Anchored off Centro, Acapulco Bay
25 April 2014 | Acapulco Bay
Dave, clear, sunny, warm
On Sunday, March 9, 2014 we did our own cruise of Acapulco Bay aboard Pacifico and ended our day anchored in the northern bite of Bahia Marques. An interesting place with expensive homes and condos all around beautiful beaches busy with tourists. That night everyone went home and again we had a quiet anchorage almost to ourselves.
The next day we moved over to an unmarked anchorage just off the end of the cruise ship pier, right in front of the "Capitan del Puerto's Office" and under the ramparts of the Fuerte de San Diego, the old Spanish fort that would have guarded this innermost anchorage of the old town and Centro. This was a great spot, sheltered from the prevailing westerlies, fairly shallow over sand bottom with good holding. There were a number of mooring cans around us, but almost all were un-occupied as you can see in the accompanying photo, taken from the Port Captains Office after check in. We had been told about this place by Henry and Pam on s/v Rapscallion, great advise. Also, that you can leave your dinghy with Alfonso at the Pemex service dock at the other end of the ship's wharf. For $50 pesos he'll also keep track of it for you.
This was a great place to get into Centro, to check in and to re-provision. We walked the Malicon just to get a flavor of the place and it is vibrant. It seemed that of all the hotel buildings lining the beaches most units appeared vacant, yet the beaches were crowded on Sunday and the streets busy on Monday. We've read that Acapulco's economy is suffering because of their reputation regarding drug cartels activities, but we didn't have any problems and found it to be a great stop. And no, there were no pirates out there either.
From Centro we caught a cab up to the old Hotel Mirador for the Clavadistas or Cliff Divers show at 1PM. To be continued.