Sometimes the anchor seems to have an unnatural hold on the sea floor.  We’ve had the desire to leave for a while now, but we just can’t seem to get going.  There has been family problems with two groups of friends here that’s made us a bit melancholy and we’re waiting to see how things turn out.

Not that we aren’t enjoying Zihuatanejo.  There is a lot to do here and having lots of friends around make it even more fun.  But we’re anxious to spend some time in the Bay of Huatulco before going to Central America before the rainy season starts to kick in.  And that’s the thing about having a moving house; it is fun to move it.

So in a day or two I expect we will finally free the anchor from it’s muddy home and get going.  We’ll head for Acapulco to check it out and then to Puerto Escondido and after seeing the famous surf there we’ll go on to Bahias de Huatulco.

Talk about a slog. We did the 200 mile leg from Santiago to Zihuatanejo in about 45 hours. It was almost impossible to sail because when the wind was blowing the tacking angles were terrible for laying Zihuat, so we motored through 15 knots of SE headwind pounding for about 60 of the 200 miles. The rest of the time there was no wind at all.

We also got boarded by the Mexican Armada. However the waters were so rough they aborted the effort. They were kind enough not to bang a hole in our boat with their steel runabout or injure one of the sailors in attempting to board us. One of the guys on their boat actually was encouraging them to jump. It was grim. Fortunately they opted to just shout out questions. They were out in force trying to they were out in force and tried to board just about every boat that went by.

At least we've caught up with the rest of our buddies so maybe we'll get a chance to spend some time together and have some fun before moving on again!

It was tough leaving Barra and saying goodbye to Cassie perra. But we had to leave the calm lagoon and move on if we're going to get to Central America in Feb/March.

Sherrell has been feeling tired from a cold so instead of doing the 200 mile passage south, we went 25 and stopped for the night in Santiago. It's a pretty place with large cliffs and a big bay. It's right next to Manzanillo which is a big shipping port and as we look south we see 3 large carriers waiting to unload at the port.

Hopefully Sherrell will be feeling rested tomorrow and we'll continue on south from here.

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Two nights ago, our friend's dog, Cassie, passed away here in the lagoon at Barra de Navidad. We knew Cassie for the past two years and she was almost like our own adopted dog. She would always be the first to greet us when ever we came to visit Ocean Lady and we often took her for walks along with Rocky her brother. Everything seems a bit out of place without her around and she`ll be sorely missed not only by us but many others.

Cassie was given a sailor`s buriel at sea out in the deep water of the bay, under the constellation for which she was named.

Our friends on Tara and Willow arrived a couple of days ago. They managed to sail all the way into the estuary. Unfortunatly we haven't really had much opportunty to spend much time with them because our plans and schedules never seem to match up. They are already getting ready to head further south, so maybe we'll catch up with them later in the year.

I've been impatiently waiting for the surf to come up in Barra, but there seems to be no signs of life. It's a strange wave that only appears during low tide and it's pretty mushy. In the meantime we've been entertaining Sheila on the boat. She's enjoying all the bird life and being immersed in nature, because we're surrounded by it on all sides in this lagoon. And there are only 5 other boats here right now. During the height of the season they'll pack in 50 to 80 boats. We'll move on before
the crowds get that big.

We also want to say thanks to all the people who write us and tell us that we've helped inspire them. It's a surprise to us because we're just out here doing our thing wondering if anyone really reads this stuff as it seems our friends and family often don't find time to check out our Slog. So it's great to know that people are enjoying our experiences vicariously and are poised to set out to make some of their own! It's great hearing from all of you!

Just keep sailing!

As if we were in some cheesy commercial, we both said, "This is pretty much the best anchorage in Mexico" at the same time. We settled back in 8 feet of flat calm water and breathed a sigh of relief. The lagoon in Barra keeps out all the bouncy wind waves and totally blocks the ocean swell. To top it off there are two small towns for provisions and there's a Canadian who runs a French Bakery and deliveries his pricey goodies directly to your boat. Oh yeah, and there is a nice little surf break right outside of the lagoon. I don't think many places are better than Barra.

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This leg would best be described as a 22 hour wild ride. We had winds from 20-25 knots most of the way and with a double reefed main and about 1/4 of the genoa out we surfed and rolled our way down the coast at 5 to 6 knots. The waves were pretty big, but nothing was coming on board the boat so it was a dry ride.

Our main reason for spending the day here is the snorkeling in Chamela is fantastic. In fact the first thing I saw when I dove down to the rocks was a 4 foot long eel just sitting there looking at me. There's coral, lots of fish and the visibility is about 15 feet.

We arrived at 8:30 am, slept until 2pm and now we are getting ready to depart to Barra in the morning where we'll meet Sherrell's mom. I wish my underwater camera's battery was working, if it was I might try to squeeze in another day here.

By the way the google map you're seeing at the top of this page is much more accurate than our nautical charts, which show us anchored about 1 mile inside land.

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That stupid hurricane Sergio finally burnt itself out without doing anyone any damage. Hurricane season is officially over in a week, but everything seems to finally be changing back to the normal winter patterns. The late season hurricane was pretty unusual and it kept our friends from meeting us at Punta de Mita for Thanks Giving, so we're having it today! Five boats worth of people! After sitting alone for almost a week it's nice to have some friends nearby. We plan to head further south in about 4 or 5 days, assuming the weather permits. We have to get to Barra de Navidad to meet Sherrell's mom whose going to stay on the boat for about 10 days.

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We’re finally getting ahead of the game.  After stripping the carburetor for the 11^th time on the beach, cleaning the fuel tank and using some nasty chemical called Power-Tune, our outboard runs better than it EVER did even when it was new.  We also found the source of our low battery bank problem – a loose cable. Phew!  The final problem that’s been plaguing us is the new in-line water filter we installed on our fresh water tanks.  While it was supposed to be a low-pressure charcoal filter, it has slowly stopped working and only allowing a dribble of water when we pump it with the foot pump.  After a lot of experimenting we decided just to swap the filter out even though it was almost new.  Surprise!  The new filter works 10x better than the previous on ever did.  Weird, but hopefully fixed.

The real problem facing us now is Hurricane Sergio, which recently was down graded to a Storm.  It was the most powerful hurricane ever recorded this late in the season and there hasn’t been 2 named storm in Nov. since 1961.  We made reservations at the local marina in case we need to seek shelter.  But now that entropy is decreased on Sarana, it has to increase for Sergio, right?  I don’t know, I never liked thermodynamics.