Zihuatanejo We spent 12 days in Ztown. You can only get so much done in a day as after 1 pm, you have to sit in the shade with a cerveza frio (cold beer) or iced drink as temps went into the 90's. It took 2 days to get checked in including hiring an agent, another 3 days and a trip to Ixtapa to determine they wanted too much money for a haulout and bottom paint, 2 days of laundry, and another couple days to get Mexican on the water 3rd party insurance and a fishing license. Ixtapa turned out to be a high rise beach resort development; a Mexican Riviera, which we didn't need to visit further. We really liked Zihuatanejo, a somewhat touristy authentic Mexican town. We took advantage of being back to civilization with several trips to local restaurants for Mexican food and Margaritas, which was great! Over this time, several more boats arrived, including a trimaran which had come thru the Panama canal and up. Since we came, there has been less than 10 knots wind from a variety of directions and we ended up with the foredeck cover on, breeze booster up, and using a computer fan with battery over the stateroom hatch each night. Temps at night were at least 80, sometimes 85; bit of a sweater. Outside, just enough biting bugs to keep you from sleeping on deck, although we did that a few times for a while. While here we met a local named Bernie, who, in the hopes of drumming up paying business, escorted us to several locations including Ixtapa helping us to get our permits and info, etc. anVery nice of him and we hired him to clean Pincoya's bottom and also gave him 400 pesos for his daughters needed medical visit. Finally, we decided it was time to move on and spent a day getting our Zarpe filled out, approved, and copied. The Zarpe form was mostly a crew list with sailing intentions in Mexico, with a port captains signature; hopefully the last of our Mexican necessary paperwork.

Isla Ixtapa Grande 17 40.1N 101 39.4W Not rushing things, we motored 7 nm NW to I. I. G. and anchored in an isthmus on the N side with a bunch of restaurants on the beach. A panga from one of them, Indio, was recruiting customers as we came in and offered to pick us up at 5 to come in for dinner, which we accepted. This was a nice protected anchorage but had rental jetskis, banana boats, etc so we decided to only stay one night. Lots of big motorboats from Ixtapa came here also making it a pretty busy place. We went in for dinner and had a tasty langusto, lobster, for two, at 450 pesos, plus margaritas. They took us back to Pincoya, and all was well till Gloria fell ill. Welcome to Mexico! We had both caught colds before leaving Zihau, so were in pretty rough shape next morning and had a lazy day till time to leave. Since the next anchorage for us was 70 nm NW, we decided to leave late afternoon, for an overnighter. We departed, having to close haul into 15 kt NW breeze for the first 3 hours, till it reduced to 5 kts and we started motoring. We passed the city of Lazaro Cardenas, under lit up smog filled skies. We had been warned not to go here as there had been recent drug related gang violence. The gangs were shipping drugs in through this commercial port and with the crack down, the gangs retaliated by blowing up the government Pemax gas stations and electrical plants. Thus the Mexican army was called in to take control of the port and town. Hence, we did an all nighter to Caleto de Campos. Next morning, after watching out all night for numerous ships in the area, we did get a little breeze more NNE and could at least motorsail into our anchorage. That morning, we caught and released 7 Skipjack Tuna, so if you like them, this is the place to be!

Caleta de Campos 18 04N 102 45W Sun, Nov 17 This small cove has a minor breakwater on the N side, a rock point on the S, with a curving playa between. The playa was covered with palapas, and many people were swimming in the very large breaking waves. These came from the very large swells going under us where we anchored near the breakwater. We were completely exposed to the ocean swells and as yet being unwilling to break out our packed dinghy to do a stern anchor, so we did a fair amount of rolling. Especially since the slight N breeze kept us sideways to the SW swell. Shortly after arriving, some fishermen came by and we were able to buy a snapper of about 1kg for 20 pesos. This we immediately put on the BBQ whole, scales and all, and had a delicious Sunday dinner. Gloria made a great salad with fresh stuff we had bought at the market in Zihua just before leaving there. The village had palapas on shore and nice houses surrounding it. With the breaking waves on the beach, we decided not to go to shore. Getting up early the next morning, we made some coffee, and got under way, 23 nm to our next cove, in a nice NE breeze. This lasted about 30 minutes, but gave us a nice lift off doing 7-8 knots. Almost forgot what that was like! Turned out it was from a canyon on shore and once past, the winds died and be were back to the 5-6 kts and motor sailing. Then just plain motoring, as the sails were flogging. About this time, one of the handlines went off and lo, a nice mahi mahi, dorado, was jumping behind the boat. Yes! It had been a long time since we caught a mahi. It was maybe a 7-8 kg; a nice fish. I'm working on remembering how to skin and fillet it; not my best job, but we do already have fish in the freezer. At least the seas were relatively calm for this. I finish up just in time to anchor at Ensanata de Pechilinquillo, a real mouthful to say.