I hope you children in Mrs. Balantacs' class are tuned in to this blog. I was sitting in my captains chair behind the steering wheel and enjoying my bowl of cereal when I looked off to the side of the boat and could'nt believe my eyes. There was a 5 or 6 foot CROCODILE swimming lazily over toward Madeira beach. I put down my cereal bowl and scrambled down below to retrieve my camera because I wanted evidence of my sighting so maybe at least Gabriella would believe me. It was a really exciting moment and then I flashed back to yesterday when I was scrubbing the bottom of the boat next to me. I was wondering how close the Crocodile would come to me if I was in the water. I don't think they really want to fool around with humans in the water. The rest of the day I was ferrying passengers to boats that were in a parade. When they came back from their little cruise/parade I had to pick them up at the boats and deliver them to the beach. They had to jump off the dinghy into shallow water at the beach. On my second to last load one of the other dinghy operators yelled something to me, but I could'nt hear him because of the outboard motor making too much noise. I soon found out what he was yelling about....there was the Crocodile about 10 feet off to the side of the dinghy real close to the beach where I was dropping off passengers. I guess this Crocodile was in a wondering mode. It was a real long day ferrying passengers back and forth. All this effort is for a real worthy cause though. All proceeds from the Zihua Sailfest goes to support primary school children who are from indigenous families or other very poor families. This is the sixth year of the Sailfest and they have built them a new school. By the way, there are a couple more photos of this darling croc in my photo gallery. I went to the airport this afternoon/evening and picked up my parts for my windlass that my friend Susan sent me. So now the repair begins and hopefully I will be on my way to Acapulco by Tuesday or Wednesday.

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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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