Movie night

It’s Thursday night which means free movie night at the marina in La Cruz.  A crowd gathers at sunset at the outdoor amphitheater.  It’s a BYO event, which includes your own cushions as the amphitheater is made of concrete.  If you prefer, you can purchase a hot dog or beverages from the marina deli.  They’ve set up a small table and hauled down two dock carts; one filled with little bags of free popcorn and the other filled with ice and cold beverages.  It’s quite a treat. 

You enter at the top of the structure where short two-foot wide rows sit atop five-foot wide rows.  This pattern alternates down to the base so you can choose to sit down and stretch out or sit upright on the short portion.  We choose to luxuriate in the space and toss our cushions down, stretching out every inch that we can, making ourselves comfortable enveloped in the soft heat of the day held in by the concrete.  A light towel over our legs wards off the mosquitoes. 

A large screen hangs between poles at the base of the theater.  Our view through the lines and around the screen is of boats safely nestled in their slips, the dim lights of the town and further in the background, up the hill clinging to the edge of a cliff is a restaurant with its patio lights ablaze. 

The movie starts as the stars hang in the dark sky. 

It’s the best movie house that I’ve ever been in. 

The night before Easter

Imagine this:  a hefty wire sphere say ten feet in diameter hangs from a thick, sturdy huanacaxtle tree. In the middle is a paper mache personage, no one in particular, just the familiar shape of a human torso.  Attached around the sphere are four wheels of wire each about three-foot in diameter. Strung along each wire are decorations that look like small light bulbs and glo-lite sparklers.  The entire sphere is fully loaded. 

This tree is in the zocalo or central square of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.  The zocalo is jam packed with generations of families, the kids high on sugar treats readily available from an impenetrable ring of stalls surrounding the park.  Competing music blares and lights flash from carnival rides, the throw-something-at-something-for-a-prize booths, clothing vendors and food vendors.  It’s sensory overload.   

It’s hot and the Saturday night before Easter Sunday.  We’re sitting on a low concrete wall in the park eating popcorn.  We just happen to be sitting next to and below this sphere, unaware of its crucial role in this Easter celebration. Suddenly, everyone turns down their music and a man takes the stage with a microphone.  We don’t understand a word that he’s saying; we haven’t reached that chapter in our Spanish language studies.    A man walks out of the crowd to us, points up at the sphere, wags his finger back and forth and motions for us to move.  He does this with a  pleasant smile so we follow him to the other side of the street.  By the time I turn around, a guy has taken hold of what looks like a long extension cord dangling from this sphere.  I thought he was going to light it up, plug it in like the symbolic lighting of a Christmas tree in the mall.  Well, he takes out a pocket lighter and holds the flame to what is actually a very long fuse.  The flame travels to the first wheel and starts an amazing chain reaction.  As the wheel spins faster and faster smoke billows, rockets whistle and shoot into the crowd, sparklers hiss and drip and fly out of control.  The flame travels along the fuse to each wheel like dominoes on steroids, catapulting the ammunition into the chaos.  And just when the entire sphere is sizzling and whistling and popping and smoking, and you just know that the tree is going to go up in flames, the central paper mache personage explodes into pieces that fall limp in flames. It’s the coup de grace.  The crowd claps and whistles erupting in a rousing display of satisfaction.   

As we walk away trying to process this celebration there’s more commotion.  Kids begin screaming and scattering.  Suddenly, a guy holding a six-foot long wire bull is running through the crowd.  The bull is fully loaded and ablaze just like the sphere.  Rockets are firing, sparklers dripping, smoke billowing.  The bull chases the kids and the kids chase the bull until the ammunition sputters and fades leaving the frame dark and silent.  The crowd returns to eating, chatting, and playing. The music is turned up, the carnival resumes.   

OMG!  Every culture has its celebrations and I’m sure that this one has some meaning for which I am still searching.      

Cruising in the fast lane

The seas were the smoothest we’ve experienced in Mexico, like skating on a sheet of ice, as we motor-sailed north to Puerto Vallarta. We left Barra at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday.  The light westerly winds that changed to southerly in the early evening joined with southerly seas and pushed us northward at a steady 6-7 knots, a mighty speed for us, which at the end of our trip left me feeling like I had travelled in the fast lane all day. 

Cabo Corrientes means “Cape of Currents”.  It is notorious for feisty, nasty winds and ugly, confused seas as north meets south at this point of land that juts out into the ocean.  Well, the point was smooth as silk as we glided around at 1:00 a.m. and we thanked our lucky stars for such fabulous conditions. You see, we left Barra in a huff, frustrated that we had waited ten days for injectors sent from our mechanic’s supplier that turned out to be the wrong ones.  Now, staying at this luxurious resort wasn’t a problem, but we did think that the new injectors would be the icing on the cake and would make the marina bill all worthwhile.  The ending was not exactly what we envisioned and we released our dock lines thinking that we would be better off making repairs in PV where we could also have our ripped sails repaired.  Leaving Barra in our wake, we knew that we would be cruising on two bad injectors but no problemo.  One has to adapt to challenges and so we headed out into the coastal ocean.  When additional engine issues reared their ugly heads early in the cruise, Ken began to baby the engine, checking it every hour, pouring in a little oil now and then, cutting off a piece of the fuel line to rid it of pinholes that were spewing fuel here there and everywhere (after the mechanic worked on it), and tightening loose bolts.  We crossed our fingers that the engine would get us the 188 miles to Puerto Vallarta.   

We dropped anchor in La Cruz in Wednesday’s early morning darkness.  Shutting off the engine was pure bliss.  We had traveled with the engine compartment open to vent the over-heated space and after listening to every nuance and ping for 18 hours, the silence was deafening. 

Now we spend quality time pouring over parts catalogues and researching Yanmar engine repair on the web as we create a plan to fix this puppy. Whew.       

"Stuck" in Barra de Navidad

    

     It was an exhausting 54-hour, 212 mile sail from Zihuatanejo to Barra de Navidad.  And that doesn’t take into consideration the 36 hours of our first attempt to make the trip the week earlier when we had to turn back to Zihua due to weather and engine problems.  On both trips, we endured 30-knot NNW winds that were not forecasted.  And both storms occurred in the same place, off of Caleta de Campo, 60 miles north of Zihua.  I thought that we were caught in a vortex that we would never escape.  
     On our second attempt, although we were again slammed with unforecasted 30 knot NNW winds we were determined to continue north even with damage from the second storm amounting to a blown out main sail, a jib damaged when the roller furler line snapped sending the reefed jib full throttle into the winds, an auto helm that failed, and a crippled engine.  And just to ramp up our stress levels, we encountered significant freighter traffic during the night.  At one time there were five ships bearing down on us from different directions.  I called every one of them on the radio to confirm that they had us on radar.  Two of them had not noticed us. We stood one hour watches after the auto helm failed, sleeping in the cockpit.  We were making 2 knots and had watched the light at Punto Campos for five hours when finally at dawn, we limped past it and into the anchorage at Las Hadas.   

Repairing the jib in Las Hadas

Later that morning, we called a mechanic in Barra who drove to Las Hadas and rigged a fuel by-pass system that got us to Barra  where we finally tucked into the lovely marina, the high winds and high seas behind us like images in a rear-view mirror.

We are now waiting for engine parts which will take a week or more to get here.  In the meantime, we are “stuck”.  Now, this isn’t such a bad place to be “stuck” with its five-star hotel, beautiful pools, hot tub and morning yoga on the beach.  I can think of plenty of other places that I would not to be waiting for engine parts, but this place restores the body, mind and spirit.  It’s a great place to recover our momentum.   

Scenes of Zihuatanejo

Whether strolling through town, walking along the beach, visiting a school built with SailFest donations, sailing in the SailFest parade or seated on the bow of Gitane watching the awe-inspiring sunsets one is gently surrounded by the color, texture, beauty and friendliness of this lovely town. 

SailFest 2014 raised over $80,000 US for Zihua schools.  (www.zihuasailfest.com)

Lively beach scene



SailFest sail parade



A breezy afternoon sail

Lunch counter - central market



Vegetable stand - central market



Indoor/outdoor living

Fabulous color!

Students supported by SailFest donations

Por Los Ninos day at the beach - soccer!

Street vendor

Colorful wares for sale

Ahh...the life of a sail kitty

Magnificent Zihau sunset

 

Weighing anchor

After watching thunderheads build the night before, we weighed anchor in the early morning sun of Tenacatita where we enjoyed three weeks of swimming, playing bocce ball on the beach and afternoon conversations at the palapa. 

 

We had Santiago Bay on our minds.  We heard that clear, warm water awaited us and a sunken ship offered fantastic snorkeling.  We dropped anchor along Playa la Boquita, 34 miles and five-and-a-half hours later.  We were not disappointed.  We immediately loved the place. The palapa-lined beach wraps around the bay for miles all the way to the town of Santiago.

There were just five other boats anchored in the bay and we were invited ashore for sundowner cocktails and delightful conversations. 

In the morning with brilliant sunlight penetrating the clear water, we donned our snorkels and explored the 300-foot steel cargo ship San Luciano which was sunk in a 1959 hurricane.  The living reef is home to hundreds of colorful fish.  Not afraid to swim near me, one school with 6-inch silver/gray bodies and pursed green lips swam right up to my mask to blow me kisses.  As cute as they were, my favorite was a 3-inch yellow and black striped fish with a flashy fuchsia tail, a real fashionista.  We spent hours in their fishbowl and only when a group of tourists on paddleboards invaded our tranquility did we decide to swim into shore.  After a shrimp ceviche lunch we walked the quiet beach in the afternoon sun before swimming back to Gitane. 

The next morning, we waved adios to our friends as we began the 190-mile coastal cruise to Zihuatanejo.  With our jib and staysail raised we pointed high into the south/southeast winds and swell during the 41-hour trip.  The sunsets were spectacular and we watched evening electrical storms in the distance as clouds piled up against the mountains. 

We turned into Bahia de Zihuatanejo around midnight on the second night, dropped anchor in light winds, opened up the hatches for fresh night breezes and slept soundly.        

Happy New Year!

The Pineapple Express rains from the Pacific have soaked Costalegre (Happy Coast) for the last six days leaving behind rainfall records, deserted campgrounds and lush, green hills. Between squalls we were swimming, scrubbing barnacles off the hull, making wet dinghy landings at Tenacatita beach or playing bocce ball.
 

To celebrate this first day of the New Year about 20 cruisers gathered at the beach palapa for a festive lunch.  The restaurant’s specialty is a fish filet wrapped around fresh shrimp, smothered in a decadent almond cream sauce. It’s a meal that is to be enjoyed slowly, each morsel savored for it fills you with satisfaction.  Nora Ephron once said that when it comes time to have your last meal you may not know that it’s going to be your last meal and you won’t want to make the mistake of ordering a tuna melt.  Well, this thick, sweet fish filet and its rich sauce would never be a mistake so if it had turned out to have been my last meal, it would have been worth it.

This morning, the fleet celebrated the return of the sun by holding the annual Biathalon consisting of a swim ashore from Harmony, the boat of Tenacatita’s Unofficial Mayor anchored about 1/3 mile from shore, a run along the beach and back, then a return swim to Harmony.

 

I teamed up with Coral, the almost six-year-old granddaughter of the Unofficial Mayor.  As I swam into shore, I tagged her and off she splashed down the beach and back at top speed, her legs nothing more than a blur and sending me off with a head start for the last leg of swimming.  Her awesome performance propelled us to a noteworthy finish.

 

 

We began this New Year with our favorites: exercise, good food and good company while anchored in a lovely bay.  Likewise, we wish you a New Year filled with all that brings happiness and contentment to your lives. 
Feliz Ano Nuevo 2014!