Zihuatanejo, Mexico - Orem, USA

Susan

We are now pretty much settled in the land of pale people. This is not an insult to the people of Utah but just a general comment about the tan or lack of tan of most of the people north of Mexico. We are fast joining the ranks of the pale people as our tans fade. They have faded quickly what with all the snow, hail and rain we've been experiencing in the normally sunny and warm Salt Lake area. Well, I guess you might like to know how we ended up here when we last left you in sunny Zihuatanejo. As I remember it, we hadn't been in Zihuatanejo long when our last chapter was written. Quite a lot has happened since then so here goes.

As I'm sure we’ve mentioned before, we really like Zihuatanejo. It is a classic little fishing town that has been effected by tourism, but minimally, and mostly in good ways. Thank goodness they built Ixtapa (tourist trap) 6 miles away from Zihuatanejo to house most of the rampaging tourists. I believe that some of them never even leave the strip of hotels and restaurants in Ixtapa. If they only knew what they were missing out on. We enjoyed our stay in Zihuatanejo to the max. Having our good friends Allan and Didi from “Ave Peregrina” there only made it that much better. We spent our days lounge surfing, bobbing around in the water to stay cool, shopping, eating, sewing awnings for shade, and just generally enjoying ourselves to no end.

I decided to go and visit my folks in Palm Desert, California for 10 days in mid-February since it might be a long time again before we were this close. Wayne agreed to stay and look after the boat while I was gone. My mom and dad take their motor home down to Palm Desert in the winter and stay in a lovely RV park (I don't think the word campground would quite describe it). The park is surrounded by its own golf course (one of about a million in the Palm Springs area), 2 pools, hot tubs, and a game room. Pretty snazzy all around. Palm Desert itself was a very nice looking place, so clean and green. I was expecting a brown deserty place. It was quite a culture shock actually, coming directly from Mexico. I especially liked the place because they seem to have banned children from the entire area. At least I didn't see any. I, of course, was sent with a long list of boat parts and other sorely missed items that needed to be purchased and returned to Zihuatanejo. When it was time to return to Mexico, I had some very interesting luggage. I had to borrow a bag from mom and dad to fit it all and it weighed a ton. I was bringing back zinc plates (heavy, heavy metal slabs), cheese, salami and many other weird and wonderful things. I should have known that once I had gone to all of the trouble of finding all this stuff and packing it, the airlines would misplace my luggage.

The moral of this next paragraph is..... Are you ready? Always fly AeroMexico whenever possible and always fill your suitcase with very heavy things that aren’t worth as much as they weigh. Eventually one of my two bags showed up, but the other is sitting in some large storehouse somewhere filled with rotting cheese and some very heavy but relatively useless chunks of zinc. After a fair amount of pestering and finally camping out in the AeroMexico office at the airport, we arranged a mighty fine settlement. They would pay us the maximum amount for the lost baggage ($600 U.S.). And since we suffered such mental anguish over the whole thing, they would provide us with not one, but two return tickets to Los Angeles from Zihuatanejo. What a deal! I’m going to arrange to have them lose my luggage more often. I must admit that this was one of my most frustrating experiences in Mexico but once you figured out how things worked, I think it worked out pretty well!

During the time that we were attempting to track down my luggage, plans were underway for Allan and Didi’s wedding on the 28th of February. Allan’s mom and Didi’s dad were flying down for the occasion and we wanted to do whatever we could to make it a great day for them. We sneaked around the anchorage (that’s hard to do in a dinghy with a loud outboard) getting pictures of all the wedding attendees and their boats to put into a wedding album for the bride and groom. The evening before the wedding, Didi’s dad very kindly treated us all to a pre-wedding dinner at an exclusive outdoor restaurant overlooking its own private bay and beach lit up with torches. Needless to say it was wonderful.

Allan and Didi had asked us to be witnesses at the Mexican civil ceremony along with another couple from another boat. We were honored. The ceremony was unforgettable. First we all arrived at the civil registry office a few minutes before the ceremony was scheduled. The doors were still locked, so we milled around on the sidewalk in our finery (boat finery that is) watching the bride and groom grow increasingly nervous as the minutes ticked by and the office remained closed. But this is Mexico and we knew better than to worry. The judge arrived 15 or 20 minutes later and after a short wait, we were all admitted to the judge’s quarters. Picture this. A small room, the size of a standard elevator, now containing: one desk, one judge, four witnesses, one bride, one groom, one father of bride, one mother of groom and one good friend from another boat who had volunteered to come along to translate the vows (her Spanish is excellent.) Take it from there. I don’t think any of us will ever forget that wedding. Rhonda did a fabulous job of translating the vows on the fly as the judge read each section in Spanish. They were certainly interesting vows. If anyone’s interested, I have the original and Rhonda’s translation that I typed up for their wedding book. Next of interest was the fact that the bride and groom had not yet decided on their wedding bands. Wayne being the thoughtful fellow that he is had thought to bring along two small hose clamps (stainless steel I might add) to add that special touch to the ceremony. Each of the four witnesses then was required to sign at least 8 copies of the marriage documents. During all of this Sarah, one of the witnesses, was trying to take photos in the cramped office. Once they were successfully married up, we were glad to return to the street as it was only 90 or so out there and it had been a wee bit warmer in the office. As I said before, it was quite an experience not to be forgotten soon.

After the ceremony, we returned to the bungalow/condo that the parents had rented for their stay to enjoy the party. It was a truly incredible place with air conditioning. It also had a gigantic patio surrounded by palm trees with an exceptional view of the bay and all the lovely sailboats but that paled against the lure of the air conditioning. Just kidding. Dinner was catered by a restaurant close-by and included all our favourite Mexican dishes. I never did get an accurate count but there were upwards of 50 people who attended and as far as I know a great time was had by all.

After we had recovered from the wedding, Wayne and I decided to use the airline tickets but we didn’t want to go to Los Angeles as we had been there before. We checked out all of the places that AeroMexico flies and decided on New Orleans as we had never been there. Besides, New Orleans has a West Marine store so we would have a chance to replace all of the things that I had bought in Palm Desert and then lost in the luggage. Another trip to the airport followed to see if they would consider changing the ticket. We expected some problems but they were as nice as can be and before you know it we were booked to leave on March 8th with a stopover in Mexico City both ways. Allan and Didi very kindly agreed to watch the boat and Twiggy the cat while we were gone.

We enjoyed Mexico City although we didn’t have much time there going either direction. We did not, contrary to what we were expecting, find it particularly smoggy. Certainly the last time we were in LA there was more smog. It was also a lot colder than we were expecting but our blood has gotten thin, I guess. The subway system in Mexico City is clean and well organized and a great way to get around. It is  are also very inexpensive. You can go anywhere in the subway system for just 40 centavos (about 10 cents Canadian). We were also surprised at the people. We were expecting big city people who don’t make eye contact and are rather cold compared to the small town people that we had been used to. Wrong! Almost everyone there was very helpful and nice. Whenever we stood around and looked confused in the subway, people were quick to offer directions. So much for stereotypes. We were also surprised by the wealth displayed here. You hear so many horror stories about the millions of wretchedly poor in Mexico City but we saw very little evidence of this in the places we visited. If anything, I would have labeled most people quite wealthy by the look of the clothes they wore and the quantity of cellular phones being carried. Certainly one of the restaurants that we stopped at was a bit pricey for us but was obviously full of local office workers. For all you architecture/history buffs, we visited the most incredible old church in the Zocalo (square). The whole thing was sort of sinking and settling and I guess wouldn’t withstand another earthquake so it was full of metal scaffolding supporting all of the interior columns. One last thing about Mexico City. We discovered a little bakery across from our hotel that had exquisite cone pastries filled with the best thick whipped cream I’ve ever had. Needless to say we stuffed down as many as we could on the way to the airport. I even tried to get more on the return trip. Unfortunately we stayed at another hotel and I had to battle rush hour traffic on the subway to get there. After all that effort, they didn’t have any that day. If any of you are planning a trip to Mexico City, I’ll be glad to show you where it is on a map and you should make it your first stop.

Speaking of shopping, I forgot to tell you the shoe story. When we were waiting at the boarding gate in Zihuatanejo for our flight, one of the men that works for AeroMexico (he had changed our ticket for us) approached us. He had a very grave look on his face as he asked Wayne if we would do a favor for him. Wayne told him of course we would if we were able. He then smiled and pulled out a piece of cardboard cut out to look like a footprint. He wanted us to bring him back a pair of new Nike Max II basketball shoes in the specified cardboard size. He then proceeded to hand Wayne (a total stranger) $150 U.S. These shoes were obviously very important to him and we were happy to do him this favor. We got him the best deal we could and he was thrilled to get his shoes when we returned. I only hope that they fit.

We arrived back in Zihuatanejo to find that the cat had nipped Allan while we were gone but other than that everything was fine. It was time for us to start moving on south. We hurried to get ready so that we could leave for Acapulco with Allan and Didi on March 17th. It was really sad to leave Z-town as we had had a great six weeks there. We had whales swimming under the boat, rays swimming with us beside the boat, great evenings with friends at Noemi’s restaurant, and watching videos on the deck under the stars. We had enjoyed the double feature movies, the great ice cream, and agua frescas but now it was time to try to pull the anchor back up and get moving.

The sail to Acapulco was really nice but there wasn’t much wind so it took us a day and a half to get there. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we sailed right into Acapulco Bay and right up to our buoy at the yacht club.

Acapulco was like Mexico City in that it was not what we expected. I personally thought I was going to dislike it because it is such a touristy place. But it was a nice surprise. Acapulco has been a tourist destination on an off for so long that it has adapted. It’s a gigantic city with everything that your little heart desires. They have the biggest Wal-Mart I’ve ever seen along with every kind of food or shopping that you might want including Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Tony Roma’s. I had also heard that the bay is quite polluted but I’ve certainly seen much worse. There are people out every day with weird little boats to clean up any floating junk that may be on the water. The view at night from the boat of all the city lights in the hills surrounding the bay is truly magnificent. We entertained ourselves by stocking up at the Wal-Mart, going to a museum, watching the cliff divers and Didi, Allan, and Wayne even went to the bullfights. I didn’t think I wanted to see them, so I opted out. I’ll let Wayne tell you all about it here. For those of you who choose to opt out of reading this next section, I understand.

Mexico is famous for its bullfights. Since Allan and I had both just finished reading James Michener’s Mexico which revolves around bullfighting, we felt that it was necessary for our education to experience one firsthand. Susan couldn’t be convinced that a public slaughter would further her cultural understanding but Didi (the happy carnivore) thought that seeing her food on the hoof wouldn’t hurt. Acapulco’s bullring probably holds 5000 people but our seats were only one row back from the ring and right below the judges. These are nearly perfect seats since you are almost close enough to get bloody and most of the action happens right in front of the judge's section.

Basically the way a bullfight works is this, first the bull is sent out and it charges anything that moves in the ring. There are three or four matador apprentices in the ring at this point and this can get fairly exciting although no one is expected to risk life and limb at this point. The bulls look a little smaller than what you might expect, but they are solid muscle with long sharp horns and they can probably hit 25 miles per hour. After about 5 minutes, a picador is sent out on a horse. This fellow wears armour (actual metal plate) and the horse is armoured on one side with what looks like a futon mattress. The picador carries a lance that is about 12 feet long and has a needle sharp tip. His job is to damage the bull’s neck muscles so that it cannot lift its head all the way. This is intended to even the odds. The bull charges the picador’s horse and since the horse is blindfolded he just stands there and takes the hit. Several times we thought the horse would be knocked off its feet and that would have to result in at least a dead horse. The horse apparently isn’t hurt because of the armour. As the bull connects, the picador leans over with his lance and drives it into the bull’s shoulders with the entire weight of his body. The lance goes in about eight inches and gore immediately begins to geyser out of the hole. This happens two or three times with the crowd getting angrier every time. The picador is very unpopular since the more damage he does, the easier the matador has it. Finally the picador leaves and the apprentices return. At this point their job is to anger the bull. They do this by jabbing pointed little sticks (called banderolas I think) into the bull’s shoulders. This is really dangerous work as they are expected to do it from in front and only when the bull is charging them. They tease the bull into charging and when he is practically on top of them, they leap up and sideways and plant the sticks as the bull goes by. If they can put them in far enough so that they stay stuck for a while, they are cheered, if the sticks fall out immediately, the crowd gives them a good hissing. After five or six sticks have been planted, the matador enters the arena. The matador is more of a dancer than anything else. However, he is expected to perform within an inch or so of the horn tip of a thousand pounds of enraged beef that just happens to be going by at about 20 miles an hour. After five minutes or so of dancing, the matador is given a thin springy sword to make the kill. He is expected to get the bull to charge, then go over its horns and bury his sword about twenty inches deep. The matador is supposed to make a clean kill and that means doing all of this only once and finding the heart through all of that bone and muscle. If he does it right, the bull is dead 10 seconds later. If he hits a bone, the sword springs 10 feet into the air and he must try again. If it goes in only a foot, but doesn’t hit anything vital, he has to get it back out and try again.

There are five bulls in any bullfight. Our five ranged from disgusting massacres where the picador caused too much damage and the matador was so scared that the bull basically died of blood loss to a truly skillful display where everything went just as it should. My favorite, however, was one where the bull and the matador seemed to be fairly evenly matched and there was some doubt about who would kill who. He was the last matador and had probably the toughest bull. In addition, he definitely had the most courage (stupidity might be the right word) and he was a real athlete. He began by kneeling in the middle of the ring before they released the bull. The bull came out at a dead run straight at him. The matador was probably planning to scuttle sideways on his knees but this bull was really moving and he couldn’t get out of the way in time. The bull went straight over top of him and he went tumbling head over heals, losing his hat and his cape. Fortunately he was able to get to his feet before the bull could get stopped and turned around. Later in the program he decided to plant his own banderolas.  Banderolas are about 16 inches long which means that you have to get pretty close to get the job done, this guy had to do better so he broke his down to about five inches. Even if you couldn’t figure out for yourself how dangerous this was, you could tell by the crowd, as there was instant respectful silence. When he successfully planted them and did it behind his back as well, the crowd went absolutely nuts. In the end, when he had dispatched his bull, the crowd gave him a Mexican standing ovation. The way this works is the matador walks around the ring waving and people throw him things. Lots of hats were thrown, some flowers, quite a few ladies shoes and several full wineskins. Most of these things were immediately tossed back to their owners, but he kept flowers, wineskins and one really nice sombrero.

Susan

Little did we know that this was our last bit of time in paradise for now. We made the fateful phone call to Utah and found out that our business was now a going concern and Wayne’s marketing skills were desperately needed. It was a really hard decision but we finally came to the conclusion that we had to give the business our best efforts for the summer and return to this life in the fall. It probably wouldn’t have been so hard to leave if it hadn’t been for our good friends, Allan and Didi. We couldn’t really leave the boat safely in Acapulco so we had to turn around and slog uphill (upwind) to get out of the worst hurricane risk for the summer. We went out for one last evening with Allan and Didi and then headed out of Acapulco Bay at 11 pm on March 23rd. I’m glad we didn’t wait for morning because I’m not sure my resolve would have held.

So we were off, heading north. Originally we were intending to go all the way up to San Carlo on the west coast of Mexico but way up in the Sea of Cortez. There is a marina and a dry storage area (on land) there that is really inexpensive. Most people who leave their boats in Mexico during the hurricane season leave it there. But it’s over a thousand miles from Acapulco and little did we know that sailing upwind in a rush for that kind of distance is no picnic.

We sailed from the night of the 23rd to noon on the 28th (non-stop) to Manzanillo. We saw something very big in the tide line when entering the bay that looked suspiciously like a really big shark, but we’ll never know for sure. We decided to stop and get fuel because we had been there before and knew the routine. We also needed a bit of a rest. After a 20 hour stop-over we were on our way again on the morning of the 29th.

The next bit of sailing took us to La Cruz (near Puerto Vallarta) at daybreak on the 31st. This trip was a bit more exciting. After dark on the 30th as we were sailing along, Wayne spotted what looked like a silent fighter jet (in the water) zooming up behind us! Wayne estimates it at least 20 feet by 10 feet. It must have been a large ray of some kind. It was exhilarating and scary at the same time. It would glide silently up from behind then zip under the boat to appear on the other side, then wing off in the distance, then appear from behind to begin again. We, of course, weren’t actually seeing the ray because it was dark but its phosphorescent trail as it disturbed the water. “Wow!” is all I could say then and all I can say now. On the 30th during the afternoon, Wayne was disturbed on his watch by what sounded like the bow wave of a ship. You know, if you’re close enough to hear it, that the ship is way too close. He jumped up and began looking for this ship only to discover that it was a gigantic herd of leaping dolphins zipping along at 20 knots or so. They were really moving! To finish off this journey, we rounded the famous (for its winds and currents) Cabo Corrientes at night. The wind does the strangest things around this large point of land and it lived up to its ornery reputation that night. First we had hardly any wind but from sort of the right direction. Through the next couple of hours we had wind from every compass direction and of every strength. At one point we were screaming along with a sustained boat speed of over 8 knots. For our boat, that’s flying! On this same night we saw a huge phosphorescent field. It made the ocean look like the stars and all of the living, swimming things left trails like snakes. It was indescribably beautiful!

We stayed in La Cruz for only 30 hours. Only long enough to take a bus into Puerto Vallarta to check out the possibility of storing the boat there. There was one marina that was interesting and inexpensive but the channel getting into it has been silting in and we may not have been able to get in without going aground. So we scrapped that idea and decided to head for La Paz next. La Cruz was a very nice little place and we look forward to coming back and spending more time in that area this fall.

From April 1st to April 5th we sailed to La Paz. The first couple of days were really tough as we were battling particularly nasty wind waves and sailing upwind, so our progress was pretty slow. After arriving we had a much deserved rest after 13 days at sea.

We spent the next five days cleaning up the boat, clearing everything off the deck including taking down all the sails and removing the barbecue and liferaft. We made sure that the boat was tied up for a hurricane and placed traps for every kind of pest known to man, just in case. We packed up everything that we thought we would need in Utah and that we could carry on the plane, including the computer CPU (no room for the monitor) and of course the cat.

On April 11th we flew from La Paz to Salt Lake City. Brad and Becky (our friends and business partners) picked us up at the airport and immediately made us feel at home by setting us up in their Mother-In-Law suite.

Well now I’m writing this from a place with all the comforts of civilization. It’s nice to have all the fresh water you want, restaurants, television (especially Thursday nights), and a car. As nice as it all is, it just can’t compare to life on the boat in Mexico. The novelty of all of these things wears off quickly and then you realize how much everything costs here and Mexico looks especially good.

Orem is really a pretty place though. I keep hearing about how nice their spring weather is normally but I haven’t seen any yet. There has been a lot of snow, rain, thunderstorms, and hail here since mid-April and only 3 or 4 sort of nice days. We are finding it hard to adapt too. Especially the cat, since she shed most of her hair in Mexico, she’s so cold she has to huddle behind the refrigerator. Things are looking up however in the weather department as it was 80 here yesterday. We’ve been getting out exploring on the weekends and have been up to Sundance ski resort a couple of times. It’s only 30 minutes away and it’s gorgeous there. We even saw Robert Redford one afternoon which is not all that surprising I guess since he owns Sundance. We both really miss the ocean but I think the mountains sort of make up for it for Wayne. Wayne’s parents and brother came out to visit on the Canadian May long weekend and were kind enough to deliver our old Nova to us. We took advantage of having our own car by driving four hours south to Bryce Canyon Park in southern Utah. There aren’t really words to describe this whole part of the state. The rock in the canyons is every imaginable shade of red, the formations are spectacular and the sheer drops are dizzying. We hope to go back again and explore a little more in better weather.

On my birthday a few days ago, I had the great surprise of a phone call from Allan and Didi who are now in Costa Rica. The connection was the pits but it was so great to hear from them that it didn’t matter. We also had a phone call from Judith (“JAD”) and Kathie (“White Squall”) who are friends from other boats. They are both in San Diego picking up some boat parts and renewing their visas. We will be seeing Judith and Dennis from “JAD” in the fall when we return to La Paz as they are spending this summer in the Sea of Cortez. It will be great to see them again as we haven’t seen them since New Years.

Next week I’m flying to Seattle then taking a ferry to Victoria to visit with friends and go on a kayaking/camping trip to Long Beach. I’m really excited about seeing old friends and the ocean again.

So I’ll finish this chapter with a summary of our future plans. As usual, we aren’t actually sure what we’re doing but we do know that we will return to the boat in the fall. From there, who knows. We may go north into the Sea of Cortez for a while or scurry south to catch up with Allan and Didi or head across to the mainland for a while, then head south. As I said, who knows.