Tsunami

Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico

Probably the scariest word in a sailor's vocabulary, especially when not at sea; instead tied up to a dock in the path of the oncoming destruction; is Tsunami!

In case you haven't heard, a major earthquake in Japan caused a world-girdling tsunami wave. Somehow, through no great planning on our part, we found ourselves in what could be the best possible location on the west coast of North America to weather this particular wave.  Mazatlan is just far enough north to be somewhat protected by the Baja peninsula, and far enough south that the tsunami was significantly lessened in severity by the time it got here.  The accompanying picture shows our boat at the peak of the event.  The only effect here in the lagoon was a somewhat accelerated tidal change.  This could not actually be felt at all in the marina but it did make for some higher than normal currents in the canals, causing a few navigation buoys to reportedly shift their positions (we were not actually sure what they were marking in the first place).  The port captain had closed the port to all traffic, so we could not have left if we wanted to, however there was little concern here in any event.

As you can see, the girls were making all of the necessary preparations as the wave approached (train dominoes are apparently very addictive).

The same luck was not experienced by many of the ports along the west coast of Oregon and California, especially at Crescent City, CA and Brookings, OR, both of which we visited on our way south last September and October.  It was very troubling to see the devastation that has occurred in these ports.  We had felt very uncomfortable in Crescent City particularly, where a tsunami in 2006 had taken out the visitor dock and was still missing when we were there.  I guess we were right to be concerned.  We are so thankful that we kept on going south instead of stopping for the winter along the way, which we had seriously contemplated when the weather got a bit rough.  One of the boats we had met at a few stops along the coast did decide to stay in Brookings due to some equipment issues, and we were saddened to see pictures of their craft amongst the carnage shown in some images we found on the Internet.  Our hearts go out to all of the people affected, and especially to those poor unfortunate souls in Japan.

Our next port of call was to be La Cruz de Huanacaxtle (more simply known as La Cruz), an anchorage and marina at the north end of Banderas Bay.  We had not left yet due to our own equipment failures - we have ordered a new hot water heater and are waiting for it to arrive, probably another week or more yet. The tsunami did affect the marina at La Cruz a little, with some damage reported at the docks, but nothing too dramatic.  The biggest issue seems to be the fact that a lot of the boats left the marinas in La Cruz and Puerto Vallarta, to weather the wave in deeper water - an approach that worked very well.  However when they wanted to go back to the marinas, the port captain had closed the port, so there were an extra 100+ boats anchored out in the bay overnight.  Not a big deal - just interesting.

Meanwhile, here in Maz we have been experiencing more of the social scene.  We joined a few other cruisers to partake of the "Art Walk".  This is an event that takes place the first Friday of every month (a week late this month due to Carnaval) which consists of a self-guided walking tour of about 22 art galleries in the old town.  Some of the art was really interesting and sometimes the buildings themselves were even more interesting.  In any case, we spent about 3 hours walking around on a perfect Friday evening and managed to visit about half of the venues - didn't buy anything of course.  One of the good things about living on a boat is the lack of temptation to buy anything bigger than a postcard since there is no place to put anything

At the end of the evening, Sue and I wound up back at the Plaza Machado for a late supper while listening to some local music.  This town sure grows on you after a while.

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