re: Can a Charter Boat leaving the Gulf Coast reach the Yucatan peninsula?

With enough fuel sure.

If you are thinking SHTF plan, a blow boat is the better option.

Most boats do not have that kind of range.

Do it every year in a 60' Viking
From Grand Isle to Isla Mujeres in about 38 to 42 hours depending on seas
There is a whole lot of nothing in between

Haha
Another boat travels with us 50' Viking
Has fuel bladders all over cockpit
Don't know where you would put them all on a 32'
I think I would pass

quote:

---

I think I would pass

---

I did it in '88...bit of an experiment. Convoy of four 32-foot shallow draught boats north from Yucatan to NOLA. Rode the loop current north in a flat calm. Had a 180 ft escort vessel for bunkers and for emergency extraction in the event of bad WX or propulsion casualty. I don't recall our speed, but that was a long boring ride.

Yep a whole lot of nothing
10 knot at night and run during day. Makes for long nights
Usually fish the drill ships on way in but they have been weird lately. Came back two weeks ago and drill ships pitched a fit and told us law was we had to stay 1000 meters away. I called him on that and asked for regulation number. Then he said it was a guideline and we were going to get hung in the thrusters. Don't have enough extra fuel to run all over but nice to break it up by catching tuna

Then you know plenty about long boat rides

My buddy that's a professional captain takes his boss's Viking from OB to Cozumel for the sailfish bite every Spring. Think he just got back. That Gump he works for has some $$$$, fueling up is no problemo

Does the Coast Guard or other customs agency ever check or search these sport fishers making these runs?

quote:

---

Does the Coast Guard or other customs agency ever check or search these sport fishers making these runs?

---

Back in the '80s...absolutely. Some random boardings, but usually from intelligence reports (snitches in Mexico/S. America as well as folks who just record vessel names in ports and look for patterns). Was usually coke and OTD (other than drugs) contraband, e.g. guns, parrots, snakes, etc.

Even in the 80's, the navy had a system we could tap into that could track the location & path of any vessel within 1,000 miles of an Aegis cruiser for 72 hrs.

By the early 90s, most of that nonsense had tapered off due to aggressive enforcement (shifted to trafficking across land and contships). That was 20 years ago...no telling how things are done today.