly to Easter Island (2000 mile to the south west, 3-4 weeks) and from there directly to Puerto Montt, Chile (2000 mile to the south east, 3-4 weeks).  I feel fortunate to have the freedom to make such a major change like this.

This new route has a number of advantages:
1) It will save me time - instead of 7-8 months more sailing, I'll hopefully complete the rest of the voyage to Chile in 3-4 months.
2) It will save me money - I would've spent a lot of cash goofing off in Central America for months on end.
3) It will allow me to reach Chile before winter arrives in the Southern Hemisphere - I won't lie, I've been looking at pictures of people back home skiing pow and its slowly killing me.  I can't wait to spend a winter in Chile.  
4) It's a safer time of year to make each of these passages - there are fewer incidences of high winds and gales in the southern ocean before the winter months.  

Most of the passages I've made thus far have only been a couple hundred miles, so these longer passages will be an interesting test.  I'll need to manage food and provisioning for extended periods.  I´ll need to keep the boat moving in the right direction for weeks on end, without help from anyone else.  I'll likely run into some nasty weather along the way and there will be no port where I can stop and hide.  These are all risks that I'm ready to accept and I'm confident that I have the proper skills, knowledge, and equipment to make the sail safely and in good style.  

While I'm away from land, I'll have contact with my brother via sat-text for weather routing and he'll be able to update my location-tracking page as well.  If you're interested, you'll be able to follow my progress day-by-day as I inch my way south towards the promised land.  

Thus begins the next chapter in the Voyage of the Rascal.  I'll give ya'll an update when I get to the Galapagos!

I ended up hanging out in Zihuatanejo for the holidays and shortly after Christmas, my friends Nicola and Kim flew down for the trip to Acapulco.  There were a number of "firsts" during the trip south, including a dolphin-funk-jam-session, a three-person-hammock-chill, and an American-themed-New-Years-Eve-dance-party.

I spent the last couple weeks of December hanging around Zihuatanejo and I really grew to love the town.  Nearby Ixtapa has been heavily developed into a tourist haven, and while Zihua also has its fair share of tourism, it retains a fishing town charm that feels much more authentic than most ports on the Pacific coast of Mexico.  Its also filled with delicious restaurants and a vibrant nighttime public square that hosts multitudes of food vendors and lots of live entertainment.  

I feasted on everything from steak tacos to chicken tamales to roasted plantains to ham and cheese covered hamburguesas.  Everything in the public square was delicious, fresh, and cheap!  

You've perhaps noticed that it is very rare that I include a picture from around town.  I do this to avoid looking like a dumb, gringo tourist.  While there is no getting around the fact that I'm a honky (I did my best with that mustache!), I see lots of ignorant American tourists down here that have no understanding of Mexican language and culture as well as none of the common courtesy that strangers in a strange land should have.  I think that walking around with a big camera danging around my neck leads to less genuine interactions with folks on a day to day basis and throws me in the same category as the ignorant tourists I despise so much.  

I did, however, carry my camera along in my backpack one evening to try and catch the sunset over the harbor.  Huatulco is surrounded by big hillsides and I climbed one that was east of town late one afternoon.  I found myself at the top of the hill with plenty of time to spare, and sat down on a bench on the side of the road with a handful of taxi drivers that were waiting there.  We struck up a conversation and I learned quite a bit more about town.  There was a little tienda close by and I figured a cold beer wouldn't hurt.  I asked the cab drivers if they wanted anything and everyone was steadfast about not drinking beer, but one guy asked for a coca-cola.  I came back with the supplies and out of the coke guy's pocket came a little tiny bottle of rubbing alcohol.  My eyes got real wide and he mimed the action of mixing it with his coke.  They all agreed and explained just how delicious this dubious combination was.  In the end, he just used it to clean his windows.

One of my old coworkers from Black Diamond happened to have a house a little way up the coast and he was kind enough to invite me to spend Christmas with he and his wife.  Chris spent ages as the VP of sales for BD and has just recently retired.  Their place down in Troncones was simple and beautiful and the view from their back porch was tough to beat.  We spent Christmas Eve night chowing down on delicious chicken mole at a local restaurant, drinking beers and margaritas, and generally carousing around town.  We woke up to find that Santa brought us some swell during the night.  

We spent the morning surfing and eating chilaquiles and then went up into the hills a ways to visit a little ranch that a friend of his owns.    They were kind enough to give me a ride back to Zihua and we went out to the Rascal to enjoy a few beers.  Their hospitality during the holidays was much appreciated, especially so far away from home!

My friends Nicola and Kim flew into Mexico City and ended up taking a night bus down to Zihua.  I picked them up around 7am and we really hit the ground running.  After filling up with a big local breakfast, we hopped in the superhighway and powered across the bay to a beach on the far side.  It was a really hot day and some swimming was just what we needed.  A couple of beers  and rum drinks also helped to beat the heat.  We eventually worked our way back to the Rascal and kept the theme alive with more rum drinks and a diving competition.  

The girls brought me all sorts of awesome gifts, including a huge two person hammock to replace the one I had broken a few months back.  After another couple of rum drinks, we decided that we could probably even fit three people in it.  Lo and behold, we were right!  They even brought an American flag themed Captain's hat.  If that's not up my alley, I don't know what is!

It just happened to be Kim's birthday that night, so after a quick siesta, we went into town in search of a big seafood feast.  We walked around and explored for a while, found a stand that sold cheap micheladas by the liter, and eventually settled into a beach-side restaurant.  The dinner was delicious, with lots of guacamole, some killer shrimp tacos, an astoundingly good shrimp soup, and a big plate of beans and cheese.  Details of the rest of the night are hazy, but I do recall some dancing to the band that was playing in the public square as well as a few late-night roasted plantain snacks.  I also briefly picked up the nickname Pancho Villa after the Mexican general that reportedly had several wives.

The next morning came way too early and we went into town to provision for the week.  With a stop at the big public market as well as the ordinary grocery store and the liquor store, we were fully stocked and the Rascal was fully ready for the adventure of the coming week.  The first day's sailing was short - just 10 miles to the village of Petatlan.  There was a glorious sunset that night and we enjoyed it with a few cocktails on the front deck.  

I have, never in my life, met girls with such a deep love of cheese, and since Kim is a pescatarian, we decided that a big cheesy shrimpy pasta dish would be just the thing for our first night at anchor.  We paired it with a beautiful starry sky and made a fairly early night of it.

There was (what appeared to be) a nice gently sloping grassy hillside right next to our anchorage, and we decided we should probably walk up it to catch the sunrise the next morning.  You could even make out a few game trails up the side and some cattle grazing.  There was no obvious spot to land the dinghy so we had to do some improvising, and the girls were really helpful in hauling the superhighway up on the rocks.  

After a few minutes of trying to work our way up from the beach, it became clear that this wasn't the friendly grassy knoll that we had envisioned.  The game trails were sparse and petered out quickly and everything was totally soaked in dew from the night before.  

The girls were good sports, however, and we powered through the tall, steamy grass towards the summit.  

The view of the estuary and out into the sea beyond was gorgeous, and well worth the arduous climb.  

We eventually emerged at the bottom of the grassy jungle with scratches, scrapes, hitchhiking burrs and brambles, and a few stubbed toes.  A good long soak in the restorative, cooling, salt water set us straight and we soon departed for our next port of call.  

We decided we probably ought to listen to funk all day long and before we had made our first mile to the south, we were surrounded by a big pod of dolphins.  We had just learned one of the eternal truths of the depths of the ocean - dolphins love funk music.  

Kim and Nic even had a romantic "Titanic" moment up on the bow.  

As you can imagine, with James Brown belting it out over the speakers, and a cooler full of beer, we had a pretty arduous day.  

The funk was also successful in "calling in" all sorts of other sea life and we saw whales, jumping stingrays, sea turtles, a sea snake, and Nicola caught the biggest fish of her life on the handline, a Sierra!

She was also unfortunate enough to learn a second eternal truth of the depths of the ocean that afternoon - fish love to poop on beautiful women.  

We pulled into our next port - a tiny fishing village -  just as sun was setting and we took the dinghy in to see if we could get into any trouble.  We got swamped a bit on the dinghy entrance, but managed to haul it up on shore with reasonable aplomb.  All of the restaurants were closing down and the little town appeared to be pretty dead.  As we prepared to head back out to the Rascal, the swell seemed to build a bit.  We devised a plan for pushing back out into the surf that involved the girls pushing until the water got up to their jorts, some hasty rowing, and lots of crossed fingers.  The first attempt was a complete and utter failure and a huge wave broke right over the top of the Superhighway, totally swamping us and soaking everyone to the bone.  We quickly retreated to the safety of the beach.  

On the second attempt, we realized that the motor was our only option and we all prepared for war against the swell.  With the dinghy empty of water, our adrenaline pumping, and our jorts still damp, we went at it with reckless abandon.  The girls ran like a team of huskies into the whitewater and the engine fired on the first pull.  I put the pedal to the metal and gave 'er all I had.  We all turned, just at that moment, to see a big dark form looming over the top of us.  We all dove forward to try and balance the boat, and the wave absolutely pummeled us.  Water was up to the oarlocks, but the trusty Tohatsu held its ground and we eventually barged our way out beyond the surfline.  It was a fairly traumatic experience, but there were no broken ribs, and the girls went to work pumping out the Superhighway while I prepared cocktails and a big dinner of steak sandwiches with extra caramelized onions.  

The next morning, we got an early start to do some fly fishing around the point.  Both of the girls managed to land good sized tuna's on the fly and one of them swiftly got turned into a sushi breakfast!

Our sushi feast had all the fixins and it fortified us for a big day on the water.

We had elected that this day (New Years Eve) would have an American theme and the girls broke out matching American flag bikinis.  No American themed day would be complete, however, without a steady supply of beer.  We were wary of another dinghy landing attempt, so I motored them into the surfline and they swam the rest of the way with a dry bag to carry into town.  It was like watching a couple of "Rosie the Riveter"s storm the beaches of Normandy.  It's too bad I didn't manage a picture of them climbing out of the surf, because it was a hell of a sight and it brought a patriotic tear to my eye.  I think the Mexican guys sitting on the beach were even more overwhelmed than I was.  A couple of minutes elapsed, and they emerged from town with a full payload of frosty cold Victorias and smiles on their faces.  I dodged in with superhighway's motor blazing, picked them up amid the whitewater, and zipped back out to the Rascal unscathed.  

We listened to a lot of country music that day, drank a lot of beers, and caught an unreasonable amount of tuna (at one point, the girls even caught two at the same time, which is, of course, every fisherman's dream).  It was truly a day for the record books, and any red-blooded American would've been proud of us.  

A ceviche dinner and a nice sunset rounded out our glorious New Years Eve afternoon.  

We sailed all through the night and welcomed the new year with a couple shots of Raicilla.  I was on watch through the early morning hours and there was an enormous pod of dolphins that joined us for more than an hour.  The moon had set at that point, so the only light was from the stars and the phosphorescent trails of the dolphins as the swirled and twirled around the boat.  There was a pair up by the bow that was celebrating really hard, leaping ten or fifteen feet out of the water and doing big flips!  You could see the bright trail of phosphorescence as they built up speed and then you could see the starlight glistening off their bodies as they took to the air, and then a few seconds later, you could hear a big splash as they reentered the water.   It was truly incredible.  

After the silence and beauty of the open ocean, the arrival in Acapulco was totally overwhelming.  We tried to stick to anchorages away from town, but even those were super crowded because of the holiday.  There wasn't even a place to leave a dinghy on shore, so we had to flag down pangas or swim if we wanted to go in for a walk or a meal.  

We spent most of the day lazing around the boat, reading our books and watching the melee of jetskis and motorboats all around us.  We also managed to enjoy a glorious dinner on the beach for Kim's last night.   

The next morning, we packed up and took a taxi into the main part of town to grab a leisurely breakfast and throw Kim on a bus back home.  Nic and I threaded our way back to the anchorage through heavy traffic and managed to grab a bunch of provisions on the way.  We spent the next three days relaxing on the boat, exploring different anchorages around Acapulco, and nursing a cold I had developed and a touch of food poisoning that Nicola came down with.  We also spent some quality time with Gary the Gator, everyone's favorite flotation device and electric guitar.  

I'll leave you with this breathtaking shot of Nicola's Zen-quality long-pouring skills.  

​The Rascal and I have been through a lot over the last two years: high winds, electrical fires, spilled beers, raucous parties, breaking waves, and more than a couple hammock naps.
 
I’ve put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into her and she’s reciprocated with thousands of miles of carefree sailing.  She’s protected me during horrific storms and she gently rocks me to sleep every night.
 
She led me to a simpler life, with less clutter and less waste.  “Things” and “stuff” don’t matter to me anymore unless they enable me to have beautiful experiences. 
 
While the Rascal feels like a part of the family, she’s still just a “thing” in the end and its time to let her go.  She’s given me the freedom to live my dream and I have no doubt that she’s ready and willing to help someone else fulfill their dream as well. 

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The Rascal is a Seafarer Tripp 30.  She was built in 1960, right at the beginning of the era when fiberglass was introduced.  In that day and age, nobody understood just how strong fiberglass was, and as a result, she is built with the thicknesses and construction that you'd expect in an older wooden boat... which means shes strong as a bull.  She was built in Holland and imported through New York, so though she is branded as a Seafarer, she was built in an industrial shipyard in Europe.  Shes covered in brass fittings and accented with lots of rich, varnished wood.  The sails are exceptionally heavy duty - they were made by Schattauer Sails specifically for offshore cruising and they have never even popped a stitch.  The engine is a Volvo Penta 2002 (18hp) diesel and overall it has been really reliable, with plenty of space around the engine to work.  

She is currently located in Puerto Montt, Chile.  The perfect starting point to explore Patagonia, sail north through Latin America to the Carribean, or sail westward to the islands of the South Pacific.

Construction

• Exceptionally thick fiberglass with glassed-over hull to deck joint
• Keel-stepped aluminum mast with steps attached
• Lead full-keel with cutaway forefoot and keel-hung rudder
• Bronze portholes and lewmar front hatch
• 90 liter integral water tank
• 90 liter integral diesel tank
• Teak bulwarks and bronze stanchions
• Stainless steel solar panel arch

Propulsion

• Volvo Penta 2002 Diesel (18hp) with less than 2200 hours
• Huge sail inventory – Mainsail, spinnaker, genoa, working jib, jiblet, storm jib, storm trysail, drifter
• Monitor windvane, new in 2014

Electronics

• VHF Radio (built in and handheld)
• 100 watt solar panel with voltage regulator
• 80 amp Balmar alternator
• 110V inverter
• Weather station with windspeed, barometer, and indoor/outdoor temp & humidity
• Numerous USB and 12V outlets
• Depth sounder
• Outdoor stereo
• LED masthead and anchor lights

Interior

• Gimbaled kerosene stove
• Bronze hand pump sink
• Well insulated ice box
• Head with holding tank
• Wood-fired stove with several ventilation fans

• Built in chart table and extensive storage cabinets

Extras

• 9ft Achilles hypalon dinghy with 4hp Tohatsu 4 stroke outboard in great condition
• Lots of tools, spare parts, emergency supplies, 6 person offshore liferaft
• Cushions, covers, dodgers and shades
• Ground tackle: 45lb CQR, 22lb Bruce, 15lb Danforth, 50m of 5/16 HT chain and 200m of heavy duty nylon rode, 440m of floating shore-tie line

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I'd be happy to answer any other questions you may have or take close up pictures of any part of the boat.  Thanks and happy shopping!