Topolobampo
- Capt. Eric
- Mar 25
- 6 min read
The weather window worked perfectly, almost down to the minute! We left Guaymas at 6:30 in the morning, planning for a 14:00 arrival the next day in Topolobampo (TPO). During the first 3 or 4 hours once we exited the lee of the Guaymas shore we encountered some old swell that followed the coastline, but started dying out nicely after that. The rest of the trip was in calm to small seas with minor wind. Di even slept in her Master cabin since things were so calm.
The downside was that by 03:00 in the morning the fog came in. I normally do the night shift and Di does the day but I didn't wake her up because she's not proficient with the radar and navigation in fog.
In any case, even with a full license or experience, I sure never let the mates do fog transits when I was on large ships. That's the Captain's job. So, whatever her skills level, I wasn't going to get much sleep.
By 11:30 we started closing in on the outer sea buoy at TPO and I heard the Vessel Traffic Separation (VTS) on VHF declare the port closed. He then said that it would reopen shortly to let a cargo ship in. By complete luck, they reopened the port within 5 minutes of our arrival at the sea buoy.
The VTS was pretty good, with decent maritime English and he organized a small convoy of 3 boats: A large tanker (190m long) in front, a 30m fishing boat, then us. We couldn't see anything. We never saw the tanker until we got all the way in at the dock. Luckily the channel is well maintained for the commercial port, and my charts seemed very accurate for once. Not common around here. It's a long channel, about 1.5 hour from entry to marina, so it had me working hard. Eyes peeled on the radar and at the binoculars.
Visibility went from about 1 boat length (the Starlink antenna on the bow was starting to fade in the fog!) to about 0.2 mile, with patches of fog coming in and out. It was all a radar job, and we'd see the next set of buoys at the last moment. A couple of times we saw the red buoy but couldn't make out the green on the other side of the channel, despite having a clean radar echo of it. These are the moments when I love having a real pilothouse, with nice instrument displays in front of me. 4 charts using different sources and zoom levels, AIS info, solid autopilot and so on. Automatic fog horn blaring rhythmically. I had programmed my course berth to berth, as we do on large ships, so that took a lot of the mental strain away. For the most part the boat did the navigation part on its own, though I had to take over a few times when we came a little too close to a buoy due to currents. Did I mention we had cross current pushing us towards the multiple and scattered sand bars as well?
Eventually we got in the large TPO bay, with the main channel going to the commercial port, and a side channel going to the marinas. That's about where we finally came out of the fog. We got to the marina right about on time with my plan and as we were being waved in by a security guard I heard the port captain on VHF closing the port down again. Not
sure why. Certainly the fog hadn't changed in the channel, and there was still minimal visibility out there. We could see the long fog bank behind us. Maybe the commercial side got fogged in again?
In any case the port opened within 5 minutes of our arrival at the sea buoy and closed as we were docking at the marina. About as lucky as one can get. I'd have hated to have to wait out in the fog. By now the predicted breeze was coming in again, so we docked in about 20 knots of gusting winds on an easy large end tie. The perfect weather window!
A sailboat just ahead of us came in and didn't contact the VTS when entering the channel. He got asked to stop at the first red buoy and later on got told his boat would get boarded and inspected. He went to the Capitaneria instead and got things squared away. Nothing major, but the authorities wanted to make their point I guess. I suppose we're in the heart of a major port in the Sinaloa State, so I can understand they want a full understanding of who comes in and out of the port?
Omar, whom we later learned was in charge of the docks, waved us in and helped us tie our lines. At the end of the main dock, with no neighbors, just as we prefer. It was nice to get an easy maneuver after the long passage. A quick 180 to turn the boat around, use the big propeller and articulated rudder to walk us parallel to the dock and soon we were ashore, to Princess' absolute delight after having cruised for 1/5 day non stop.
On the dock we found Bruce, and old buddy of ours from our stay in Ensenada. We caught up with him and from then on made sure to swing by his boat whenever we went out to walk Princess. Good company and safety in numbers.
Topolobampo is fairly small as far as we could see, and a lot of the activity is centered around the port. First for the daily ferry to La Paz, a huge shortcut to Baja peninsula, then for tankers and bulk carriers, and last for a good sized fishing fleet. We could tell the ferry's departure and arrival times just by watching the traffic of semi-trucks line up in front of the port entrance, immediately outside the marina.
Like other sea side towns we've been to, there is a malecon where a lot of the activity seems to center. I couldn't resist some more churros, but we avoided the local restaurants: Water was currently being severely rationed in the whole region, to keep it mostly for agriculture we've been told, and we weren't sure how restaurants could operate properly without running water.
The water situation was complicated for us too: Omar kindly liaised with us everytime he could open the dock water, making it clear we couldn't use it to wash the boat. Fair enough of course. Still, with random 1 hour bouts of water of uncertain pressure we had to ration our water a lot more than we normally do in marinas. We kept a few buckets full when dock pressure allowed us to fill them, and made sure to refill our tanks if and when possible.
The main attraction in TPO for cruisers is that it is an easy ride to the Copper Canyon. The touristic train in the canyon is world reknown and attracts tourists from all over. Unfortunately for us, they do not accept dogs, and you need a good 16 hours, i.e. a couple of days or more to enjoy the canyon in full. So we decided to pass. It's part of the small sacrifices we're happy to make in exchange for having little Princess with us.
What I'd recommend for anyone following in our wake is to arrange a circuit in the Copper Canyon before arriving and having a hotel shuttle pick you up at the marina.
We definitely needed a good long rest after the passage, so even without going to Copper Canyon it was a worthwhile stop. We've found that 200 mile is just the wrong length: Too long to be confortable in one go, yet too short to be able to get in a nice routine of day and night shifts.
Bad news though: Our next leg is just over 200 miles too, en route to Mazatlan!
Comments