One More Time—the Narrow Neck of Land was not in Mesoamerica Part II

According to Earth Snapshot, which draws its aerial views from NASA, European Space Agency, Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), MIRVA, NationalOceranic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Chelys Satellite Rapid Response System, Sorenson’s Mesoamerican Narrow Neck is described as “the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is located in southern Mexico, between the Gulf of Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico to the north, and the Gulf of Tehuantepec on the Pacific Ocean to the south. The isthmus has a width of 137 miles (220 km) at its narrowest part” and is shown in the following satellite view”

Note that the description of both the space agencies and satellite imaging organizations refer to the Gulf of Campeche “to the north,” and the Gulf of Teheantepec “to the south.” The map of this area confirms this north-south orientation of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Yet Sorenson and other Mesoamerican theorists all want to call these directions “east” and “west” in their models of this area.

Further, weather guru Don Anderson of SSB—Summer Passage, a weather station helping Pacific Ocean cruisers in Mexico and those heading south and west, to safe passages along the coast, claims that after five decades of watching the weather around the Tehuantepec area that “On the Pacific Coast of Mexico, at the southern end of Mexico, there is a large body of water called the Gulf of Tehuantepec. North of the Gulf of Tehuantepec there is a skinny strip of land, an isthmus, which separates the Gulf of Tehuantepec from the Gulf of Mexico on the other coast. This piece of geography has a weather system all its own. Winds start in the Gulf of Mexico, hit Mexico at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, scream across land and are funneled through two mountain ranges. The winds are amplified up to three times and then are shot out the back side, and hit the Pacific in the Gulf of Tehuantepec with gale force and up to hurricane force winds.”

This wind storm and the resulting high seas are referred to as a "T-Pecker," and can blow up to 70 knots per hour, with 50 foot waves for 1500 miles out to sea. As Don and those who have sailed this area say, “Watch out if you are in this path!!!" Don has been guiding boaters through this risky stretch of water with his daily forecasts for five decades.

Before entering this treacherous water area which stretches clear across the Gulf of Tehuantepec and moves south and west for 1500 miles—covering, by the way, the sailing and landing area of the Lehi Colony according to Sorenson—boaters are cautioned to set in at Huatulco, the last point on the Mexican coast before crossing into the Gulf of Tehuantepec. This caution is meant to help boaters wait for a possible weather window of calmer weather to make a crossing. This port gets some 500 boaters a year setting in, waiting for a possible crossing to the south. These weather windows only last about two days, and only pop up once in a week or more. Boaters are then cautioned, when crossing this treacherous water to hug the beach since the T-Peckers blow out from land, and the closer to the land you are, the more protected you are—if you are several miles out in the Gulf, you will get hit very hard.

Even on a good day the winds blow toward the south at about 20 knots and waves are four feet or higher—referred to as “light winds and calm seas” by the wather guru in comparison to the weather buildup that occurs in the Gulf. This, even on a “calm day” is blowing against a ship sailing up or into the coast of Tehuantepec and southward—in the opposite direction of the Lehi course in their ship that was “driven forth BEFORE the winds.” In this case, he would have been heading the last few hundred miles into gale and hurricane winds moving against his ship. Winds that frighten and concern experienced sailors even today despite modern boat designs, being able to sail into the wind, and their knowledge of radar and weather to show when the winds were and where they were blowing.

Boaters, even today call this area “The Dreaded Gulf of Tehuantepec.” For boaters moving east of Huatulco, at the narrowest point of the Mexican isthmus, they fear the gale winds of 40 to 50 miles per hour that strike without warning. This area is also the spawning ground for most Pacific Coast hurricanes. Boaters wanting to cross this gulf know that “it is wisdom to wait for a low pressure area moving into the Gulf of Mexico, then make a run for it, hugging the shoreline the entire way.”

Typically, these Mesoamerican scholars and theorists ignore the extreme difficulty of making a landing in the area they have chosen for Lehi to reach their Isthmus. It is so difficult, that trying to move into (red arrows) these winds as the yellow arrow shows, would be impossible in a 600 B.C. sailing vessel that was "driven forth before the winds."

It is interesting how many facts about this area that Sorenson so glibly refers to as the Narrow Neck of Land in the Land of Promise does not match scripture.