Monday, December 16, 2013

Ok we arrived in Acapulco just at day break. We are now at anchor just off of the yacht club waiting for the office to open. Had a sleep in the meantime. We had a good motor sail down from Zihuat, not much wind but it wasn’t as hot as it has been as there was a bit of cloud cover and a cooling breeze. We even passed a couple of thunderstorms during the night. Some lighting but it didn’t get very close. But one storm was so thick that we were able to track it on the radar. It was so big and intense that it looked like an islands that was charging towards us. Fortunately it missed us by about 2 miles and aside from a few sprinkles, we didn’t get hit. The wind did increase to 8 knots and switch around 180 degrees. We had nearly a full moon all night so visibility was excellent, a beautiful warm tropical night all in all. We fished all the way down but only managed to land a Brown footed booby that dove on one of my lures and got its self hooked. At first the bird  was waterskiing behind the boat then it took to the wing and we towed it like a kite until I was able to reel it in and with Jan and Marinas help, I removed the hooks from the bird’s breast and we set it free. Aside from being really confused it didn’t look too worse off for the experience.  We also had a few dolphins join us briefly and we did spy a few, very large sea turtles along the way.

Ah yes, as Jan so dutifully reminded me, I forgot to report a little incident that occurred on Marina’s first night in Zihuat. Shortly after she arrived, we took her in the dinghy with all her baggage back to Maiatla that was anchored out in the harbor. We had a couple of beers aboard to celebrate her safe arrival then we took the dink back ashore looking for a restaurant. Well I guess I’m a little rusty at my surf landings because a rather nasty wave took charge. In front of countless spectators, we first surfed then nearly flipped the dinghy. Jan and I were tossed clean out, to fall into the tumbling surf. Somehow, Marina managed to stay in the dink which was quickly filled with water. She looked as though she was sitting in a great white bathtub as the wave carried her the rest of the way in. The wave quickly left us high, but anything but dry on the beach and it was a mad scramble to recover and get the dink the rest of the way ashore before the next great comber pounded in. Once safely out of the reach of the waves, and to a round of applause, we wrung out our best, “Saturday night going to diner cloths”.

We did our best to act natural while we slunk into town in an effort to dry off enough to so we could sit in a chair and not leave a puddle behind. Despite our inauspicious landing, we had a great night of seafood platters, coconut shrimp while discovering that this MUST be the place where Margaritas was invented as they we just the best.

We will spend two to four days here doing some boat chores and install some of the spare parts that Marina was so kind to bring down. Well that’s about it for now.

Adios from Acapulco.