11 October 2017; Puerto Chiapas, Mexico.

Our aim for Chiapas is always to arrive at sun rise at the pilot station. Then you can see the way the swell runs into the port and if it is not too high for safe entering. It is more or less standard that the swell increases later during the day when the wind offshore has been blowing for a while. Thus the earlier you are, the better it is, as long as you can see the breakers on the break water.

The entrance breakwaters which is  the most critical point of sailing into port.

Because of yesterday, Captain Van Donselaar could not be that early but luck was on his side, the swell was under a good angle and did not even run into the port. So we had nothing to worry about when we sailed in accordingly. We have a pilot in Puerto Chiapas and his main function is to advise the captain where the shallow patches are in the entrance to the port as the breakwaters are just an extension of the mouth of a river. This river carries a lot of silt to open sea and once it has passed the end of the breakwaters, it loses its momentum as the sea defuses the flow. When the flow stops, the silt settles on the bottom and a bank starts to form. To keep that bank under control, there is a permanent dredger at work. But it cannot dredge everywhere at the same time. So the pilot is letting us know where the best depth is, always in the leading lights but one day at little bit to the port and another day it is a little bit to the starboard.

The electronic chart on the radar and our red dotted route going into port. The light color is shallow water and the silt disperses around the entrance. A dredger is doing its best all the time to keep the water deep on the approach route.

There is always a minimum of 2 meters under the keel, otherwise we will not go in if there is a swell running but every inch helps to make more space under the keel for more water flow and the more water that flows under the ship, the easier it is to sail into the port. And for the rest it is a question of bringing the ship to a standstill on time in the turning basin.

We either have to turn on arrival or on departure as this is not a port where you can back out off by going astern. We did so in Puerta Vallarta but that is a straight fairway and there is no swell that can make your life difficult. In the morning there is always less (or mostly no wind) so the Nieuw Amsterdam swung on arrival and then docked at the cruise terminal. We were the only cruise ship in port and thus the 2^nd berth behind us was taken up by a cargo ship which was very busy with loading Bananas. The ship had the most appropriate name of Chiquita Venture. Puerto Chiapas is, apart from being a cruise port, also an export port for tropical fruit and apart from Bananas I have also seen a lot of mango’s in containers going out; mainly for the North American market. Our pilot is a mango farmer and much to the delight of our quartermasters he always brings a few on board when the harvest is in progress.

How about this for service !! Coming back hot and bothered and there is a crew member with a nice cold towel to refresh yourself, even before you come close to the gangway.

The local Bureau of Tourism is working very hard and as a result Chiapas is one of the places where you can get in touch with local culture very easily. Our main shore excursions are inland to Maya Ruins and to the nearest city but in the terminal there are local shows and all day long they have one or more Marimba Orchestra’s playing. (Not at the same time….. they alternate) When I grew up, I saw it sometimes on television and that was always Marimba’s by themselves and sometimes with a guitar. Here they combine it with saxophones, clarinets, drums and once I even saw an Accordion. Today they played a sort of Jazz and Dixieland style, which sounded amazingly good. Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie missed a trick here.

I walked ashore briefly to have a look in the terminal as I am hunting Fridge magnets for a good friend of mine but they were out of those which had the name of the place on it. So then I thought maybe they have something exciting inside the fridge but no craft beer, only Corona. Which is not a bad beer for a warm day but I just happen to prefer Ale which has a bit more taste to it.

Tonight we will cross the border to Guatemala to call at Puerto Quetzal. for some reason, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua are on a different time zone than Mexico, although the are further east and thus we are going back an hour tonight only to hop forward twice when we are in the Caribbean.

Weather for Puerto Quetzal: no rain, no wind, hardly any clouds and thus the temperatures are going up to 87oF or 31o Celsius. So I am going to keep my bald head indoors.