Isla Grande & Zihuatanejo

After leaving Manzanillo on Friday the 25th, we headed SE along the coast about 12 to 13 km off, and from observation, possibly running parallel to a freighter shipping route as we make our way towards Zihuatanejo. This night we were particularly vigilant during our watches, which include radar scanning, as the ships come up on you in about 20 minutes and were passing only about 5 km off our port. Close by ocean passage standards.

On Saturday, the cutest bird tried to land on our wind generator around 19:00 just as the sun was setting but couldn't get a grip so he chose our solar panels instead.

Where the heck am I?

Then at midnight a particularly large rolling swell hit us. Alas, it made the poor bird topple so he took flight. After a couple of failed attempts to re-land, he flew off. Here's hoping that after his 5-hour rest, he made it safely to his destination.

We saw a whale a half km off our port, heading NW, and later saw a group of turtles bouncing along. We could get real close, but probably hearing the boat, they would stick their head up, see us, then clumsily dive. Throughout the past days and nights, we motored, motor-sailed, and then finally had a great sail at 4 to 5 knots with the headsails flying wing-on-wing, both being poled.

It's been very warm - 32°C (90°F) in the cabin and 60% humidity. But we're not complaining after hearing reports of cold February weather back home!

Passing Zacatula, a major commercial shipping port, we noticed a few more freighters in the area.

For another short period, we had dolphins on the bow just before we pulled into Isla Grande (N17°40.817' W101°39.340'), (aka Ixtapa Island) at 09:00 today. This is a tiny island where at one point we walked from one side to the other in about a minute! It has several palapa restaurants for mostly Mexican tourists brought over by pangas a short distance from Ixtapa on the mainland. The south side has very clear water and a lot of protected coral. When we arrived this morning, the beach was almost deserted but when we left around 14:00, it was full of tourists having fun. The island is basically deserted by 18:00.

As soon as we returned back to the boat, we had a pleasant sail down to Zihuatanejo (N17°38.177' W101°33.228') in the state of Guerrero, arriving at 17:45.