I have spaghetti arms and most of my body aches. How does something so simple as laying around on a floating piece of fiberglass become such a work out? The first couple of days here in our secret surf spot the waves were pumping like a machine. Since then they've died down a little bit, but we managed to fill the anchorage with 5 boats (Sarana, Ocean Lady, Willow, Tara and Godspeed) and there's one souped-up panga (Get Lost) who made it inside the lagoon and anchored. Between us, that's 10 surfers and most of the time we're the only ones out there surfing.

We've toured the lagoon, walked the beaches, met lots of people and we even had a big bonfire (fogata) on the beach last night with lots of music and singing. Then of course we've been able to surf everyday.

The only downside is the anchorage is a bit rough. All of us have stern anchors out to help steady our boats in the swell, but it's still a bouncy and rolly ride. So after having spent a week here, we're going to move on to Puerto Escondido (only 35 miles away) where they have a funky surf town and the world famous "Mexican Pipeline". I won't be surfing there but we'll go check it out. I'm sure the waves are too difficult and the crowd too big for me.

Check out the night heron catching lunch in the lagoon!

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Well we ended up just resting for about 5 hours in Dulce and then caught the afternoon winds to try to sail some more. We didn't get too far, about 20 miles or so before it died. Basically we motored for about 12 hours after that with a little sailing in between.

The plus side is we saw lots of wild life. Turtles, sea snakes, and dolphins were all over the place. And when we arrived in Punta Galera, Greg from Willow, and I caught some of the best surf either of us have ever tried. It was fantastic! We're going to try another nearby surf spot a couple of locals recommended and it has a nice left wave with tubes! The great surf usually means a rolly anchorage, but who can complain?

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The charts of Mexican waters are so poor that you shouldn't ever try to make landfall in the dark. And since leaving Acapulco we had very little wind and were tired of motoring. Our only choices for making the next anchorage before dark were to slow to 2.5 knots or speed up to 5.5 knots. Neither of those ideas seemed attractive. So we decided to try a spot that Sherrell had noticed on the charts called Bahia Dulce. The chart was pretty sketchy and no guides had mentioned it, but we thought we'd tool around and see if there's a place to anchor out of the swell.

Bahia Dulce (Sweet Bay) is surrounded by beautiful beaches and it's nice and quite. Ourselves and Willow found a spot in about 35 feet to anchor and the holding was good. Then we all ate some food and crashed for a few hours. Now that we're settling in for lunch we're debating staying or going.

And here's a first! I had a Boobie bird land on my head while I was tying up the mainsail! We were both equally shocked and he lept to the mainsail and stood there looking at me like I was guiltly of messing up his perfect landing. So he rode with us for about 45 minutes and endured several attacks by Jordan. We went below and that's when the party started. It's amazing how much crap one little bird can make. No problem, it just washes off, but it was funny watching Jordan stalk the bird because she was a little afraid of the feathery monster. Anyway the boobie is still hanging out on our boat, so maybe we'll have to add him to the crew.

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We left Acapulco today. I have to admit I liked Acapulco. It's a big city with big city problems, but we had a fun time there and the anchorage was better than Zihuatanejo. We're sailing along slowly at about 3.5 knots or so with some kind of current against us. The weather is nice and we're sailing in company of Willow. We're not sure where we are going to stop because the winds down here are so light and we don't like motoring all that much. So we'll see where we end up tomorrow morning.

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With some luck, we were able to sail about 45 of the 110 miles from Zihuatanejo to Acapulco. This part of the world has very light winds and most of the time we were only doing about 3.5 to 4 knots. As we approached Acapulco the winds returned and we were able to sail right into the bay just like the old sailing ships from Spain 400 years ago. In fact we sailed right into the bay along side Willow and we were busy taking pictures of each other as we squeezed through the Western Pass and into the bay. The cliffs and water were so beautiful it made our day! When we find internet access we'll post some photos.

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Here's a slice of night life from Zihuatanejo at New Year's Eve in "La Jungle". I'm holding the white cup and a couple heads to the left you'll see Sherrell. I think the photo says more than I can.

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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