our whale sighting! this is the only picture that wasn't of the tail splash, that came came out!

3 days of sailing:
Weigh anchor at 1000 hours. Sad to say good bye to sv Dreamweaver but we have to go. Motored for 3 hours to get out of the bay and clear the shipping traffic coming out of Manzanillo. Bearing S then SE. Then we came upon a long-line fishing line off the coast! Saw our first proper whale! Meaning we saw his tail fin full on out of the water for 5 minutes straight! Put sails up 1350 hours and turned off the engine. Had a decent SW wind which increased after sunset. Had a hard night: 1st the mainsheet got caught in the radar mount so that was an hour of adrenalin rushes after dark. 2 hours later (at 3 am) we had a major wind shift so we had to readjust everything. The sunset was spectacular as well as the moonrise (at first you think they are ships off in the distance). Next morning we saw another large school of Dolphins! Dieing wind and large sea swells 1600 made for a hard time with auto pilot, decided to alter course a bit to keep the sails quieter. Wind picked up in the evening - had a decent sail. A bit a freighter traffic - they appear as if out of no where and get close fast (as they are going 20 times faster than us) but they are usually pass without indecent and we keep a bearing range on them- it's just freaky! It's interesting to hear the ship to sailboat (and ship to ship) traffic on the VHF - Cheryl had to scorn some drunken fishing boats guys who were playing music over the radio keeping her crew (Scott) awake-it seemed to work! Scott saw neat purple phosphoresces with jellyfish near the boat in the dark sea before it lightened up with another beautiful sunrise. Sailed until 0820 when wind decreased, started taking down some sails and turned on the engine to get us to an anchorage before sunset. Anchored at Isla Grande, Ixtapa at 1830. Nice anchorage with a cute beach full of palapas, lounge chairs, jet skis and pangas and lot of other boats but the boats all left literally minutes after we set anchor - apparently this is a popular day spot as the guides say. We jumped in the water to cool off and soap up, did a quick change-over of the boat to anchor living, had a cocktail, made dinner and off to bed to get some decent sleep!