The steep tan cliffs shear vertically into the surf at the Puerto Angel harbor mouth. The entrance is only a few hundred yards wide, so that as you approach the interior opens in on a splendid little anchorage filled with fishing pangas, beachfront, and a long concrete municipal dock. As we set the anchor and inflated the dingy we were hailed impatiently from this dock by a man in the black trousers and starched white shirt of the Port Captain's office. Once confident that the anchor would hold and the dingy remain afloat, the three crew of the good ship Faith set out for the beach. We made landfall a bit after six in the warm light of the Mexican evening.
I left Brian and Eric to secure our launch and followed the man on a convoluted trail around restaurants, through a square in the throws of preparation for a wedding reception, down a narrow alleyway, and into the compound of the Capitania. Entering the gate we found the Capitan de Puerto in his underwear taking a late afternoon shower under a hose. He gestured us into the building, where I sat comfortably in his office staring at the maps on the wall and copying down the meanings of the semaphore flags on the plaque behind the Capitan's desk. The flags go from blue (safe weather conditions) to blue-and-yellow (sketchy weather conditions) to yellow (hazardous weather conditions) to red (kiss your ass goodbye it's a hurricane). Useful information, if any port in Mexico bothered to fly the flags....
Out on the beach the rest of the crew was wondering where I had been taken. They tried a couple of routes, got nowhere, and decided the best thing was to await my return a the foot of the municipal pier.
I was joined by the Capitan, much refreshed from the look of him, momentarily. He frowned at the exit document from Puerto Madero, muttering "Chiapas..." to himself. Chiapas, the southern state Madero is in, has been regarded with trepidation and revulsion by the rest of the country due to it's long standing affair with Emiliano Zapatista, a revolutionary who almost got the state to secede some years ago. But as I probably didn't have any part in the agitation he let it pass. The Capitan asked to see our passports, confirmed that three people had arrived and three would be leaving, and typed up our exit paper for Angel. He and his subordinate smiled and shook my hand, handed me the exit paper and the all important weather update, and ushered me out.
I found the crew at the foot of the pier.
We wandered about the small main street to get the lay of the land and pick up some phone cards. Each place we tried to get a card would send us down the street to the next one, which would be out, so we'd continue on and on until at last we found a hotel reception desk that actually did have them. Then it was time to find a working phone. The process repeated itself � we started on one end of the street where we'd spotted a phone initially and ended up back outside the hotel using a phone we hadn't noticed while buying the cards. By this time we were hungry. Back down the street again....and guess where we ended up eating? Right back at the hotel where we'd bought the card and used the phone.....
We rowed back to the boat and enjoyed a cocktail to the accompaniment of the music blaring from shore � the wedding reception was in full swing. The harmonies from shore were accented by huge gouts of spray shooting up from between a slot canyon facing the sea. As the large rollers swept into the tiny bay the ones on the east side would be funneled into the canyon, meet its end, and erupt skyward like a geyser from the narrow end of the gully. We went to sleep rocked by the incoming swells.
Brian was first up. He climbed from the cabin and stretched in the warming sun of morning, perusing the shore � which was a mile away! Startled, he almost called out to wake us, then realized there was no immediate danger. In the course of the night the tide had come way up, freed our anchor, then pulled us right out the entrance to the bay without our ever realizing it. We now floated on the open ocean on a beautiful, clear July morning. Eric responded when Brian did call below to see if either of us was awake yet, an the two of them motored back into the harbor and set the anchor before I even registered that daylight had struck. I came up into the cockpit and said, "Well, we�re still here, huh?" The mates gave me a look as though I had just teleported onto the boat from outer space. "What?" I asked them.
We decided Puerto Angel was subtly trying to tell us to get a move on � indeed, the tropical weather report I'd obtained from the Capitania had shown a low pressure band, our tropical wave, passing Angel the evening we'd arrived. Our window of opportunity was wide open.
Brian wisely elected to remain on board so that we wouldn't have to row a mile out to an escaping vessel in the event of another anchor drag. Eric and I took the launch to shore to acquire gasoline and augment our perishable groceries (and our snack selection!). I know this sounds easy � go to a gas station, swing by a store, back to the boat. Ah, but this is Mexico, and a relatively undeveloped costal town at that. We'd need some cash � nearest ATM, 20 miles. No gas station within the same distance....although rumor had it that a local fisherman dispensed gas from a tank in a shed....a good option, if we could find him.... So the mate and I disembarked on the beach and hiked over to the main street with our six two-gallon fuel containers. It was like trying to hail a cab while exhibiting the terminal stages of leprosy � no one would touch us. So we walked up the hill, scouting the groceries. We found a likely one near enough the beach to make transport easy enough. We decided on a scenic route back down to the main road that was half stairway, half path between ramshackle dwellings. This proved a wise choice. As we approached the foot of the hill people checking us out began asking, "Gasolina?" "Si!" we'd shout back, and they'd wave us along in a particular direction. This happened about four times, until we found ourselves up an alley off a side street ascending a stairway at the back of an apartment. At the top of the stairs a man was carrying his young daughter across the landing. I called up to him, "Senor?" He looked down, gaged the containers we carried and motioned that he'd be down momentarily. He opened the locked doors to a wooden shed where he had a large drum of fuel, and we communicated that we had to go to the bank but would come right back � would it be OK if we left our cans with him? Of course! See you in a while! Now catching the cab was as easy as if we were waving bars of gold at the drivers. Off to town we went.