We are on a small detour on our way to England and our new boat and home. In fact, we are heading towards Chiapas, the city which is as far south as you can go in Mexico, on the border to Guatemala. We visited this town and harbor on our way north on the coast in March, and got to know an American couple that needed some help with the rigging. By then we were sure we were going to pass Chiapas some time in November, sailing our own boat south towards the Panama Canal, but a lot has changed. From Chiapas it is about 2000 NM to the nearest rigger to the south (Caribbean side of Panama) or about 800 NM north to Vallarta as far as we have knowledge about. This means that in this case, as there are no other easy solutions of finding a rigger, we will stand up for our word, go to Chiapas to make the rig on this boat ready for cruising on to the south.
Yesterday we had our last day in the bay for this time. It was a fantastic day, starting with Champagne breakfast together with Monica, Leonie and Wolfgang, celebrating our third anniversary wedding day. We could also celebrate the official day for taking over our new boat, and if that`s not enough; we got our “like” number 1000 on Facebook – Cubaneren NOR 8620.
After the long and delicious breakfast, we took the trip in to town and joined Ian and some of his friends for a sailing trip with Cubaneren. It was not the typical San Francisco bay conditions, but a great trip in light winds.
From there we went to be tourists again. We had heard about the big trees in the Muir woods, 30 minutes’ drive north of Golden gate, and figured that was something we had to see. The trees here are spectacular, the Redwood trees can be up to 100 meters high, 7 m in diameter and 2000 years old. The related type Giant Sequoia doesn’t quite reach up on the height with their 90 meters, but can be up to 12 meters in diameter and up to 3200 years old.
Another tree story from a couple of days ago, is when we helped Wolfgang removing bark from his eucalyptus tree in his garden. Also a big tree!
We rounded up the day with a fantastic dinner at San Francisco Yacht club together with Torill, Bob and his two sons. We hope we can host you when you are visiting Norway next summer!
Chiapas is in the middle of the area that got affected by the earthquake a couple of months ago. It is said that all infrastructure is not rebuilt and we are of course a little bit curious about what will meet us. Hopefully we can be a little bit tourist too on this trip and see and learn some more about the history and the old Maya culture, we were a bit too quick in this area when we went north. Don`t expect updates here as the WIFI connections apparently are very on and off.