We were
hoping to get as far south as Zihuatanejo this winter but at the pace we were
moving it wasn’t going to happen so on the spur of the moment we decided to go
to Zihuatanejo and take part in the annual Sail Fest festival. Sail Fest is a fund-raising effort by an
amazing group of local volunteers to raise money for the education of Zihuatanejo’s
poorest children. Some of the events are
sailboat races, a silent auction, a benefit concert, chilli cook-off and boat
parade. You can check out their website
at www.zihuasailfest.com
We left
Puerto Vallarta on Feb. 1st and went directly to Zihuatanejo,
arriving on Feb. 5th. The
winds were favourable and we were able to sail about one third of the way. On the morning of the fourth day, shortly
after Mark had gone to bed, I found myself surrounded by probably the largest
group of dolphins I have ever seen. I
could see pods of them in all directions; there had to be several hundred. It seemed that they all came to swim along
with the boat for a little while and we had an ever-changing escort for about
45 minutes.
We spent the
Sunday of our arrival catching up on sleep and ventured into town on
Monday. We found Zihuatanejo to be a
friendly, clean town. A few streets have
been closed off to vehicular traffic and they became our preferred routes.
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| Pedestrian-only street |
The
town/city has a population of about 70,000 persons. It is only a few miles from Ixtapa with which
it shares an airport. The bay is lined
with small condos and hotels and the town is geared up to handle the vacationers
that come to Zihua, Ixtapa and cruise ships on occasion. It abounds with silver shops, restaurants,
gift shops and a surprising number of pharmacies.
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| Zihuatanejo street |
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| Meat and sausage stall |
The Mercado covers
a whole block and is nothing short of a maze.
Narrow corridors are flanked by vendors selling produce, fruit beef,
fish, chicken, clothing, baking etc. in a claustrophobic setting.
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| Fruit and produce vendor |
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| Nothing goes to waste |
On the
street that surrounds the market, more transient vendors sell flowering plants,
song birds and fruit from a wheelbarrow.
Like most places in Mexico, gentlemen come
around offering to play traditional Spanish music, often on instruments they
have made themselves.
A healthy
fleet of pangas line the shore of Playa Principal. Late each afternoon the ice man delivers
large blocks of ice which the fishermen put into coolers on the their pangas
before going out to fish until morning when they bring their catch to the fish
market under palm trees on the beach.
Sail Fest
started on the evening of Feb. 8th with an auction at the Barracuda
Bar, Sail Fest’s headquarters. We
managed not to buy anything. On
Wednesday morning we participated in a sailboat race around Roca Negra, a
distance of 3.5 miles. The Sail Fest
organizers sell crew spots on the racing boats as one way to raise money. Our first challenge was getting over the
starting line in the almost windless conditions. From there, all eight boats in the race crawled
at a snail’s pace, tacking back and forth towards Roca Negra. It was as exciting as watching grass
grow. The crew of one boat went swimming
while underway and another boat light-heartedly cried foul, accusing them of pushing
the boat. Anyway, we suck at racing and
came in second last.
That night
there was a benefit concert featuring a variety of mostly local artists. The music was recorded and will be sold as a
CD at next year’s Sail Fest and we decided we had to come back for sure next
year to get the CD. Fabulous music!
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| Chili cook-off |
Thursday was
the chilli cook-off and Friday the sail parade.
In a zodiac, the port captain lead the boats on one lap of Zihuatanejo
Bay and then over to Ixtapa for one lap of the bay there. Again, seats on boats were sold to fund-raise.
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| Sail Parade |
The Sail
Fest experience was very positive for us and we were proud to be part of an
event that raised 430,000 pesos for education.
Neil was
scheduled to fly down on Feb. 18th for reading week so we had a few
days between the end of Sail Fest and his arrival. We thought we might go down to Acapulco but
in the end inertia set in and we just hung out at the anchorage in the interim.
Our plan was
to leave Zihua the morning after Neil’s arrival, stop in Ixtapa for fuel and
water and carry on north to see some of the nice anchorages that we missed on
our hasty trip south from PV. However,
there was no water at the fuel dock at Marina Ixtapa and no slips available for
a catamaran. We decided to nip across from the fuel dock to
one of the slips to get water but were quickly shooed away by a guy in an
official-looking uniform. We went back
to the anchorage in Zihua, had some water delivered the next morning and left
just after noon.
We arrived
in Manzanillo this morning after travelling for two days and two nights and are
anchored off some pretty fancy schmancy resorts. Along the way the starboard cooling water pump began
leaking quite badly so we’re going to have to do something about that. Good thing we have two engines!
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| Sea turtle seen just outside of Manzanillo |
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| Manzanillo Resort |
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