22 March 2012; Puerto Chiapas, Mexico.

 The Golfo the Tehuantepec indeed behaved itself and we observed no more than 20 knots of wind, a nice and quiet day for that area. By the time were past it, the wind dropped down to nearly zero and we knew that the weather forecast had been right. Our pilot was on time and he was a very proud man, showing off his new pilot boat. It was even equipped with flashing lights so from a distance it looked like it as if it was an American police car, half submerged, going through the water. Sailing into Puerto Chiapas is always an event, it looks so simple; just keep the ship in the middle between the breakwaters and you are in good shape. But things are not that easy here. There is always a little bit of swell which makes it difficult for the Quartermaster to steer as it pushes the stern off the intended course. That means that you have to give rudder orders and anticipate where the ship will swing to. It is MUCH easier when there is a lot of swell, then you simply cancel the port as the swell reduces the depth at the entrance too much. 

Even at the best of times we only have 10 feet under the keel, so with 6 feet swell, there is hardly enough clearance under the keel to go safely in. That shallow depth is caused by the constant silting of the fairway. When they built the port they basically widened the river. That river is a convergence of 4 other rivers and they carry a lot of silt from the inland to the sea. Silt that deposits itself in the port entrance. To alleviate this problem there is one dredger constantly working in the harbor entrance to keep the depth to the required 11 meters. (While we draw 7.5 meters) Normally the buoys indicate where the shallows are, except here.

Puerto Chiapas. A photo taken during the construction of the port. The muddy area in the back is now the location of a very nice cruise terminal.

Sand banks will form anywhere, regards less of the buoys and that means that I have to quiz the pilot each call, whether it is better to stay close to the green buoy, or close to the red buoy or in the middle. Every call it is different. Today it was the red side we had to stay on, which meant making the turn a bit wider when coming into the fairway. Next year, NCL wants to come in with a 300+ meter ship and for that they are already re-arranging the turning basin. On paper it is 400 meters in diameter and when one of our Vista Class ships comes in (292 meters) it just fits. Going over 300 meters it becomes a bit tight. So they are deepening and widening the basin. In Puerto Chiapas they do this by moving the buoys first and then dredging the basin out. We arrived in between these two steps. The buoys had been moved but the dredging not done yet and thus the pilots advice was, not to go too close to the buoys. Sound advice I suppose if you do not want to touch bottom and thus I took my margins a bit wider. Next time when we get there, the basin’s edge should be were the buoys are. Apart from the cruise ships, there are only cargo ships and navy vessels using the port, and during the fishing season a number of tuna boats call in.

There is a lot of coffee exported from this port and also vegetables and fruit. As there are not enough ships for a pilot to have a full time job, our pilot has a mango plantation where he grows the fruit for export, mainly to Canada as his wife is Canadian. According to the deck officers, the quality is far above what is normally available in the supermarkets, so somewhere there must a bunch of very happy Canadians gorging on Chiapas Mango’s.

There is no town here, only a cruise terminal so the main reason for our call are the tours to the town of Antigua further inland and visits to plantations and other items of local interest. The locals are very friendly and always put up a good show by the time we leave. This time we had about 25 of them on the dock, happily dancing away to Marimba music in the warmth of the late afternoon. We left at 1700 hrs and sailed out of port, (staying close to the red buoy of course) and by 1730 hrs we were back in open waters.

Tomorrow morning we will be approaching the pilot station of Puerto Quetzal at 04.30 hrs which means I will be on the bridge by 03.30. We have to be early for the fly tours to the Mayan ruins and that means the same for most of my passengers. So like them, I will be in bed early tonight.