Hi Fred,
Thank you for sharing your story about your trip aboard the Malaguena! My family owned her in the early sixties to the mid-seventies. I've been trying to track her down for years!
Andee Sherwood
Los Angeles, CA
This article is about my recent trip aboard the vessel Malagueña
from La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico to Cartagena, Colombia.
I'd like to start by telling a little about my previous sailing
experience. I started sailing about twenty years ago in Marina Del Rey,
California. At first I only sailed locally but gradually I started
sailing
in the Caribbean. Over the years I sailed to over 25 major islands in
the Caribbean. My most interesting trip in the Caribbean was a six
week trip aboard the fifty foot sailing vessel Endless Summer which
covered around 2200 miles and included stops at the US Virgin
Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Grand
Cayman. But that s another story. Later I started sailing in the
Mediterranean and over the years I sailed off the coasts of Greece,
Yugoslavia, and Turkey.
Ever since I retired and moved to San Miguel in 1990 I've
thought about taking an extended sailing trip. Last fall 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 John Carrol, 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. John 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 Tammy
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.
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.
I've passed around a few pictures of Malagueña so you'll have
some idea of what she looks like while I give you a more detailed
description. 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 aVCR. 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. 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.
We left the Gulf of Nicoya on March 16th headed south to
Golfito, Costa Rica. We made an overnight stop at Isla del Caña. This
island was a nature reserve. It was the first real jungle we had seen
and
there was also abundant sealife all around the island.
On March 21 we arrived in Golfito, Costa Rica. This was a
popular anchorage with cruisers. It consisted of a bay within a bay and
as a consequence was protected from the weather in all directions. The
shore was covered by jungle and a strange sound we couldn't identify
turned out to be howler monkeys in the trees. The most popular
anchorage there was located at a place called the Jungle Club. The
Junge Club was operated by an American couple and they catered
almost exclusively to cruising boats. The Club consisted of a huge
thatched building carved right out of the jungle. The place had all the
amenities a sailor could want. That means fuel, showers, fresh water,
and a restaurant. It seemed to me to be a scene right out of Swiss
Family Robinson. We went ashore every evening to eat in the
restaurant and talk shop with all the other cruisers anchored in the
bay.
We felt we already knew many of these people because we had heard
them talking on the radio every day for a couple of weeks. This I think
was one of the greatest pleasures of cruising. I enjoyed meeting so
many other cruisers and hearing stories of their experiences and
adventures. It was also while at the Jungle Club that we heard the
strangest of stories over the HAM net.
It was reported that a boat called California Girl had crashed
on the rocks in northern Costa Rica. What made it particularly strange
was that this happened in clear weather and they hadn't recovered the
body of the man who had been sailing the boat alone. After a week or
so it was reported that he had been found alive wandering in the
jungle.
Later the whole story came out. It seems that the skipper Bill had been
on deck taking a shower with a bucket. He leaned up against one of
the lifelines which broke and he fell off his boat. The boat had an
autopilot so it just continued to sail by itself. Bill grabbed a
fishing line
that he had been trolling behind the boat but was unable to hang on
when the hook caught him in the hand and eventually the line broke.
This all happened in the afternoon. Bill knew that he was about 10
miles offshore. By nightfall he had managed to swim to shore. When
he arrived on shore he discovered that he was in a totally uninhabited
section of the coast. It took him about a week of exploring along the
coast before he finally arrived at a small biological research station
where he was finally taken to the authorities. He must of been a sight
walking naked and sunburn out of the jungle into someone's camp.
Quite an adventure. Bill by the way was 67 years old.
Before we left Golfito, Lance one of our crew decided to jump
ship and join one of the other boats. This is not uncommon and we
departed Golfito with a crew of four.
On our way to the Panama Canal we stopped for a few days at a
couple of uninhabited islands where we fished, dove, and relaxed.
The last couple of days approaching the Panama Canal were
quite hectic. Large freighters are converging on the Canal from all
directions and it made for a lot of nerve racking time on watch. There
is
nothing quite so intimidating as seeing a huge ship looming on the
horizon and headed straight in your direction. We had a near collision
one night when one of our crew misjudged the distance of a nearby
fishing boat. Fortunately our skipper was asleep in the pilot house.
She
woke him to ask about the closeness of the other vessel. He was able
to turn our ship at the last instant to avoid a collision. Apparently
no
one was on watch on the other ship as it made no effort to avoid us.
Most cruisers we later talked with had experienced near collisions.
We anchored at the Rodman Naval Base in Panama as our
skipper was a retired Coast Guard Officer. Our anchorage was adjacent
to the entrance to the Canal and as a result we were able to watch a
stream of vessels of all shapes, sizes, and types as they entered the
canal. There were cruise ships, military ships, refrigerator ships,
special
ships hauling cars, and of course sailboats. We had privileges on the
base which allowed us to eat and drink at the NCO Club and shower at
the gym. It was my first hot shower in several months.
It was in Panama that two more of the crew jumped ship. This
left just myself and the skipper. We placed a flyer advertising for
crew
at the nearby Panama yacht club. All private yachts transiting the
Canal moored at the Club in preparation for passing through the Canal.
General Noriega's now defunct headquarters buildings was located
right next store to the Yacht Club. There was evidence of the US attack
in the form of bullet holes in this and several other buildings.
We picked up some more cew members. We were now four
Americans, a German, and two Israelis. Before we transited the Canal,
one of our new crew members wound up in the Panama City jail for
drunk and disorderly conduct the day before our scheduled transit. We
transited the Canal on schedule minus our crew member in jail.
The Canal is one of the world s great engineering marvels. It
consists of three locks on the Pacific side which raises vessels about
75
feet. When we exited the third lock we were on Gatun Lake which is
about 40 miles wide. The lake contained many beautiful jungle islands.
On the other side of the lake there were three more locks that lowered
us down to the level of the Caribbean side.
Our first stop on the Caribbean side of the Canal was Porto
Bello. Porto Bello is one of the rainiest spots in Panama. As a result
it
is also the greenest and lushest port in Panama. This small natural
harbor had seen the likes of Columbus and Drake. The Spanish used
Porto Bello to store gold and silver from the west coast of South
America. Mule trains carried goods across the Isthmus to Porto Bello.
Today there is only a sleepy little town but lots of ruins of
fortifications
built by the Spaniards to protect their gold from pirates like Drake.
Our next stop was the San Blas Islands. The San Blas Islands
(photos) consisted of hundreds of small islands covered with coconut
palms. This semi-autonomous province of Panama was populated by
Kuna Indians. Several tribes or family groups owned the islands and
have kept them undeveloped. There was only one town of any size on
one of the islands. The lack of development and the small population of
the area was responsible for the water and the islands remaining so
clean and undisturbed. The Kuna Indians were very friendly and
helpful. They sold molas which were handmade and embroidered
blouses. We spent three wonderful weeks in these islands. Most of the
time we were anchored amongst several islands that were on our charts
but didn't even have names. All of the islands were surrounded by reefs
which made the anchorages calm but didn't prevent the gentle
tradewinds from keeping us cool. We were able to dive on the reefs for
plenty of lobster and crab.
One night we had beach party on one of beautiful islands. It was
quite a setting along a pristine white powdery beach backed by coconut
palms. The meal cooked on our bonfire consisted of freshly caught crab
and lobster followed by music played by crew members on the guitar,
flute, and bongo drums. These islands were definitely the highlight of
the trip. Many cruisers we talked to said that this was one of the
nicest
areas they had ever been to with their boats.
Our next stop from the San Blas Islands was Cartagena,
Colombia. The trip was about three days of open ocean sailing. It was
during this segment of the trip that we used a portable GPS that
belonged to a crew member. The Global Positioning System consists of
a couple of dozen satellites in orbit around the earth that are used
for
navigation. The GPS allows you to have a constant fix of your position
with latitude and longitude with an accuracy of about 100 meters. We
were able to program the location of Cartagena into the GPS before
departing San Blas. The GPS constantly told us the direction to steer,
the distance to Cartagena, and our estimated time of arrival. This
device was small enough to hold in your hand. Three days later without
any sight of land in between we arrived at the entrance to Cartagena
harbor.
It was in Cartagena that I decided to jump ship. It was a
combination of factors that influenced my decision. First I was burned
out from being on board a boat for such an extended period of time.
The weather was turning hot and rainy as it was the beginning of the
hurricane season. The skipper had also decided to by pass Venezuela
and head straight north toward Florida. Another new crew was joining
the Malagueña in Cartagena and I wasn't up to "training" them in all
the intricacies of the boat. Except for the skipper, I was the last of
the
original crew. The skipper picked up new crew in Cartagena. It was an
international group aboard Malagueña when she left Cartagena. There
were three Americans, one Israeli, a Frenchman, a German and two
Norwegians.
It was without a doubt one of the most interesting trips I have
ever made. I realize that boats are not for everyone but they can be a
most interesting experience for the adventuresome.
P.S. If you've read this far, look for my post on Lake Champlain which
is my next trip from Catskill, NY to Nova Scotia via Lake Champlain and
the St. Lawrence Seaway. I'll be trying to keep in touch via my America
Online account Sailor1942.