Acupulco – kinda like they told me about it

When we were in Manzanillo we took a long cab ride in from Las Hadas to the Centro section. When the cabbie found out we had a few words of Spanish, at least enough to match his few words of English, the trip turned into a joint language lesson. The topic naturally followed into “where are you going?”. When we mentioned Acapulco the cabbie went into his best discouragement speech, clearly letting us know it was too dangerous and full of Narco violence.
We showed up in the large bay that makes up Acapulco just before dark after a good sail down from Punta Papanoa. Henry on the catamaran Rapscullion had been here before and headed to an empty spot near the pangas around the Port Captains office that was smooth and in 20 feet of water. The other anchorage is deep and crowded with moorings. Next morning we hooked up with Henry and Tony and Shannon from Sweetie to do some touristing. Since they charge 100 pesos to tie up a dinghy here and we weren’t comfortable just leaving ours on the beach, we all jumped into Henry’s ride and split the tie-up fee.
We did a busy day of hitting the tourist spots. First, the main square and local church. Then off to the Fuerte San Diego. The old fort that defended Acapulco’s trade (in what was then New Spain) from some famous pirates, English (think Francis Drake) and others, who all wanted some of Spain’s riches.

Heading into the fort that is now an interesting museum covering the history of the Acapulco 

Checking the view from the upper cannon deck

Looking down on Jeorgia from the Fort

The Hotel section of Acapulco seems to be well protected and populated with a lot of Tourist Bureau helpers, whose job it seems is to keep tourists out of trouble. We wanted to go up and see the Diego Rivera mosaic mural. It is above the marina where we tied up the dink.  The Tourist Bureau guys made it clear to us that we should see the mural in day light and that we should take a cab up and have him wait for us. OK by us. We piled in a cab and headed up.

Today was Chris’ birthday. For a B-day present I decided to give her a wall with an original Rivera.

Tony, Shannon, Paul and Chris trying to improve on the Diego Riva mosaic of a mythical Quetzal. 

You got to love the simplistic signature

Tony and Chris really wanted to see the iconic Acapulco cliff divers. Something to do with too many years of watching Wide World of Sports and listening to Frank Sinatra as kids. This was a 15 minute walk from the main square and we were told it was a safe part of town. The cliff divers do 4 or 5 shows a day. We got a front row spot in the bar that overlooks the cliffs ready for the first night time dive.

The official union of divers

Two divers preparing to jump into the shallow abyss

Diver standing next to the chapel that they pray at before each dive. So far it seems to be working.

  

OK, it was too dark to get any action shots, so here’s an abstract of two divers on their way down.

 

A shot borrowed from travelresources site online.

It was Chris’ birthday, so she got a cake:

and a fantasy date with the cliff divers:

They really are short and young, Chris has not turned into a Amazon giant.

We walked back from the Cliff divers around 10pm. Henry was hungry so we stopped at a tamale place near the malecon. It was late for us, but just the right time for the locals to come out for dinner, so the tables were crowded with families out enjoying a summer evening tamale feast. In the street parking in front of the restaurant were a group of trucks and cars with police officer like occupants. Most had dark AFI shirts or bullet-proof vests on, others had PGR shirts. The AFI is apparently something analogous to our FBI and the PGR are special state police.  There were two white pickups and a Suburban like dark truck loaded with these guys. There were also 2 or 3 sedans full. It all looked pretty low-key, with a few women talking to them and one guy on his cell-phone. We finished eating just as this troop started to pull out.
We walked along the malecon looking for our way back to the dinghy dock. We turned down a dark road that headed us to a dead-end because the tide was too high to cross the beach. On our way back we heard the first shots. As we walked up the street some locals came out and told us we couldn’t turn right (the direction we’d come from) at the end of the street because of a shooting – but left was OK. Off we went- to the left and finally found the entrance to the marina. After a short negotiation the guard let us in. By this time a police helicopter was flying overhead. We walked down the dark path toward the dock and stopped near the pool deck. This is when the volleys started. We heard at least 100 rounds of gun fire go off. We were smart enough to hang tight next to the thick stucco wall and could see the action fro across the small bay we’d just walked around. The police helicopter decided it would be smart to turn off his lights as he flew round and round us overhead. We could see guys inside a hotel-like building moving around with flash lights and heard a few more rounds.
The excitement went on for another half an hour or so, then we decided to brave taking the dink back out to our boats. Henry was driving and convinced that this was just part of Chris’ special birthday celebration. As they say, all’s well…
Paul 
PS: From the morning newspaper report, this was a planned operation to capture 3 ‘assassins’, who are now in a Mexico City jail.

Zihuantengo

AKA Z-town. We’ve been in the Z-town and Ixtapa area for near a week now. Zhuatenejo is where the closing scene in the Shaw Shank Redemption occurs. Ixtapa is the typical big beach hotel al-la Cancun type place.  Z-town is much more kicked back with a really friendly, walking Centro section. Lots of good music and restaurants with a large central market.
The first night we got in here we got rolled up with a cruisers dinner out with the crews from Varuna, Rocinante, Sweetie and Sound Effect(1/2). OK food, but great beer and conversation.
The dinghy landing in Z-town with the locals playing soccer. Most of the time you show up here with your dink and a local is there to grab it and guide it through the surf --- for 10 pesos. Worth the investment to cover the parking insurance.
Heading down here we were seeing a fair number of large ships with their AIS (Automatic Identification System) on. Then on the horizon was a big guy coming our way with no AIS on – strange. Turned out to be Mexican Navy Ship 412, the Usumacinta. Formerly the USS Frederick, built in San Diego in 1968. A Newport Class tank landing ship that made it into Vietnam and Desert Storm. Now doing patrols of the Pacific for the Mexican navy.
Coming down the way we had some intermittent issues with our speed log. These get grunged up with marine growth and the paddle wheels stop turning. So I decided to pull the inch and half plug out. This is always exciting as an inch half of water starts flooding the boat till you replace it with the dummy plug. This time the paddle wheel was really grimed up with some ugly growth. I stuck it in some white vinegar to clean out the hard stuff and then picked out the remaining live matter.
I like the right-of-way instructions posted on the pier at Z-town. The Capitania de Puerto making sure the fishing pangas know the rules. The bottom left one says watch your distance from sailboats and give sailboats under sail right-of-way. Nice thought.
  There are Tortilleria’s in every town in Mexico. Some don’t have as modern a machine as the one above. Giant balls of corn based dough goes in the hopper, out comes flat tortillias to be baked.
A couple of important pictures that I missed posting while we were in Manzanillo.

Giant blue sailfish overwhelming the waterfront.

 

Looking down on the central market from the second floor.

We are off tomorrow heading to Bahias de Huatulco. This should be a 3 or 4 day trip. We may stop at Acapulco for a day or two on the way.

Paul

Tsunami Spotting

We woke up early and turned on one of the HF radio marine nets (which usually comes in a distant second to NPR). Didn’t take long to hear of the destruction in Japan and the possibilities of tsunami waves cutting across the Pacific. Fortunately we had Banda Ancha internet connectivity allowing us to sift through the random info on the nets with real info on the web. We checked the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center site. They put out an update every hour. Their schedule had the first wave hitting our area at 19:30zulu, or about 1:30pm. We were the only boat in the anchorage, Ensenada Carrizal. This is a narrow, steep-sided little bay. It didn’t look like a good place to try surfing a Tsunami wave into the beach. We hung around for a few hours and then headed out. We did some lazy sailing for 4 hours in Bahia de Manzanillo, around the freighters and tankers (photo above). They’d all headed out of the port of Mazanillo into deep water anchorage to wait it out.
There wasn’t much damage in this area. A freighter that decided not to leave the port needed two tugs to help stabilize his position in the harbor.  The captain sounded a little panicked as he requested them. A few places had some dock issues. The lagoon in Barra de Navidad had a water pipe break loose from the bottom and block the entrance. A lot swirls in the water and buoy's being dragged under in the currents. Just a little excitement on our side of the Pacific. We’re sorry to hear of the real devastation that hit the other side.

While hanging outside in the bay killing time we kept sailing through these huge flocks of rays who were cruising just under the water surface.

One broke off from the flock and started to chase down our dinghy.

We did get an early evening snorkel in at Ensenada Carrizal before we left the next morning. Water clarity was better than it has been since we left Baja and there was a lot of live coral.

Chris heading off into the deep.

Proof that Paul gets in the water too- when it’s 70 or above. (We’re still waiting for tropical water temps.)

The sunset at the anchorage at Las Hadas resort that we came into once we figured the Tsunami scare was over. This is the beach that Bo ran down in the movie “10”.

A pod of playful whales passed us on our way to Enenada Carrizal, this shot was taken near Piedra Blanca (on the right).

Speaking of whales, here’s the first person report on the whale that had the run in with Pearson 367 Luffin It in Tenacatita Bay: Luffinit. Sounds like they didn’t see the whale and the whale didn’t see them, rather than a case of aggravated assault on a sail boat. Lots of damage– hope these guys had  good insurance!

Paul