Getting Close
07 March 2007 | Zihuatanejo
Well, the countdown to departure has started. One of our buddy boat crew (Melanie on Talerra) is flying home to Seattle today for a short visit with family and to bring back much needed supplies (tea leaves etc...) and will return on March 19th so we'll get away ASAP after that date. We'll probably book into the marina at Xtapa for one or two nights before departure to give the boat a really good fresh water wash-down, fuel, etc...
The photo above shows the Zihua puddle jumpers last week at a function ashore. Flanking me in the front row is a lady from the Tahiti Visitors Bureau and the owner of Polynesia Yacht Services in French Polynesia. They both flew over for the function and everyone is now really hyped up about the trip. (I felt for a moment I was back in the workforce when the two of them gave their Powerpoint presentation).
We have just received news that our daughter, grand daughter and Debbie's sister will be flying to Papeete and joining us for a week in a resort we have booked on Moorea from June 9th, so we can't dawdle too much through the Marquessas and Tuomotus if we are to be in Tahiti by June. If we can get away from here around March 22 we should be in the Marquessas by the week of April 15th. That gives us about 6 weeks to see the Marquessas and Tuomotus before moving onto the Society Islands. We're anxious to spend as much time as possible in the Tuomotus because of the excellent diving and fishing.
We are really enjoying Zihua - it's a very pretty little town steeped in history. We have been spending the majority of the time anchored off the main town but the water is a little dirty to swim in and make water so we will start spending more time at one of the other beaches about half a mile away where the water is much cleaner. It's a slightly longer dinghy ride to shore but the benefit of diving into the water from the boat outweighs the longer dinghy trip. The last few days have been quite hot (38 degrees plus) and there has been little breeze so it's important to be able to cool down on a regular basis.
We are also finding in these temperatures the frrezer and fridge are really working hard and we are going through about 250 amp hours a day. The solar panels pretty well balance out the withdrawal during the day but we are finding we need to run the engine for 3 - 4 a day to keep abreast of the power drain. In order to save power we bought 30 gallons of water yesterday rather than making our own A five gallon jug of water delivered to the boat is only $2.50 so it's pretty economical, considering the amount of fuel we need to burn to replace the amps used when making water.
We are going to the movies tonight to see the Leonardo de Caprio movie about diamonds in Africa (don't know the name of the movie because all the posters are in Spanish). It's half price Wednesday and it only costs $2.50 to get into the movies. The ice cream is more expensive than the movie ticket.
Must go now... have a laundry and propane run to make into town.