The cover photo shows Eric and me at Pedro's Beachfront Restaurant in La Manzanilla, the town across the bay from Tenacatita, where we went with our friends, Melodie and Pat from Starshine, to do some grocery shopping and have some lunch. Pedro claims that he makes the "universe's best fish tacos." Ours were quite good, but as I haven't sampled the fish tacos on Venus yet, I can't substantiate his claim.


Eric piloting our dinghy in the estuary jungle cruise in Tenacatita.

We ended our stay in Bahia Tenacatita with the weekly Mayor's Dinghy Raft-up on Friday evening. This week's raftup was almost canceled due to the high winds (up to 30 knots) that blew in during the predawn hours and turbulated the anchorage for most of the day. Afternoon beach bocce ball and Mexican Train dominoes were canceled, but the wind and waves abated by late afternoon, so the Raft-up was held after all!

The Dinghy Raft-up is a great way to get to know other cruisers in the anchorage. The current Mayor, Chris from the sailboat Legacy, took his dinghy over to a small cove and dropped an anchor. Other cruisers brought their dinghies and tied up to create a circle, around which appetizers and conversation were passed. As Friday was my birthday, Eric had baked a birthday cake, using items we had on board. He concocted a vanilla cake with chocolate chips and crushed cashews on top which was quite yummy.

Each week, after the appetizers have made a round of the dinghies, the Mayor poses a question for discussion. This week, Chris asked: "What scares you about the cruising life?" The answers offered by the attending cruisers - who ranged from relative newbies like ourselves to well-traveled voyagers of multiple decades - were fascinating.

The next morning, we headed south out of Bahia Tenacatita, toward Zihuatanejo, about two hundred miles away. The forecast was for light winds and gentle seas for the entire two-day passage, which, in fact, came to pass and gave us a very comfortable ride. We were able to sail for much of the time, but during our second night, when we were making about 3 knots through the water, and only 2 knots forward due to an opposing current, we turned on our trusty diesel engine to make some forward progress.

The second night brought us our only two notable moments of the trip.

First, Eric caught a marlin. Go ahead and be impressed for a few minutes....Okay, here's the full story: As Eric was sitting on the back of the cockpit, in the dark, minding his own business, he was suddenly hit by something in the middle of his chest. Thwack! Whatever it was had fallen to the cockpit floor and was thrashing around. Eric grabbed a flashlight and discovered that the visitor was a fifteen-inch-long baby marlin, who was probably just as surprised by the turn of events as Eric was. Eric was able to pick up the flailing fish and toss it overboard.

Second, I had a predawn conversation with a ship that was maintaining a collision course with us. Now before you get all worried, I will tell you that we have systems on board SCOOTS, including radar and AIS, that allow us to identify and track ships from a long way off, so we were in no immediate danger. Using AIS, we had been tracking lots of ships for most of the night in an area of ocean near Lazaro Cardenas, which maintains a large shipping center. AIS gives us lots of information about the ships, including their name, speed and course, and the distance and time of the closest point of approach to us. We also transmit our information over AIS, so other boats can know the same about us.

Usually, boats will pass us with plenty of room to spare, and if not, one or both of us will adjust our course to make sure that does happen. Our ships pass in the night and all is well.

This time, at about 4:30 am, I noticed two ships approaching SCOOTS at an oblique angle from up ahead, one ship following relatively closely behind the other. On my AIS display, I could see that in about 45 minutes the front ship was going to pass too close for my comfort, so I adjusted our course; a few minutes later, the front ship did the same, to increase the passing distance even more. Good.

The second ship, however, maintained his course. And maintained it. And continued to maintain it, keeping its projected closest point of approach to within meters of SCOOTS. That was way too close! Because our AIS displays the names of the ships, I was able to call the second ship by name on the radio on Channel 16 - the international hailing frequency, which we always keep on while underway - which I did.

When I gave the ship's crew member our position, he said that he was unable to see us on his radar. What?! That would certainly explain why the second ship was maintaining a course that would bring us so close.

Then the first ship cut in to say that he could see us where I said we were, and perhaps the second ship couldn't see us because we were in the radar shadow caused the the first ship. The second ship told me he would alter course to pass us on our port side, which he in fact did.

A few minutes later, I watched as one giant shadowy ship passed us to starboard, and another giant shadowy ship passed us to port, both at a safe distance.


A SCOOTS sandwich. The red boat is SCOOTS; the green triangles are the two ships. The icons are NOT to scale.

The rest of our trip to Zihuatanejo was uneventful. When the sun came up, we turned off the engine put up the sails, and drifted along, enjoying the warm sunshine, the placid blue ocean, and the many sea turtles who popped their heads up nearby to check us out. What's the rush?


SCOOTS sailing into the sunrise.