The Haney Family Does Huatulco

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.

Beach soccer games every evening

To beach their fishing pangas, they cross the harbor, floor their outboards, and ram them onto the beach at 30 miles an hour to get them to climb up the sand

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.  

There we were - feet in the sand, gazing out across the turquoise waters, bellies full of Mexican seafood delicacies

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.

General Saladana with his beer

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.  

One of Porter's rare victories

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.  

Pictures never do it justice

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.