Preparing for South Pacific Passage in Zihuatanejo

Can't believe how much time as passed since our last update. We are now in Zihuatanejo, after a two day passage with one overnight from Santiago Bay next door to Manzanillo. Santiago Bay is the bay just north of the peninsula of Las Hadas where the movie "10" was filmed with Bo Derek running on the beach in her skimpy swim suit with the braids with music from Bolero running in the background. Now most red-blooded American males associate the music solely with her and her see-through outfit eventhough that was several decades ago.

Our arrival in Zihua was exactly one year ago to the day from when we left last season. We anchored at almost the exact same spot we spent two and a half months at last year. It has stayed much the same except this year only 45 cruise ships are scheduled to arrive, down from last year's 89. We dislike the cruise ships because they anchor out in the bay across from the pier and use their big launches to take passengers to shore and back all day long. This really chops up the water and makes the anchorage extremely rolly and dinghy rides to shore a very wet affair. Oh well, a small problem.

We went to our first South Pacific Puddle Jump meeting last Tuesday and met the other people who are leaving from Zihua for the Marquesas and beyond this year. So far, there are 14 boats leaving from here and more on the way. There is a similar group organized in PV as well. We get together and organize radio nets, share information, copy charts and guidebooks and get to know each other in advance of of our departures. Everyone plans to leave mid to late March when the wind forecast is favorable for getting out of the wind shadow of Mexico this far east on the Pacific coast.

It actually is much easier to do the Jump much farther north of here, like PV or Mazatlan, because the coast goes more and more east the farther south you go. The NorthEast tradewinds blow off the coast of the US and down the Mexican Baja then go west and so you don't get favorable winds in the south until you are several hundreds of miles offshore. For us, it will be at least 400-600 nm of light, unfavorable winds before we hit the trades. So, you wait for a favorable wind forecast with winds which will make that westing as easy as possible.

We already know some of the boats that are going from the Baja HaHa last year or from meetings elsewhere, including Endeavour, Ranger and Oz. The others we have met have been very simpatico so far so it will be a good group.

You have to make a beach landing here, as you do in so many other anchorages, so you put the dinghy wheels on the transom of the dink and head to the beach area set aside for the cruisers. There is a local indio named Ney who helps get you in and out of the water and watches the dinks which you usually don't have anywhere else we have been. Unfortunately there was minor thefts and vandalism of the dinks here so Rick's Bar "hired" this great little guy who stays on the beach about 16 hours everyday except Sundays and watches the boats. Everyone tips him and he actually makes a really good income, but of course, only for the cruising season. Ney is both smart and strong and is learning English from the cruisers and we are all very attached to him. He looks out for us and takes his job very seriously.

Our list of projects to get ready will keep us very busy until we leave. We have to get enough provisions to last at least a couple of months. The trip to the next landfall takes at least 4 weeks and you need at least two weeks in reserve, then some more to be able to get to a better reprovisioning place in Tahiti. Some items, like paper products (toilet tissue, napkins, paper towels, etc) are hard to find and very expensive when you do find them, so you stock up. Meats, vegetables, wine and beer are also very expensive so you save by buying here if you have room as well. Room is a problem as the boat is already overstuffed to the gunnels. We will also need to fill our diesel, gasoline, propane and water tanks. Lists of radio frequencies and weather information all need to be collected along with charts and guidebooks. Then we need to fix or upgrade a few things on the boat. Busy, busy.

Our friends Buzz and Lynn from Anacortes are coming in to Zihua tonight and we are looking forward to visiting and playing with them. Unfortunately for them, they offered to bring a "few" things from the states for us and we have added one thing after the other of items that are impossible to get here. They have to bring those on the plane after they ran around and found them at Sears or hardware stores or wherever, except for the dozen items we had shipped to their house from internet vendors. One of the items is a French language translation chip for our Franklin electronic translator. Neither of us knows a word of French except for oui and the first three island groups all have French as the official language.

It is really feeling real now. We have planned this for the last nine years and it is finally happening. Sort of scary and sort of not. The boat is ready enough even though something will break along the way - it always does. We are ready enough even though we don't know every thing we probably need or want to know. It will be an adventure for sure. We will post a note when we leave via radio to the blog site and will try to update it as we go. We will also send out latitude and longitude position to a vessel reporting system called Yotreps on the internet so that any of you can see exactly where our last reported position was on a world map with the date and time. We will provide a link on our blog site and information on how to find us on the Yotreps position reporting system next time. If you are familiar with Yotreps at www.pangolin.co.nz you can find us by entering our vessel ID as "wcz6559" and look at our track. WCZ6559 is our ship radio call sign. But I will put a specific link on the blog so you can get there easier.

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