SailBlog: SailBlogs

Playing with Friends

Melanie — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:02:00 -0600

Well, unfortunately we were not able to see the butterflies in the state of Michoacan. With all the rain and flooding inland, the tours have been suspended due to infrastructure damage. In fact when we last checked in Zihuatenejo, it was snowing in the mountains and the poor Monarchs were hunddled together, no doubt thinking this was the very weather they were migrating from. (Continued...)

It's all uphill from here...

Melanie — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:24:00 -0600

Well, we've arrived at our southern-most point in our 'journey' (ha!!)...we are in Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo. We debated about making this final jaunt as it was another 30+ hour sail and we weren't sure we wanted to undertake another one when really...we have seen a lot of beaches, towns, snorkeling areas...but we had heard so much about Z-Town that we thought we might as well go....otherwise we'd regret it. We are all thankful that we made the trek down here as it is definitely a wonderful spot!! (Continued...)

Who is Olive Ridley?

Melanie — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:19:00 -0600

Well, a few days ago we had another amazing experience. In Nuevo Vallarta there is a group of volunteers that with some federal funding and donations manage a turtle hatchery. They scour the beaches at night, looking for female turtles depositing their eggs. They dig them up and re-bury them in a more secure spot. When they hatch they release them at night which is safer time for the turtles to make their journey since the birds are all sleeping. We were able to participate in a turtle release! There were 500 baby Olive Ridley turtles from about 5 litters or batches (or whatever you call the bunch of eggs that turtles lay). Their odds of survival are grim - only about 1 of the 500 that we released will make it full maturity (about age 30). (Continued...)