Fast forward to this morning, Wednesday February 11. Today we moved back to the marina in Ixtapa. Since they are still dredging the channel, we had to arrive prior to 6:45am in order to gain access before the dredgers came to work and closed the channel to traffic for the day.

That meant a 5:00am start for us in total darkness to pull up the anchor in a relatively crowded anchorage and move out of the bay at the same time the local fishermen in their small pangas were also exited the bay. And did we mention that pangas do not display lights and rarely show up on radar?

It is essentially still dark until 7:00am now, so by the time we made it to the channel entry lights at 6:48am, the first fingers of light were just beginning to show. The dredging equipment had not been placed so we made it into the narrow channel and over the shallow bar without any issues. We had the high tide in our favor.

We have now been in Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo for two weeks and we plan to stay in the area for approximatelyanother week.

Our friends, Malcolm and Laura on S/V Thistle will return here next Wednesday so we are looking forward to spending a few days with them before they head south and we turn around and head back north for yet new adventures. Before leaving this area, we will visit Isla Grande about ten miles north of Zihuatanejo.

We have also visited Zihuatanejo's "Parthenon" and all we can say is it is amazing.

A very prominent feature of the surrounding hills of Zihuat with a not-to-be-believed view of the bay of Zihuatanejo, the structure was built in the 70's by the very corrupt chief of police of Mexico City, Arturo Moreno, a close and personal friend of the then President of Mexico. On a monthly salary of the equivalent of $1,000 U.S., he was able to build this several grand estates, including a palace in Mexico City, several properties in Canada and the United States, and this multi-million dollar copy of Athen's Parthenon in Zihuatanejo.

There are stories of torture by lions and crocodiles, and whether any of that is true we don't know, but we can vouch for the fact that there are large animal cages on the grounds. There is also an underground escape tunnel from the basement to the sea below.

There are tons of inlaid marble, hand-painted murals, once beautiful mahogany woodwork and Grecian sculptures still existing and we wonder why some wealthy businessperson has not purchased and restored the property.

Today, abandoned for fifteen years with windows gone and the place looted, hundreds of bats make this their home.

There are no organized tours of the place. One just climbs up the hill in that direction and finally you come across it. For about five dollars, someone lets you in the twenty-five foot tall gate and you can wander around the property. Originally we had looked it up on Google and were intrigued enough to go. It was well worth it.

The internet search told us that Moreno died in 2000 from cancer after posting bail and spending only six years of his sixteen year sentence in prison for his crimes.

Our week in Zihuat hasn't been all fundraiser activities however. We spent the best part of a couple of days running around town, or should I say, taking taxis around town trying to find a machine shop to straighten out one of the mangled legs of our dinghy wheels.

Once we found success, we discovered that the tire tube of same wheel went flat from a broken valve stem. So the hunt was on again. Again, many taxi rides to appropriate businesses brought no success, so inventor Phil decided to stuff the tire with part of a swimming noodle which met with reasonable success. In other words, it worked for a short time, wiggling its way in and out of the water in a tentative manner.

Phil's favorite building tools continue to be noodles, duct tape and PVC. Some cruisers have told us about one ferreteria (hardware store) that we will visit this afternoon to see if they have a replacement tire tube. We bet not!

It's now three days later. The tire stuffed with swim noodle foam failed. We eventually found a tube inches too big for our tire but we stuffed it in and inflated it. It's still working!

Some great news came the following day at the awards banquet. Wind Dancer took second place in the Best Decorated Boat contest. Woohoo!

Wind Dancer participated in the Boat Parade and we received eight wonderful guests who paid a fee to Por Los Ninos to spend the day on board. In total, there were 29 boats hosting guests for the parade. Once our guests had boarded, we joined in the parade that lasted about 4 hours and had us circling the bays of Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo. At the appropriate moment, all boats saluted the Puerto Capitan's vessel, who was the official representative of the Mexican Government.

Following the parade, we continued sailing outside the bay, and once we returned, almost everyone jumped overboard for a cooling swim. We kept eyes open for Hector, the giant crocodile that apparently enjoys an occasional swim in the same waters. We were lucky to enjoy the company of several dolphins along the route, much to our passengers' delight.