Huatulco

We arrived in Huatulco Monday evening, and spend the first 2 nights anchored next to the cruise ship dock. When we woke up early next morning we had a new neighbor, a huge cruise ship. It was a great anchorage, and we were almost sad to move over to the Marina in Bahia Chahue where we arrived yesterday.

Michael Bolt, owner of DiveMike and long time friend from Playa, arrived yesterday and will sail with us for the next 6 weeks or so.

Today we have done all the paper works required to leave Mexico, and we spend half the day going back and forth between the Port Police, immigration office and the bank. Now it's 8 in the evening and we're waiting for the custom officer to come and check the boat.

After that we'll be cleared to leave the country, and we plan to leave early tomorrow morning.

After exactely one year in Mexico (we arrived in Ensenada on April 1st last year) we're more

than ready to leave!

Our next stop will be Bahia del Sol in El Salvador, if all goes well it should take us 3-4 days to get there.

Bye bye Mexico!

Acapulco

Thursday we left Zihuantenejo around noon, and had a great afternoon of sailing until the wind died around 18. After that we motored throughout the night.

Early yesterday morning we arrived in Acapulco, we entered the bay just as the sun was rising and it was very beautiful.

We picked up a mooring buoy in front of the yacht club, and form here we have a great view of the downtown skyline.

We spend the last two days exploring the town and swimming in the warm water .Today we went to see the famous cliff divers dive off a 30 m cliff into the waves. Impressive sight!

We met our friends Wayne and Ellie from the boat Zeppelin, they were moored right next to us and now on their way to Huatulco.

We plan to leave ealry tomorrow morning, and depending on the weather we'll arrive in Huatulco either Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

Arrived in Zihuantenejo

This afternoon we arrived in Zihuantenejo, after 30 hours sailing form Manzanillo.

After leaving Barra de Navidad on Monday we sailed to Manzanillo and spend the first night anchored in front of Las Hadas marina.

The next morning we left early and cought a couple of hours of decent wind, enough to turn off the engine and enjoy the quietness of sailing and the calm Pacific Ocean. It is very very hot, and everyone are doing their best to find cover from the sun which has been shining all the time.

There was almost no swell and no one got seasick, and we arrived in Zihuantenejo without any problems.

Tomorrow we'll spend the morning exploring the town, and in the afternoon we'll probably take off so we can arrive in Acapulco Friday afternoon.

Ready to go!

Today we did another sea trial, and everything worked fine. We went to Coastecomate where we anchored and went for a swim and later returned to the marina.

Tomorrow we'll leave Barra and sail to Manzanillo, where we'll anchor in front of the Las Hadas marina to go for some provisioning and buy spare parts for the engine.

This evening we had Jim and Juanita over for yet another goodbye dinner, have had quite a few of them since we left the marina in Ventura, California, where they were our neighbors.

We're all happy to be leaving tomorrow, it's time to move on!

Sea trial - and a bit of drama

Yesterday we went out in the bay for a sea trial, to test our newly rebuild engine and transmission for the first time.

We started out spending about an hour at the fuel dock to taking on diesel, and then headed out in the bay. On board was Laurent, Martin, Johanne and the mechanic, I stayed in the dinghy and followed the boat. Just in case...

All went well and the engine was running fine, and after about an hour we returned to the marina. There was some wind, and it was not so easy to park the boat in our slip - and it suddenly got a lot harder when the transmission failed and Laurent could no longer use the reverse. As the boat was drifting towards some big expensive powerboats I pushed with the dingy and Laurent did his best only being able to move the boat forward, and we managed to dock the boat making only a small scratch on another boat.

The mechanic took the transmission out, checked it and put it back in this morning making some adjustments to the idle rpm. This afternoon we went back and forth a lot outside the marina, and all seems to be ok now.

Tomorrow we'll go out and test everything again, and if it still works we'll leave Monday morning. We cross our fingers...

Engine back on board!

Yesterday, after more than 2 months delay, we finally got our engine back. Completely rebuild and with all moveable parts replaced, this will hopefully be the end of our many engine problems.

After the engine being held hostage by evil mechanic, we finally decided to involve the marina management, pay the ransom and get our engine back.

Hopefully the installation will be completed tomorrow, and we will be able to get out of here by the end of the week.

3 months in Barra de Navidad is more than enouhg, and it's about time we continue South.

Martin and Johanne joined us about a week ago, they will be sailing with us for a couple of months. Johanne started the Open Water course and we have been diving in the pool at the hotel the last couple of days while waiting for the mechanic to finish the work. Then we will do a sea trial, and if everything works we'll be on our way to Huataulco very soon.