Deep-Sixed the Guns off Mexico...

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Start by saying I have NO desire to go to Mexico. I know a lot of people do it. Seems like an invitation to disaster, and I'm a wuss when it comes to being Raul's prom date in prison. There's a reason it's called a third world country. First two worlds gave up on it.....

anyway, I see ads for hunting trips to Mexico. I've talked to guys that go down to bird hunt and take their guns, so there's a way to legally take guns in.

Ever check into that?? IIRC, your firearm has to be something that doesn't use military rounds (9mm, etc.)
 
Zoogster, the type of piracy that is fairly common along the Caribbean coasts of Colombia and Panama is not the type you have described, which occurs in SE Asia and the Red Sea. In Colombia and Venezuela, boats at anchor at night are boarded and attacked. We left Colon's massive ship breakwaters, and were soon out of sight of land in VERY rough and windy water. Nobody is out in the middle of the Carib in 30 knot winds and 14 foot steep close-period waves hoping that a sailboat passes by. It wouldn't pay! The Carib pirates just sneak up on anchored sailboats in sheltered coves, after watching them from shore or from a passing fishing vessel, and sizing them up. In some cases, the armed crews successfully fight them off. More often, the pirates win. Still, it is very uncommon.

In Panama itself, we were at least as safe aboard our boat than in, say, the Port of Miama. The city of Colon is a wretched nightmare, to be avoided, but the boat was safe within the so-called Panama Canal Yacht Club nearby. On the Pacific, Balboa is as safe as San Diego, or safer.

I was sorry to drop the guns, but I don't regret it. When a squad of armed Mexicans come aboard your boat with M-16s and a German Shepherd, you are at their mercy. If they had decided to "really" search the boat and had found even one bullet, you would be reading about Travis McGee's sad Christmas in a Mexican prison. And we really had to get the fuel, no ifs ands or buts. Hiding the guns was not a choice, and neither was bouying and cacheing them. Believe me, I considered both options long and hard.

Now I'm in FL, where I can buy replacement boat guns as easily as motor oil
 
iiibdsil: Here is a picture I have handy that's already hosted of "Escape Pod One."

sailingpic2.jpg
 
When a squad of armed Mexicans come aboard your boat with M-16s and a German Shepherd, you are at their mercy.
Click to expand...

Particularly since dogs can be trained to sniff out ammo by the powder... And yes, what someone else said. Even HAVING a secret compartment can get your vessel seized for being "fitted for smuggling". Drug runners try all those tricks, and the authorities know them all.
 
What if they made a Third World and nobody came
Why, then Third World would come to you...

Seems that some of the things you describe are pretty close to how things are in Puerto Rico, NYC, Hwaii and the like...no wonder your books are outlining "progress" in that direction.
 
Travis, nice boat!

You said that was homemade, and steel. Is there a site anywhere that describes what you did (you or somebody else with a similar boat)? How much would building a boat like that cost, assuming one did all the labor oneself? Or even a boat half that size.

I love sailing, can't afford an expensive boat, but am handy with tools and plans and wondering what's out there.
 
Might I ask why caching and marking the guns was not an option? I'm really curious as I go boating from San Diego a couple of times a year. My step-father keeps a couple of guns on board and this is important information.
 
I actually looked into the FAQ's for one of the hunting guides just over the Texas border, they said that because of the restrictions in bringing guns into Mexico, it is often worth it to leave yours home and use guns the guide provides.

I'm not really concerned about the tourist sections of Mexico. Places like Cancun or Puerto Vallarta. (I suppose if you went to a strip club on the fringe, and got shaken down by the owner, and refused to pay, you could find yourself in trouble, or so my little brother says,) but I'm not heading into the interior of the country.
 
Interesting read.

Keltec 223 Rifles might be good replacement "disposable" guns.
Maybe Hi-Point carbine. Super cheap and reliable from what I read.

Good choice on dumping rather then risking.
 
FWIW RE: hunting in Mexico Just read in the Washington Arms Collectors mag that there were 33 Americans kidnapped in 2006, of which 20 are still missing and it is not known who took 'em. The incident featured in the article was 5 guys taken from a hunting ranch. Two/three (the article said two, but gave three names) were released, nothing is known about the others.

For info on building or refurbishing boats check out back issues of PASSAGEMAKER magazine @ passagemaker.com. There have been several articles over the years featuring "home" built/restored boats. Magazine deals mainly with trawler-style power cruisers.
 
There is absolutely nothing in Mexico worth throwing 10 one hundred dollar bills into the ocean!

Never been there, don't ever plan on going there.

Jerry
 
Jerry, How much would you be willing to throw away to keep from being adrift with no power in rough seas? Normally I would agree with you that there is nothing in Mexico that would be worth my time; but when sailing in blue water you often have to make choices that can have profound effects on your survival.

Here's a photo-journal of a 55' steel power boat for anyone who's interested in the process. (it's not mine, I just found it on the web).
http://www.dieselducks.com/55build.html
 
Thefabulousfinkwrote:

Jerry, How much would you be willing to throw away to keep from being adrift with no power in rough seas? Normally I would agree with you that there is nothing in Mexico that would be worth my time; but when sailing in blue water you often have to make choices that can have profound effects on your survival.
Click to expand...


The man was on a sailboat. He was not adrift, not even becalmed. It was not a life threatening situation, IMO. It was a case of "what if". I would have busted my chops to stay out of Mexico.

For thousands of years, there were no motors on boats. A decent sailboat today puts those old boats to shame. If he was in dire straights, I'd have to say he was poorly equipped. He had weapons for security reasons, that means he was in risky waters. Getting back home meant no weapons for that security reason. If I took a boat out into blue-water, I would be sure to have full fuel tanks, extra sail, water making capacity and COMM gear. Now, this may sound like putting the man down, but it isn't really. He had his priorities. Mine do not match up to his. He likely made a comfort decision.

Jerry
 
BenEzra: I would check out Bruce Roberts boat plans as a starting point. He has over a 100 stock designs from dingys to 100'ers, as well as terrific over views of the various hull builing methods. (Fiberglass, cold-molded wood/epoxy, steel, aluminum.) The other faster/cheaper way to go if you are handy with tools is to buy a beater fiberglass boat and restore it. You can get an ugly looking mistreated glass boat and bring it back to show-room condition with nothing more than time and TLC. A 35 footer is plenty to cross any ocean, and a 20 year old badly mistreated boat like this might be had for 15 or 20K. The price of a brand new top name 35 footer is over 100K. What some single guys do is buy such a beater boat for a lowball price, and then move aboard tools and all, and restore it as they go, section by section. In a year or two, you have a boat which is comparable to that 100K boat. Of course, you would have to sink another 20K or so into the boat over time, in the form of epoxy, paint, new rigging, engine overhauls, etc.
 
It would be a tough choice to be sure. He had to decide which was more valuable, the security that the guns provided or the security of a full tank of diesel. Either way you are sacrificing some level of protection. Many ships have sailed in those waters without engines, and many ships have been lost. A working engine allows you to drop sails in severe weather and set a course against the wind. If your sails or rigging is damaged, a motor allows you to limp to safety.

I don't know how Travis' boat handles or the conditions he was in, but I bet that he didn't make the decision to pitch his weapons and head for Mexico lightly.
 
Gun Wielding Maniac: Cacheing would have been an option off a coast with a long gentle dropoff. Where I needed to go to get fuel (the only place for 100s of miles) the ocean is over 1,000 feet deep to withing less than one mile of shore. IOW, anywhere I could have bouyed and retreived the "package," I could have been seen from shore. My movements could have been tracked by Mexican patrol boats on radar, even at night. Any bouy I left could have been recovered by anyone, including Mexican CG or LE. I wasn't going to leave such a cache literally within pistol range of the shore, where I could have been observed. It's not worth it. $1,000 dollars worth of guns was not worth risking 10+ years in a Mexican prison. At the port where we got fuel, we were not far from Guatemala, and in a "border" region, the Mexican LE/CG are very much on their toes, looking out for smugglers, including gun smugglers, because this was the Mexica state of Oaxaca, which if you have been following the news, is in a state of near rebellion. The Mexican govt down there is very "twitchy."

As it was, in that port we saw several Mex military/LE (hard to tell who is who) in gray/green patrol boats from 40 to 100 feet. In fact, my boat was immediately boarded by a squad of Mex soldiers/LE in black BDUs, black kevlar helmets, M-16s, pistols, and with a German Shepherd. These guys were NOT fooling around! Cacheing weapons within easy eyeball range of "their" coast....if I had been caught at it or seen and reported.....I'd be in a cell for life as a weapons smuggler, no doubt about it. They would have assumed the weapons were being dropped off for terrorists or rebels. Would you risk $1,000 vs spending decades in a Mexican prison?
 
Sorry to hear about your dumping the weapons, but mexico will be mexico. And it just makes you wonder about how people who protect the elegals that make it here, :cuss: . But it is just like:banghead: . Maybe we should treat all the elegals caught crossing the border like you were pulling into port. That should cut down on the crossings
 
First, if any of you have not crossed oceans in sailboats, you don't have a clue. You might as well give advice to astronauts on how to jury rig rockets during a space walk. Really, it is the height of hubris to second guess someone with 30,000 ocean crossing miles (6,000 solo) on such a decision when it comes to sails/engines/gales etc. I just about laugh out loud. It's like being a mountaineer in Nepal who has turned back at 25,000 feet in a storm, and getting armchair advice from someone who has never left Ohio in his life.

If you want to better understand my decision, google "gale Gulf Tehuantepec."
 
http://www.oceannavigator.com/article.php?a=8879

The two terrors of Central America

snip///A number of these experienced voyagers recounted the rigors of passages they had through one or both gulfs, often despite very thorough preparation. They told of blown-out sails, lost masts, dinghies and life rafts torn from their mounts, or in the saddest cases, of boats lost.///snip

(My comment: Anybody who finds himself adrift in this water because he ran out of fuel is a damn idiot, if he didn't go to get fuel when he could. Being adrift and becalmed in the GOT, out of fuel, waiting for a Tehuantepec gale, would be idiocy.)
 
If I took a boat out into blue-water, I would be sure to have full fuel tanks, extra sail, water making capacity
Click to expand...
I hope you meant water purification, I mean making water seams like it'd be harder than filtering.:neener:
 
Just out of curiosity - what happens when a foreign boating tourist shows up in a US port with firearms? I can't imagine we just let them keep them.
 
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