Malagueña
THE VOYAGE OF THE MALAGUEÑA
This article is about my trip aboard the vessel Malagueña from La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico to Cartagena, Colombia in 1993.
I placed an ad in several yachting magazine and also answered several ads of people looking for crew members.
The most interesting offer I received was from a retired Coast Guard officer, who was planning on taking his boat the Malagueña from La Paz, Mexico to Maine via the Panama Canal.
After some correspondence with him, I flew down to La Paz to check things out. I was prepared to be gone for six or seven months if everything looked OK. The captain had owned Malagueña for seven years during which time he had spent thousands of hours and dollars preparing her for this voyage to Maine where his family lived. The total crew including the skipper were five. The skipper's girlfriend had lived aboard boats for a number of years. The other couple on board, Juniper and Lance were college students from Arizona. They had no previous sailing experience.
La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
I knew that Malagueña was a power boat not a sail boat but I really only had a vague notion of what she was really like. Soon after boarding Malagueña in La Paz I wrote the following in my journal.
"Fifty or more boats dance about their anchors in Bahia de la Paz. The ebb and flow of the tide causes them to point north and then turn in unison south. At the head of the pack is le grande dame Malagueña. She looks out of place among these sleek sailboats headed south to the tropics. A North Sea trawler twenty-five meters in length, she belongs in the frigid seas of the Baltic where she was born in Norway. The small boats around her are made of fiberglass, she of Norwegian Pine; they have sails for power, she has two diesel engines; they have small dinettes which convert at night to berths, she has a dining room for ten, a wet bar, and a dumb waiter from the galley. They are low in the water while she has three decks topped by a pilot house loaded with charts and electronics for navigation. They have to conserve battery power, she has generators to spare which power creature comforts such as TV, VCR, stereo, washer-dryer, refrigerator-freezer, microwave oven and a water maker.
What all of these boats and their crews do have in common is the urge to go to sea. What is this urge men (and women) have to leave the comforts of land based living to go to sea in small boats? Is it the same urge that makes men climb mountains? I think it is to seek adventure. To be free as possible from governments, conventional lives, common comforts, is this the motive? I think it is partly this and a certain satisfaction in braving the elements. And finally there are no new places to be discovered except within ourselves. "
For those of you who may not be familiar with boating terms such as port, starboard, forward, aft, galley, head, etc., I’ll use more conventional terms. Basically she had three levels and we'll start our tour with the downstairs. The downstairs in the front consisted of four separate crew cabins, a bathroom, the kitchen, and the engine room. Downstairs in the back of the boat was a large stateroom belonging to the Captain.
The second level of the Malagueña consisted of the living room which was about five meters by six meters in size. The living room contained three sofas, several lamps, a TV and a VCR. The dining room consisted of a nook and table that seated about 8-9 people. It also contained a wet bar and a dumb waiter to the kitchen below.
On the back of the boat on this same level there was a patio area that consisted of another nook and table. This area was open air but shaded by the upper deck.
The upper deck consisted of the pilot house from where the boat was steered. It contained a small berth, chart drawers, the steering station, and all of our electronics for navigation. The electronics included an auto pilot, two radar sets, a Satellite Navigation system, a combination Single side band-HAM radio, a Loran navigation system, and two VHF radios. Behind the pilot house was a large open deck approximately 7 meters by 6 meters in size. While the boat was out to sea, this area was used two store our two dinghies (or shore boats) which consisted of a Boston Whaler and a 4 meter aluminum boat.
We immediately set to work preparing the Malagueña for our trip. There was lots of sanding and painting, installation of new electronic gear, provisioning, and the gathering of charts. We worked about four hours a day and spent the rest of the time relaxing. Quite often we went ashore in the evenings to spend time in La Paz.
There were about a hundred sailboats anchored in the bay. I was impressed with their sense of community. Every morning on the VHF radio all of the boats talked on what was called the La Paz Cruisers net. One person served as moderator. The net consisted of weather, the arrival and departure of boats, boats looking for crew, people looking to swap boat gear, mail call, etc. This system was continued throughout our trip over our HAM radio.
On February 7the we departed La Paz and headed in the general direction of Puerta Vallarta. At sea someone had to be on watch in the pilot house 24 hours a day. This is called standing watch. Our watch schedule was divided among three of us. The skipper was busy with the engines and all the mechanical equipment while his girlfriend was the cook. Juniper, Lance and I stood the watches. Basically our watch schedule consisted of four hours on and eight hours off. I had the 4 AM to 8 AM and 4 PM- 8PM watch. The main purpose of the watch was to avoid a collision with other boats. Our radar allowed us to "see" boats when they were over 20 miles away. The Malagueña had an autopilot so once the course was set we didn’t actually have to stand at the wheel and steer her. The main duties during watch besides watching for other ships was to keep a log as to our location, course, and speed. It's easy to imagine that another ship at sea would be visible from a considerable distance. The fact is you're lucky to be able to see another ship at 8-10 miles depending on the sea and visibility. This means that if your ship is going 10 miles an hour and the other ship toward you at 20 miles an hour you could collide within 20 minutes of first seeing each other. This also means that if you get distracted for a few minutes, another boat can get quite near you before you see it. It took us a few days to convince the inexperienced members of the crew that it was called standing watch not playing the guitar or writing in your journal.
The possibility of collision was one of our greatest concerns. We listened daily to a HAM radio net called The Central American Breakfast Club. This net was listened to by cruising boats in the entire region of Mexico and Central America. One morning we heard that a 52 foot sailboat named Clam Bake had been run over and sunk by a Korean freighter. The three people on board were lucky to have only suffered minor injuries and fortunate to have been picked up by the freighter that ran into them. Their boat sank in two minutes.
Our first day at sea was near perfect. The weather was calm and warm. We saw dolphins, whales and a manta ray. We caught our first fish, a sierra, which became the main course for dinner. My first watch began at 4 PM. During my watch, a beautiful full moon rose on one horizon while a brilliant red sunset took place on the other.
On our second day at sea we were visited by a US Coast Guard helicopter. A few hours later two US Coast Guard Cutters arrived on the scene with a boarding party. They came aboard, made a cursory inspection and departed. There has been an on going discussion among cruisers whether the US Coast Guard has the right to board a private vessel located in International waters. The boarding party was friendly but formal and they made their inspection and departed.
Our first run after leaving La Paz was ten days. It was the longest stretch I had spent off shore before. I found the rhythm of being at sea soothing. I found that I could stare at the sea for hours and there was always something happening out there. Dolphins were regular visitors. We would see a pod of them in the distance porpoising in our direction like a pack of street dogs chasing after a car. I could swear they had smiles on their faces. There were all kinds of other sea life including many sea birds, turtles, and whales.
On February 16th we arrived at Puerto Madero, Chiapas, Mexico near the Guatemala border. We had a smooth passage across the Gulf of Tehuanepec where there had been 50 mile an hour winds the previous week. Puerto Madero was an unattractive commercial fishing port. We only stayed a few days in order to buy fuel, and take on water and fresh provisions.
Our route from Puerto Madero was to head directly for Costa Rica, bypassing Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Most cruisers stay closer to shore especially along Nicaragua to avoid the Papagallo winds that blow across the isthmus of Nicaragua. In our attempt to take the more direct route we were hit quite hard by the Papagallo winds. For about 36 hours we experienced winds of 30-40 miles an hour and seas of 10-15 feet. While the Malagueña held up fine several of the crew including myself were seasick. It s the worst feeling you can imagine. Imagine suffering from nausea for 36 hours.
We survived the Papagallos and entered the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica which is marked by the skeleton of a rusting freighter ship on its side. The port there was Puntarenas.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
We spent about a week or so in Puntarenas again buying provisions. After leaving Puntarenas we spent about ten days visiting several beautiful islands located in the Gulf of Nicoya. Most of them were uninhabited.
Being at sea brings a kind of freedom that hardly exists anymore. You are totally dependent on your ship and your crew for any emergency. There are no police or fire stations to call in an emergency. You have to be prepared to defend yourself from pirates. Our policy was to not allow any vessels near us unnecessarily. One day off the coast of Costa Rica we noticed a large power boat approaching us at high speed. We immediately brought some guns topside and called the approaching vessel by radio and demanded that they identify themselves and state their intentions. This got their attention because they immediately slowed down and then identified themselves as the Costa Rican Coast Guard. After a brief radio conversation to determine who we were and where we were going, they departed.
(to be continued)
(to be continued)
