We left Las Hadas and sailed to Zihuatanejo, a resort city on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. After an overnight sail, we arrived. Zihuatanejo is a lovely town 110 miles North of Acapulco and 200 miles South of Manzanillo and the Las Hadas anchorage. It’s adjacent to, and almost part of the resort town of Ixtapa. Where Ixtapa is high rise hotels on the beach, Zihua (as it’s locally known) has condos and little places in town and a wide bay as an anchorage where we are now. We can take a dinghy to the beach and walk to the center of town.
The city boardwalk is lined with palm trees, white sandy beaches, galleries and seafood restaurants. Offshore, the sea is rich with marine life such as whales, dolphins and sea turtles. As we were leaving the harbor of Manzanillo, a baby whale swam around our boat to check us out. Later we saw a huge marlin come rocketing out of the water behind us. We commented to each other that it was too bad we didn’t have lines in the water but then quickly agreed we didn’t want to catch something that big. For sure we’d lose the hook!
We were immediately invited by other cruisers to participate in Sailfest. Sailfest is a two-week fundraiser for the local schools that combines fun, games and international friendships. Visitors can participate in many events that raise money for the least advantaged children. Visitors can buy sunset sailing tickets and we take them sailing out on our boat to watch the beautiful sunset. Its been a fun experience and it gives non-boaters a taste of sailing. We’re not completely sure what they think other than they probably think we are crazy to sail here from Seattle.
There is a lot of activity under our boat. A school of hundreds of fish all about 6-8 inches long hang out in the shadow of our boat. Periodically, they’ll swarm to the surface and splash and sometimes flap their fins on the boat. There are much bigger fish that swim underneath them such as Jack Crevalle. Jack Crevalle are aggressive reef fish that are fun to catch but no good to eat. Today we left the harbor to sail around outside the bay and make water. A huge school of fish followed us out staying in the shadow of the boat. They’ve been with us all day and followed us back into the harbor. The pelicans are always nearby and on watch to catch them. Life in the food chain!
Zihuatanejo has many shops and little local restaurants. A popular spot and our favorite is the Fishing Hole. The Fishing Hole is a corner bar with 10 barstools and a table on the corner of the street. There’s always people there telling their fish stories and sharing travel experiences. Most of the time it’s standing room only. It’s never empty and always entertaining! Everyone there knows and loves Riley. Monday of this week (Feb 22) we were scheduled to take visitors out on a sunset sail outside Zihuatanejo Bay. Our trip was cancelled at the last minute because the town of Zihuatanejo was officially on ‘shelter in place’ after El Mencho, the head of CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel) was killed by the Government of Mexico.
The Cartels responded by setting off explosions, hijacking and burning cars and apparently 22 of the city buses in Puerto Vallarta. We belong to some WhatsApp chat groups there and have spent considerable time in Puerto Vallarta so we got blow-by-blow reports as smoke rose around the city.
Many cars were set on fire in the Costco parking lot in Puerto Vallarta and it’s not clear yet how much the store was damaged. Most importantly, we have friends and acquaintances there. It appears that although tragically there were fatalities, the cartels tried to avoid killing civilians and mostly concentrated on fires and destruction. It’s not yet clear when things will be officially back to normal in Mexico but shops seem to be opening up and after an eerily quiet last few evenings there may be a more normal street scene in town tonight. Zihuatanejo is over 300 miles from Puerto Vallarta and we personally saw no cartel activity in Zihuatanejo.
As Sailfest comes to a close this week, we will be joining our landlover friends who are arriving on Saturday from Seattle. We are looking forward to spending time with them on the beach. Soon we will sail South to Acapulco. We don’t know what to expect whe we get there. Acpulco was once a glamorous celebrity hotspot but over the years it has sustained severe hurricane damage. We’ve heard there are 600 sunken boats in the bay. We have been inquiring in the bay here who is headed in that direction and we’ve found a few boats heading South so we will have buddy boats along the way.
Our cruising and hurricane plans have been reviewed by our insurance company and we are approved to proceed to Panama.
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