Zihuatanejo to Papinoa

It was a restless night as the big yaght behind us partied til after 0300. And then at 0530 rush hour started with the fisherman. Most of the panga's are equipped with at least a 50 hp Yamaha and these guys only know how to do two speeds - stop and FAST!  They do not have the courtesy in Mexico of a NO WAKE ZONE! Decision was made to go as far as Papanoa today and break up the stretch to Acapulco. We would be too tired to do it in two days without stopping. 

Papanoa does not show up on this map but it is south of Patatlan where the highway touches the coast.

0935: Anchor is up. There is high cloud cover. Seas are rippled. Wind is on our nose at less than 5 knots. So you should have figured it out by now - we are motoring and making water and recharging our batteries.

There are a lot of boats out in the water - commercial, chartered and personal. Everyone is fishing for Marlin, Maji Mahi and Serrano.

1110: abeam Rocus Patosi off the town of Patatlan.  Finally sighted another sailboat heading north. This is the first sailboat that we have seen since leaving Barra.

1125: abeam punta Gorda. The winds have picked up a little but still not enough to sail. There wasn't much happening so I decided to have a siesta.

1424; David woke me up because the motor started to make funny noises and he thought we might have to raise the sails in a hurry. Everything looked to be in order - fuel filters are just about ready for changing but still looked okay. And the noise went away so we just chalked it up to a little water in the fuel or dirt as we received fuel in Zihuatanejo via jerry cans and not directly from a tank.

In the meantime I sighted a humpback whale about 200 meters off our port side. This was the first sighting of a whale this season. So the whale sighting made up for being woken up from my nap. But I could use some caffeine! How about a Starbucks Mocha Frappacino on ice? I bought a couple of these at the WalMart. More decadence on the high seas.

The coastline is one uninterrupted beach all the way from Petatlan to Papanoa.

1600: sailing with the Genoa and giving the motor a rest. Doing a whopping 2-2.3 knots. There are a lot of fish jumping around us so David put a line in but we are really going too slow. We did get a visit from a few Dolphins.

1715: dropped the anchor in Papinoa. It is a well protected bay with break waters to reduce the swell. And we were treated to a wonderful sunset.

1715: dropped the anchor at Papanoa in 15 feet of water. We just got settled and one of the locals came over in his Panga to say hello. Ivan spent many years in Nevada, California and Colorado so his English was excellent. We have met quite a few Mexicans who have returned to Mexico after a stint in the US. They missed their lifestyle and easy unstressful way of life.

Ivan gave us a bit of the history of the place as the large breakwater that had been erected did not seem like something a simple fishing village would undertake. It seems that Honda had once intended to open up a car factory here so the breakwater was built and sewer and electricity were brought in. That fell through for some reason but now another project seems to be in the works. Rumor has it that someone is planning on moving the breakwater 100 meters further out and dredging the tiny Harbour to 20 meters And a lot of the undeveloped property has been bought by Japanese. So maybe another car manufacturer is thinking of moving in. It will definitely change the landscape of the tiny sleepy fishing village.

Right now the anchorage is an ideal place to put down the hook and break up the trip to Acapulo. It is like a large salt water swimming pool and well protected. The original plan was to stay one night but the swimming was too perfect with visibility to 10 feet and hardly a ripple in the anchorage.

 

It is the bay on the north part of this point. The original plan was to spend the morning swimming and then head out in the afternoon. But the swimming was too good and we were not in a hurry so we decided to stay an extra night. The chances of swimming Acapulco would probably be slim so I wanted to take advantage of this anchorage.

And it is a good thing that we stayed otherwise we would have missed the afternoon festivities. All the panga's and town people were adorned with costumes and balloons to take part in the blessing of the fleet by St. Andrea. There was a live band and fire works as they headed out into the bay, circled around our boat and then headed to shore to continue the parade on land.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning the bottom of the boat and water line as best we could. There was a fair amount of slime from the anchorage in Zihualanejo. I did several trips to the dock and back - definitely a good workout day!

Peaceful night. No swell. Slight breeze through the forward hatch. Woke up to blue skies and a bit of wi d.

Did a couple more laps in my salt water pool. Finished up the chores. Had a shower. And then raised the anchor.