We spent Wednesday provisioning and getting the boat ready to leave. Tane and I cleaned the bottom, but in the process, one of my fins fell off, and Tane dropped one of the suction cup devices we use to cling to the hull while cleaning it. Although the water was only 23' deep, it was very murky. After a couple of free dive attempts, I got out the hookah unit. After some time fruitlessly searching the sea bottom, I had to give up. Later that evening, when storing the outboard motor, I dropped a pair of vice grips over the side. The tally of items dropped at the anchorage was rising alarmingly.

The bay in Zihuatanejo is full of life. There was a permanent school of fish (several hundred) living on the shadow side of the boat---every now and then, a pelican would dip in for a feed, but since there was a similar school with every boat anchored, the birds had no problems. All this sea life means plenty of growth, so the main and stern anchor (necessary to align the boat into the swells, and for "good neighbor" behavior) were covered in growth. I started fairly early in the morning, letting out the main anchor as I brought in the stern anchor a little at a time, scrubbing the line as I went. The swells tweaked the line a bit as I got near the end, but I thought nothing of it. It took some effort to free the anchor, but I thought little of it. To my dismay, when the anchor appeared, the shank was bent through nearly 90 degrees. Ouch! Another casualty. The next incident was a neighbor dropping by to ask me to raise my main anchor as soon as possible, as he was sure our anchor was over his stern anchor. Although I assured him I was very careful to avoid this, he insisted. Tane and I set about raising and scrubbing the chain, only to discover that our washdown pump no longer functioned, so it was bucket and chuck it. Of course, there was no problem with the anchor, but we ended up idling slowly out for quite some time as we still had to make things shipshape to avoid down-below disaster.

After an hour or so, we put up the 0.75 ounce spinnaker, and kept it up until after dark. There was a beautiful half-moon, and the seas were very calm. It's now morning, there's essentially no wind, and we're motoring past the entrance to Acapulco harbor. We've decided not to stop here --- famous it may be, but it is a big city, the marinas and mooring facilities are either extremely expensive or hurricane damaged, and we'd rather press on so we can take the inland trip to Oaxaca from Huatulco.

We're planning Escondido as our next stop.