For all of its benefits, one thing that Mexico doesn’t have is consistently strong winds. There are predictably strong winds off the coast of Baja, periodic north blows in the Sea of Cortez, and the steady afternoon thermal breezes of Banderas Bay. And in the far south of the country is a small gap in the mountains above the Gulf of Tehuantepec – this gives rise to extremely strong wind events called T-peckers.
For the most part, though, the beautiful Mexican coastline is known for gentle breezes. The wind predominantly blows from the west or northwest with the afternoon sea breeze, while switching to east or northeast at night as the land cools. These gentle conditions can make moving south and east under sail challenging. The wind is often too light to make much progress, and any swell in the ocean tends to make the boat roll, in turn spilling the wind right out of the sail.
Letting out the handline, hoping to catch a dorado
We really enjoy sailing and try to avoid motoring when we can. So the trip south has been timed not by what’s convenient for us, but by when the wind blows. That means that we’ve often sailed overnight instead of making passages by daylight, and we’ve had to leave otherwise idyllic spots to take advantage of an upcoming breeze.
The result is that we’ve been able to sail more than 80% of way down the coast from Puerto Vallarta to Zihuatanejo. A lot of the sailing has been slow. We’ve made good use of our large spinnaker, even at night, much to Angie’s dismay, when heading downwind. And we’ve been lucky that the land breeze has often sprung up just as the sea breeze dies, allowing us to make good progress upwind even in only 4 knots of true wind.
Checking out the next anchorage in the guidebook
The slow progress we’ve made is not for everyone, but in our opinion it beats the sound of the engine.
