Saturday, May 25, 2019

More Mexico

As we continued up the coast, mostly motoring, we began giving serious thought to continuing up the coast all the way home to Canada rather than doing the long route past Hawaii, a decision that we would have to make soon.

Our passages have had many sights of turtles and dolphins but have yielded only a few tasty fish for ourselves, and smaller red-meat fish for Chanty.

One for Chanty

We got a few hours of pounding into headwinds as we neared Acapulco, so pulled in for some relief. Normally we anchor out but Acapulco's large harbour is deep and not so good holding so we went into quiet Marina Santa Lucia. This was to Chanty's liking too as it gave her a chance to get off the boat and snoop around.

Being a mischievous rascal, Chanty disappeared one morning to do some boat snooping while we were up having a shower. Her foray ended with a rescue by the Security Guard after she fell in the water. She was the next to get a good shower to rinse the salt out, much to her angst.

After a sad soaking

Alpher, a young looking and friendly member of the Marina staff, offered to take us to watch the famous Acapulco Clavadistas Profesionales (cliff divers).

Friendly dock man, Alpher

Even though we had seen them back in 2011, it is always a thrill to watch their death-defying dives. They first scale the steep cliffs of the gorge up to as high as 35 metres above the churning ocean below, then perform the dives.

The divers' gorge

Watch this 44-second video of a daring diver. He is to the left of the lights at the top and jumps at 34 seconds if you wish to fast forward it.


In the morning, a check out with the Port Captain was essential but ineptitude made it a frustrating 5-hour affair. After another unpleasant refueling stop where again the surge put us in a precarious position, we made our escape from Acapulco in light to no winds.

Dreadful fuel dock mooring

Our next stop, Barra de Navidad, was of little significance other than here we finally made the decision to do the coastal route home. So instead of making this our jump-off for the long route, we kept going north.

Water taxi dock at Barra de Navidad

Anchorages:
Cruising to Acapulco May 15 to May 18
N16°50.405' W099°54.138' May 18 Acapulco
Cruising to Barra de Navidad May 20 to May 23
N19°11.412' W104°40.422' May 23 Barra de Navidad

1 comment:

s/v Libertad said...

We like that decision. you must let us know when you are in the Santa Barbara area - you could visit us in our harbor or we could join you out at Santa Cruz Island! Or, heaven forbid, we could hop in the car and meet you somewhere else.

Virginia and Dennis