Huatulco
- Capt. Eric
- Dec 25, 2025
- 5 min read
We left Ixtapa early morning to give us a chance to arrive at marina Chahue in Huatulco before sunset the next day. Leaving in pitch dark I was careful to follow the exact track we'd used on the way in the channel. Most of the buoys marking the channel are either missing or not lit, with only the occasional one working.
Soon, after rounding the first cape, we had glorious weather. Calms seas and almost no wind, more akin to a lake day cruise than an open Pacific Ocean passage. With our hull still nice and slippery from the boat having been hauled out this summer, we were making good speed.
Once again pods of dolphins kept coming up to us. Some large bottle nose and smaller spinner dolphins. At night they traced long wakes of bioluminescence, looking like lit torpedoes heading our way before taking a sharp turn to play in our bow waves.
The day went by easily, with me doing most of the watch. This portion of the coast isn't cruised much, so we didn't see many boats. Even the often ubiquitous fishing pangas were rare, and usually closer to shore than our chosen routes.
All in all it made for an easy passage.
Towards dinner time, making good on the calm weather I decided to whip up some quick burgers.
Enfin has a real "galley" reminiscent of sailboats, with the oven and gas burners in what I deem to be the correct orientation. When freeing the gimbals, the cooking surface remains horizontal even when the boat rolls a little.
Violins further hold the pans down to prevent them from slip-sliding around.
It doesn't sound like much, but having the ability to eat well at sea is part of what makes a boat a true passage maker.
I often say keeping a normal routine around eating, showering and sleeping is the key to comfortable cruising.
The night went by equally well, with Di taking up the watch during the middle of the night so I could finally get some rest.
We've been trying a new watch system lately: We'd been doing 12 hours on, 12 hours off until now, but noticed that since we often do passages of 1 or 2 nights, I didn't get to sleep much the first 24 hours as a result. To properly get into a 12/12 rhythm, we'd need longer passages. I know from experience that I enjoy the longer watches followed by long rest periods. Yet it doesn't work for short hops.
Now, I do about 2/3rds of the watches, but Di grabs the difficult middle of the night, giving me a solid 5 to 6 hours of rest, followed by an hour or 2 during day time.
So far it seems to work well for us on short passages, and we'll have to see if we need to adjust things more on longer ones.
On top of the watch duty, Di kindly takes care of the pre-departure meal preparation as well as keeping things organized and tidy inside the boat on passage.
We contacted marina Chahue soon after departure via WhatsApp. It seems every business in Mexico uses the Meta app. The manager responded that he didn't have a slip with our required 5.5 feet draft, but would we take one with only 2.5 feet instead?
He was more than happy to send us photos.
I'm not sure how seeing photos would help us fit in a slip with no water, so we politely declined, and kept asking every other day if they'd been any slip openings. None ever appeared.
That meant we had to deviate from marina Chahue towards one of the rare anchorages in the region. We elected for Bahia Organo, a beautiful little beach just West of Huatulco, offering very limited protection to the constant oceanic swells, but still one of the best around.
Long gone are the deep well protected anchorages of British Columbia and even further North in Mexico around Baja. Here, wide bays remain open to the ocean's immensity, and you're lucky if you can tuck in behind a small cape or rock formation.
We anchored in about 25 feet of crystal clear water in front of a nice beach of coarse golden sand. All day we had panga after panga going in and out of what turned out to be a National Park.
The whole coast around Huatulco is very touristic, with many all-inclusive and luxury hotels, and many tourist boats offer all sorts of maritime activities. From whale and dolphin watching, visits of the National Park, "Banana" towing, jet-ski rentals, fishing, diving and more.
Luckily all this activity dies off at sunset and the bay calms down.
The next day we were joined in the bay by 2 other cruisers and learned we'd just missed them in Barra de Navidad where the "Ocean Posse" group had an informal meeting. It had been much less attended than previous years, with only about 1/4 of participants.
They also told us that they were a small group of 4 boats on their way to Chiapas like us, and we were all waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec, reknowned for its dangerous gales.
The next afternoon, a park ranger boat stopped by and told us no one could anchor overnight in the National Park, and we should instead move to the main commercial harbor, East of the main jetty. Of course, this was completely contrary to the written Port Captain's instructions who didn't want yachts in his commercial port and also disagreed that we couldn't anchor in the Park. Who should we believe?
Rather than be caught between 2 Mexican bureaucracies, we decided to move further East, in the next bay over, Tangolunda. We didn't want to risk either side fining us, and having to resolve any issue by having to go ashore to bounce between offices. It took us 2 days to get the completely normal and legal "Zarpe" to leave Ixtapa, so I can only imagine what could happen trying to solve unusual problems during the X-Mas to New Year period!
Tucking in behind a cape helped, but we had more swell than in the National Park. The next day our new friends from Ocean Posse joined us and assisted us deploy a stern anchor on top of our usual flopper stopper. This made a big difference, as we were able to keep the bow of the boat pointing in the swell.
We don't often use a stern anchor, this being only the 3rd time in 7 years, but we might have to think about it more (and get a larger/better anchor) if we're to continue finding poorly sheltered anchorages.
We're starting to see a weather window appear for a Chiapas crossing in a few days: I'll keep a close eye on it, and we'll be ready to jump when the time comes, well rested and ready to go.