It has been over a week siince my last post, so I better put something in here or I will lose my audience. The famous(among cruisers) ZihuaFest started today and will run until the 3rd of February. The whole thing came about when some cruisers wanted to raise money for a school for underprivileged and orphaned children of the Zihuatanejo area. This is the sixth season it has been run and it gets better each year. Last year they finished the constuction of the new schoolhouse and they now give to 4 or 5 other needy schools. The money the cruisers raise from boat races(fun), raffles, auctions. and jam sessions and the sales of CDs created from local and cruiser artists are matched by 2 or 3 philanthropic(sic) organizations. So each year they do quite a bit of fund raising. The local merchants really help out also, because they don't want the gringos to show them up and they do like the results. I will volunteer the use of my new dinghy and of course myself as driver to take passengers back and forth to cruisers boats so they can go on a parade/cruise of the Zihua/Ixtapa area. They pay for the privilege and the proceeds go to the children. As soon as I get my Anchor windlass back together with the new part I will be ready to go south to Acapulco. I should have some exciting new pics from the area. Susan..that police station you referred to is actually a naval base. It's probably all the guns you see them tote that left the impression of a police station. There's tons of fresh produce all over this town and there is a few coffee bean stores.

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Been here for almost a week and starting to get settled in. I've decided to try and fix my anchor windlass here, so I will probably have the parts flown in. I did this in '98 when I was here and my good friend Susan did all the stateside footwork and it worked like a charm. I'm going to post some pictures of the town. They are of shops, markets, and general shots. I've added another (cool) feature to my blog. It's called an XPLOT(map) feature that lets me put a location on the map of where I have been and am currently. Also, if you click on Google Earth icon, you get a real photo from a satellite to give you a better feel for where I'm at. If you don't have Google Earth...DOWNLOAD IT, you won't be sorry and it's free. The first time you click on the Google earth icon at the lower left side of the Position Map...click 'save' then click 'save' again. Then you can open it after the initial download connection to my blog has been made. Then you can click on different locations and get the blog from that location....I know this is confusing, I think I lost myself a way back. A large Carnival Cruise Line ship pulled in today and the town was flooded with gringos. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to email me or post a comment. Well, back to my struggle in Paradise.

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I thoroughly enjoyed Santiago. It is such a peaceful anchorage, even with the occasional jet ski and banana boat rides buzzing around the boat. I had one jet ski with 2 young ladies on it come to within 5 feet of the boat doing about 25mph. These ski rental people just don't know the danger of some of their actions. The jet skiers buzz all the sailboats at anchor as if we were the attraction in a side show...I don't know what the interest is in us gringos sitting at anchor in their watery playground. After watching my Chargers win an exciting playoff game on Sunday, I thought it was time to move south. Monday morning I manually pulled up my anchor and headed south for Zihua. I wanted to day hop to anchorages along the way but without an electric anchor windlass I decided to skip the dayhopping and do an overnighter to Zihua. It was a motorsail down the coast because the wind never got over 6 or 7 knots and my boat speed against a north moving current was a low 4 to 5 knots. Getting close to Zihua I realized it would be late at night when I would make landfall, so I diverted to Lazaro Cardenas, which is a commercial port with silos, wharehouses. and large smoke billowing stacks everywhere. I pulled into a nice little cove right off the main channel and anchored for the night. I called the port captain on the vhf radio and told him my dinghy was deflated and there were no docks for me to tie up to, so could I please check in over the radio. He asked my location and told to me stay put. A few minutes later an official looking rescue boat with the port captain aboard came alongside and asked for my papers. He wanted to knkow how long I was going to stay and what time I was leaving. I told him I wanted to pull out at 8am in the morning. So he took off with my paperwork and passport to do some copying and their official stamping. I wanted to jump in the shower and freshen up after an overnighter but did'nt want to be interrupted by the port captain coming back with the paperwork. He was a no-show and I was thinking he would keep my paperwork and I would have to motor towards town and try to retrieve it in the morning. Exactly at 8am as I was finishing my delicious strawberry flavored miniwheats the official looking rescue boat with blue and red lights flashing came alongside with my papers right on time....what service! So off I went to Zihuatanejo, a mere 25 miles across a long bay. Boy has this place grown in size and PRICES. I almost had a heart attack as I strolled down the malecon and look at the menus that were displayed with there astronomical prices. I have some serious exploring to do today. I will be settled in here for a week or two and then possibly move on down to Acapulco. I just want to say again how thrilled I was to get all those questions from Gabriellas kindergarten class. Just their comment post alone has made this blog worth it. Still having fun...........

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