I NEVER THOUGHT I'd set foot in Puerto Madero again, and arriving back in town is disorienting. The small port area, where I was stranded, has been renamed Puerto Chiapas, and the government has put in a cruise-ship dock, which Holland America is using for its Panama Canal trips. On the surface, Puerto Chiapas is an innocent place of coffee and fruit and friendly people, with a tremendous fake pyramidal marketplace and a pool. But the pangas are still here, and the fishermen, and I suspect things haven't changed all that much.

I've got a letter from Jason Long giving me full authority to try to salvage or sell the Cúlin. Armed with this, I take a taxi to the harbor, to the small port captain's compound, and go inside. The old port captain has passed away, the secretary tells me. The new one, Captain Andres Ordaz, a good-looking man in his forties, is a bit slicker but seemingly up to the same games. He claims Long was sailing north from Central America, had never been in Mexico (he says he confirmed this with officials in Manzanillo and Mazatlán), and was cooking some fish on deck when he tripped overboard. He even claims that parts of the dinner were found.

I have only a few facts, provided by the Longs before I left: a photo of the Cúlin taken a few days after it hit the beach, showing all three sails up; the U.S. Coast Guard's report of when and where the EPIRB went off; directions to the spot where the Cúlin is beached; and a summary of the autopsy report provided to the Longs by the U.S. consulate in Mexico City.

Trying to match these facts with the port captain's account creates a fairly preposterous scene: It's 1 A.M. and Long is on deck, with his three sails up. The jib is back-winded, though, held out on the wrong side, which stops the boat dead in its tracks, like a giant air brake. Yet somehow the Cúlin has been able to defy the laws of physics, sailing hundreds or even thousands of miles north from Panama or Costa Rica or wherever Long teleported to after he left California. To celebrate this miracle, he is fixing a lovely fish dinner in the middle of the night, naked, but suddenly trips overboard, managing to hit his head so hard that his brain hemorrhages. Midair, the abrasions on his left cheek, described in the autopsy, have time to quickly scab. He breaks his neck and ribs and instantly stops breathing, so that when he hits the water none of it gets into his lungs.

I'm guessing the port captain's fable is a fair preview of what I'll find as I try to follow the local investigation, if there is one. So I decide to go directly to the boat.

The last few miles to La Cigüeña are down a narrow dirt road through low plantain trees, unspoiled and remote but also a little spooky, given what happened to Long. The village is beautiful, though, when it appears, a collection of bamboo-and-wood huts stretched along the slow Río Cahoacán. No garish paint, no abundance of concrete. The few attempts at that were wiped out in 2005 by Hurricane Stan. There are goats and pigs and dogs in the road, and when I get out of the car everyone stares. The first man to offer help is a drunken fisherman in a yellow shirt. His name is Israel, his eyes are marbled, and he's full of claims. He'll take me to the boat.

"Hay un problema?" he keeps asking. Do we have a problem? And then he answers himself in English, "No problem, my friend."

We walk through the village to where the river turns north and divides the jungle from a long beach and the sea. Israel's two sons have a small wooden canoe they've built by hand. It's narrow and tippy, with yellowish bilge water and a blue crab huddled inside the bow. I board and squat low. The Cahoacán is known for its crocodiles, but one of the boys walks beside the boat in waist-deep water, pulling the bow.

It's late afternoon, the air warm and humid but not hot, not stifling. There's a light breeze coming from the ocean, and a few fishermen throw hand-nets into the water. Small, thin fish skip across the surface to escape us. There are trees overhanging to our right, driftwood like sculpture on the beach to our left. It's lovely here, like parts of Puerto Madero ten years ago, and it doesn't feel dangerous at all. We land on the beach side and walk 100 yards across sand to the Pacific, where slow rollers are coming in.

After a few minutes, I see the Cúlin ahead. The boat is only a hull, more than half buried, lying on its side. A group of men are standing on her cabin, bent over, perhaps removing something. They're several hundred yards away, and they remind me where I am, what this place is capable of. As we come closer, they see us and immediately leave, walking away fast. I can't tell whether they're carrying things or not.

Up close, the boat is heartbreaking. Waves washing over it, everything stripped and carted away. I had wanted to help Long's family salvage something, but there's nothing left.