Log 15 - Zihuatanejo to Mazatlan 
      Feb 12^th to Mar 4^th 2003 -  Distance traveled this season 1200 miles.

Leaving Zihuatanejo was quite a wrench, as it’s very comfortable, and easy to get in a rut. The anchorage is good and the town was lots of fun. But you just know when it’s time to move on; we were getting itchy feet. The trip up to Manzanillo was quite uneventful; very light winds from the SW and our course was NW. The coast of Mexico at this point runs almost West to East so the 210 miles gained us only 30 miles north.  What a difference those 30 miles makes. We went from 95° days to 80-85°. Nighttime required digging out the quilt and closing hatches.  

Manzanillo is not as touristy as the rest of the southwest Mexican coast.  It is an industrial harbor with container terminals and silos for grain and cement. But the north side of the big bay is for tourism.  Last year while here we stayed in the anchorage at the “Las Hadas” resort, made famous in the movie “10”. This time we chose the larger Bahia de Santiago. It has a few advantages: more space, cleaner water and easier access to the buses into town. There were already about 6 other boats in the bay. LONCIA and SILHOUETTE had been with us in Zihua and WELL DESERVED had just come down from Tenacatita.  

One of the reasons for passing through Manzanillo was to refuel. Manzanillo has the cheapest fuel we have found, and it’s the same price as the gas stations on the highways. So Sunday morning we sailed the 6 miles across the bay to the main harbor. We met WELL DESERVED (with LONCIA’s crew aboard) just leaving the harbor entrance. They had taken the last 825 gallons of diesel from the fuel dock; they didn’t know when they would get more. How can a fuel dock that services a major harbor run out????  Welcome to Mexico!  We sailed back across the bay and decided to take a taxi the next morning to the local Pemex station. We borrowed LONCIA’s fuel cans. (They had filled up their jerry jugs on the trip with WELL DESERVED). All went well until Mike tried to get the dinghy ashore. There was not much surf break, but enough, and combined with a hidden shelf underwater, the dinghy wheels stopped short. Mike jumped out and caught his heel in the safety line around the dinghy and went swimming (the first time this has happened).  Sooner or later, every cruiser has a dinghy landing mishap – even the mighty will fall! So he missed the taxi, came back to the boat, changed and tried again, this time with no problems. Try getting a cab in Gringoland to load 8 empty 5-gal. cans of diesel in his cab and then help you fill them at the gas station!!   

The same day we took a trip into old town Manzanillo - a 25 min, 30¢ bus ride – in the company of the LONCIA and WELL DESERVED crews. There is a big museum of archeology, but unfortunately it was Monday and, like most museums in the world, it was closed. But a walk around the old town was very interesting. It’s totally non-tourist. The town backs up a small hill around what used to be a small sheltered harbor that is now behind large breakwaters. We stopped at the public market, and wandered through it. It’s amazing to see the difference just 200 miles makes in the availability of foodstuffs here. Produce looked a lot less fresh than Zihua. What made up for that was the incredible diversity in the little taco stands. We picked one across from the market and sampled 3 or 4 roasted pork tacos. When we asked the vendor to identify the other meats, he kept handing us bites of the meats and veggies he had cooking. All that for 30¢. We continued wandering around the old town and finally ended up back at the old harbor. The harbor is home to a fairly good-sized navy base that tucks up in the corner of the harbor. It used to be home to a big fleet of boats that fished for billfish. Now it’s only for tourism, but they don’t let you forget its history, as they have erected a huge sailfish monument in the harbor square. A little bit more incongruous is the statue of “Snoopy”, a gift from their twinned city in the states, St Paul, MN (Charles Schulz’s town). 

The pearl of the trip downtown was a visit to a bar recommended to us by other cruisers. Apparently in years gone by this bar was a haunt of fishermen, yachtsmen and sailors on visiting ships. Most of these have moved off as the fishing declined; the yachts went to the marina and the commercial harbor moved too far out of the downtown core. The bar, “The Social Club”, sits on one corner of the harbor square. It is in an old concrete building that time forgot. We approached the bar thinking it was closed - the windows were grimy, with gray Venetian blinds inside; the door was an aluminum and glass affair that looked locked - but we noticed there was no dust on the threshold so Mike tried the door and it opened. He peaked inside and called the rest of us on. Inside, there were about 20 people sitting either around the bar or in booths. The room had high-decorated ceilings and the entire bar and booths were constructed of molded marble style concrete. Patterns in the floor and bar were from another age - someone had spent a lot of money on this place at one time. We took a booth and ordered cervesas. Within a few minutes food started arriving, not lunch meals but bar food for Mexico: different salads, dips, chips, flautas, tostadas. We sat and listened to the jukebox and finally realized it was actually a real person. One of the barmen was standing in a corner playing a keyboard and singing. You would not have known it wasn’t recorded music. The barmen and recipients of their services at the bar looked like something you may see in the movie about the making of “The Buena Vista Social Club”. It seemed as if they had been there for the last 50 years. But the beer was cheap, the food great and we really enjoyed this look back in time from Manzanillo’s heydays. 

We departed Bahia de Santiago to head north.  Our next destination was to be Tenacatita Bay, our favorite anchorage from last season.  The conditions were good for a sail north, but we motored all but 2 hours as the wind was very light.  Once at the entrance to Tenacatita, we were wishing we could just keep sailing north, the passage making conditions were so good.  But we had made commitments to meet friends here, so turned into the bay.  We had signed up for the 2^nd Annual Tres Palapas Race, which was to be held that Saturday.  Upon arrival, we discovered we were one of only two boats registered – the other being a catamaran.  So we felt that it would not really be a good event, and that it should wait until more racer-cruisers were in the bay to participate.  We were really surprised by the water quality here – thick and sludgy green.  Cath got in immediately to take Rosie for a swim – 79°F is quite a shock when you are spoiled by 86°!  Last year, we had been able to see our anchor on the bottom in 22’ of water, it was that clear.  Also, we were “peopled-out” after our vigorous social time in Zihua, and there were about 30 boats in the bay here.  So for all these reasons, we resolved to haul anchor at first light the next morning to continue north – a great decision, as it turned out. 

We had a fantastic sail 30 miles north to Bahia Chamela, and anchored off the quiet beach town of Perula, at the north end of the bay.  The water was much clearer here, and the 10 km. sandy beach was all but deserted.  We had a terrific, restful time here, along with our friends Tom and Jackie from WELL DESERVED, who arrived later in the day.  We took Rosie to play in the surf on the beach, Mike and Tom played “surfer dudes” on the surf kayaks, and generally rested up.  At the end of every day, we kept saying, “let’s stay one more day”.  We finally felt the weather conditions were good to travel north after three days.   

Our next leg north was absolutely great.  We had such great conditions for going north – SW winds to 26 knots, rare at this time of year – that we just kept going.  We passed several difficult headlands without incident, and were rewarded by some fantastic sites:  a pod of killer whales – rarely seen in these parts – off Banderas Bay; manta rays and dolphins frolicking in the waves; gray whale sightings.  At night the Southern Cross and Orion kept us company.  We traveled for 51 hours, and only motored 8.  The only sloppy conditions were as we were approaching Mazatlan, where the water shallows and waves build while the wind came around to be on the nose.  We dropped the hook of Isla Vanedos (Deer Island) at 3:30 am and waited for daylight before entering the channel to the marinas. 

We spent a total of 8 days in Mazatlan; it’s another one of those cruiser-friendly places. The marinas range from basic and cheap to ritzy and expensive. We stayed at one in the middle. We know people who were here last year as we passed through and didn’t ever leave!!  It is another crossroads for cruisers.  We saw so many friends from Portland, as well as friends made previously in anchorages along the way, and even made some new ones!  It is really difficult to get anything done; just a quick walk to the top of the dock invites all kinds of socializing.

Mazatlan Carnaval is the 3^rd largest worldwide. People travel from all over Mexico for the 6 days of partying.  We decided to hit two of the events, the fireworks and the first of two  “finale” parades. The fireworks are a huge event. The streets around the bay of Olas Altas (big waves) are closed off, and you pay 15 pesos to get in the area along with about 300,000 other people. Everyone is searched before they are let in, as it would be tough to survive a knife fight in those crowds. But we saw no violence. The fireworks are in celebration of a sea battle that took place during the civil war, the fireworks are fired from two beaches, at each other. It was quite spectacular, we have never been that close (less than 100 mts) from fireworks like these. Everybody crowds along the sea wall and road; there are about 10 to 12 bandstands with everything from rock bands to mariachi - not to mention the 50 beer and booze stands. After the fireworks the crowds move en-masse; you get in the stream of people that are going in your general direction and hope for the best. It got very tight and we both felt very uncomfortable once or twice. But we finally made it home after about 5 hours out on the town.  

The next event was the Carnaval Parade, which took place on the Sunday afternoon along the ocean again. This time however you don’t pay to get in, but if you want a seat in the grandstands that all street side businesses set up, it will cost you. We got there early as we had just been to the main bus station to check on buses to Guadalajara. (It was our intention to take a 4-day trip there while in Mazatlan.) Back to the parade, we found a spot right on the parade route, 3 seats from the front. They cost $3 each and we sat and waited 1½ hours for the parade to start. True to form, the parade was 2 hrs late, something about the encores that the band played at the Carnaval Queen’s coronation, 5000 kept 500,000 waiting. Finally the parade started past and we had a good time critiquing the floats.  Some of them were remarkably ornate.  Every float had a queen of some sort and her court, smiling and waving at the crowd.  Some were just huge shiny Mercedes buses with queens sitting on top.  Every young girl in Mazatlan must be a queen or princess of something at some time! 

Mexico continues to surprise us.  One example is the big shiny Chevy Suburban taxi that pulled up to the bus stop as we waited for the city bus to the depot. This is a regular occurrence while you are waiting at the bus stop, as there are more taxis than passengers.  We said we didn’t want a taxi, he said that’s ok, where are you going? We told him and he said, “Ok! I’ll take you there no charge.” He did and would not accept payment, though we offered. It was easily a 15 min trip, not all of it on his way home. He told us he just wanted to do it because it made him feel good!!  This is not the kind of thing you’d find in the US or Canadian tourist centers! 

We had planned to depart the following evening for a trip inland to Guadalajara and environs.  We are developing a healthy list of places we want to see before we leave Mexico next season, and felt this would be a good opportunity to check one off the list.  Mexico has so much more to offer than just lovely beaches and coastal blessings.  However, as luck would have it, we heard on the SSB nets that there was going to be a decent weather window for traveling the next northerly passage after 5 days of 20-25kns from the NW.  Eight other boats were departing about the same time, so we changed our plans and hustled through our pre-departure to-do list.  BREILA departed Mazatlan, only 4 to 5 hours after the rest of the fleet.  Our next stop was to be Altata, 110 nm’s north of Mazatlan.  We’ll fill you in on our trip in the next log.