We left Barra de Navidad a couple of days after Jeff and Sarah left for Vancouver. We needed time to do the laundry and re-provision. It was great to have all the kids down to visit, but it was also great to have the boat all to ourselves again! Since we haven’t set up Fortuitous for more than 2 people, the V-berth has become a garage. Hence, when more are aboard the “garage” has to move elsewhere and the elsewhere is all underfoot! Everybody was OK with the mess and clutter…well, maybe not everyone…it just drives me nuts, being the anal person that I am!! However, the rest managed quite well.
After the kids left, we went into Manzanillo to do some shopping with Mary and John, cruiser friends from Java.
We headed for Santiago Bay, outside Manzanillo. That gave us an opportunity to catch up with Hal and Kathy aboard Airborne. We hadn’t seen them for quite awhile. We arrived, and they came aboard with a pitcher of Margaritas and I supplied some appies…a good time was had by all! In fact, we had such a good time we forgot to take photos!! This is Dawn’s Crack, in case you’ve never seen it!
A turtle waves hello as we cruise by on our overnighter to Zihua.
In Zihuatanejo Bay, cruise liners come twice a week. It’s a small bay and they take up a lot of space. There is a movement afoot to build a new dock where 3 can moor…what a loss that would be! It would completely change this great little town. We love it here! They’ve done a great job with the waterfront. Ixtapa is the adjoining tourist mecca; very modern and sterile.
These are our friends Dan and Lorraine on Zephyrus. They’ll be heading south for Huatulco and Central America too.
This is an evening in Rick’s bar, the local hangout. This is Jimmy Mammou, a local favourite. We actually enjoyed the previous evening’s jam session better, especially the Mexican boys who played a lot of Beatles stuff.
Dan and Lorraine, and a local street dog, enjoying the music at Rick’s.
The waterfront of Zihua bay is lined with pangas. Here, fishermen sell their catches as well as in the mercado.
A local card game, with some off-duty fishermen.
Pangas everywhere and Yamaha motors on almost every one! Yamaha must have done some terrific PR down here.
Hardly any other motor in sight and difficult to get parts or service for anything else…hence, when we bought our new dinghy motor, guess what we bought?
There is a walkway part way around the bay. This shot of Fortuitous is taken from the end of the walkway. Notice the flopper stopper out…we’ve had our share of rolly days and evenings.
On our walk around, we got hot and tired so we stopped for a drink…what else is new? This “slurpy” guy was patrolling the beach out front. He has a block of ice, under a towel.
He shaves off the ice, puts it into a cup, pours flavouring over the top, and VOILA!!
Ralph took lots of shots because I’d like to do a painting of him, if I ever have time or can find my paints!
Just love the Mexican houses. This one would make a good painting too.
We stopped at the local Bomberos, or firemen’s station, to see if we could get T-shirts for our sons.
We managed to buy two, but I fear they’ll be too small. They don’t make Mexicans as large as our sons. They may have to frame them rather than wear them.
Up the crick in Zihua.
Pangas make for some great shots.
Zephyrus leaving us. I broke a tooth in Barra and am having a crown done in Zihua. It is going to take at least a week, so we are here longer than expected. Zephyrus is going on ahead and we’ll catch up later. They’ll hold a parking space for us somewhere south.
Bird #...oh, who really knows?? These egrets are beautiful, but a real pain! They shzt all over the boat and dinghy!!
This booby at least has the decency to hang her butt over the water!! She is hanging onto our flopper stopper, which is bobbing up and down. I don’t know how they can do it with web feet??!!
So, what do we do all day, you ask? Since there is no fuel dock here, we’ve had to jerry-jug our fuel. Ralph has not enjoyed his breakfast mouthful of diesel…can’t say as I blame him. The bay isn’t all that clean, so we’ve jerried water as well.
After several years of Mexican Train, Ralph finally got to lay down all his dominoes on the first go…can’t understand all the hoopla about that…I did that the first time I ever played!!!!!!!!!!!
Zihua market…we’ve never seen chickens displayed quite the same way anywhere else!
We love to visit the markets. The colours are spectacular and you can always get the freshest stuff …that being said, we didn’t buy any of these chickens, though. Note the ones in the box below the others.
We should be leaving Zihuatanejo on Monday or Tuesday, Feb. 25 or 26th. One more crown appointment to go. We’ve just found we have a transmission fluid leak, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on that. We are concerned about it, and will test it out in the bay before we head south. If it appears OK, we’ll stop in or near Acapulco, and then head on to Huatulco. Hopefully, we’ll make it to Panama, or Ecuador, before we need to stop and fix it, otherwise it will be done in Acapulco or here in Ixtapa. Sounds like a big job as many engine parts will have to be removed to get at it. Boat maintenance in exotic places! There are worse places to be, but we really want to be able to continue our trip south. If we need to stay here, it may be that Central America might have to wait a year as it is already late to be heading south. To be continued...
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