Viva la Xcalak

Wednesday, March 5, 2003

018-16.800 N
087-49.860 W

Ahoy from the one horse town of Xcalak, Mexico!

The last time that your intrepid cruisers reported in we were waiting for a weather window to make the run up the coast to Mexico. The pass at San Pedro wasn't usable so we moved to Cay Caulker to escape the rocky anchorage and then moved to Long Cay where there's a pass through the reef. Note, this isn't a cut, it's just a low spot in the reef. We cleared the pass seeing 8.5' of water, but had 5'+ of swell. That was pretty scary as the trough of a 5' wave drops you 2.5 feet, so that meant that we had about 6" of clearance over the reef! Since we crossed no boat has crossed there and they've all gone all of the way back to the English Channel off of Belize City. And that's a long haul!

The forecast was for 10-15 Kts with 3-5' seas. We saw 20-25 kts with higher gusts and the seas, which were on the beam, were running 4-6' with regular 8 footers thrown in. Some of the big waves were breaking, and when we encountered these breaking seas, we got drenched. I must admit that I was getting quite concerned about entering Xcalak with these seas. The wind and seas diminished around Reef Point but then the seas picked up as we approached Xcalak.

The Rauscher Cruising guide book does a poor job of describing the entrance range marks, only describing them as light towers. There's a tall white lighthouse and when you're on the prescribed course of 283T you'll easily see a yellow and black light tower in front of the lighthouse. Keep these lined up and favor the N side of the cut. We surfed in on 6' seas, some of which broke into the cockpit. This took a lot of quick hand steering. Steve, from Alegria, met us at the entrance and I was really worried about surfing down and running him over. We dodged one another and once inside we swung to the north and anchored in 6' of sand.

Xcalak, which is pronounced Ish-Ka-Lock, is truly a one horse town. This has to be one of the most laid back towns that I've ever been in. Nothing happens here. There are a few little stores, a lot of dilapidated buildings on sandy roads and a navy post. It's quite amusing to see armed men guarding a couple of ramshackle buildings. I mean, just what's in there that needs guarding? Well, I guess that it's something to have the men do. They do have a high speed patrol boat that they fly up and down the coast in. I have to laugh as the first thing that they do when they get into the dock is to hook up a TV antenna!

The town really stands out when you're out at sea as the government installed 6 large win generators which was supposed to supply power to the town. In typical Caribbean/Central America fashion they didn't do maintenance and they only worked for 2 months. Now the town has power twice a day from 6:00 to 11:30.

Our plan had been to pull in hear, clear into Mexico and then escape as quickly as possible so that we wouldn't get caught inside the reef if the seas built back up. As the saying goes, the best laid plans often go astray. The port captain didn't show up for 2 days and now the seas are very high, so we're stuck. Luckily we met another boat named Alegria (who road out the storm in the West End of Roatan, Honduras with us) and we've really been enjoying their company. They've been over a couple of times for dinner & drinks and today we're playing dominoes.

Just before 7 this morning I heard the sailing vessel name Extasea calling the port captain. He had just tried to come into the cut and a large wave caught his boat, rolling it and turning it into the reef. He was *just* able to get it turned around, avoid the reef and headed back out to sea. He lost his dinghy in the process, but I later recovered it. He cruised back and forth for 4 hours and just decided to try again. Sue & I were in the dinghy when we saw him heading in. On a regular basis the entire cut had waves breaking in it. Luckily he hit a lull and made it most of the way before a large wave caught him and almost carried him into the reef on his left side. I was standing in the dinghy chanting "Come on baby! Come around...turn right!" Ever so slowly he turned and cleared the reef. His timing was perfect as just after that the entire cut was awash in breaking waves. My adrenalin was pumping and I can't imagine what his was like!

Hopefully we'll be out of here soon. These 20-30 kt winds don't show up on any charts, but it just has to calm down. Once we can get out of here we'll head to Banco Chinchorro for some diving.

-- Geoff & Sue
Log ID: 342