On to Acapulco

Last night we arrived in Acapulco. The trip down from Zihuatanejo, where we stayed at anchor for about a week was uneventful with light winds and lots of sun. Dolphins escorted us part of the way and as always that was a joyous event.

We also had spinner dolphins leaping out of the water at times, and quite a few olive green colored sea turtles floating like giant mounds of moss covered log as we sped along. Many times a white sea bird could be seen perched atop these giants, taking a rest miles from land. Several miles out to sea we had another visitor join us. A small sandpiper like bird landed on our dinghy and rode there for over an hour as we approached the harbor. Unfortunately I did not purchase a Birds of Mexico book prior to leaving the states so I'm not certain of the bird's identity.

Approaching Acapulco LoWang is relaxing on deck...

Our original plan was to stay the night in an anchorage on nearby Isla la Roqueta (island of rocks - very descriptive) but upon arrival we found both anchorages crowded with congas on mooring boys, so we decided to sail around Punta Grifo and check out the marina just inside Bahia de Acapulco. We passed through a narrow channel between the island and the verdant hillside on the western end of Acapulco where luxury homes crowd for a view of the Pacific sunset.

A phone call to Santa Lucia Marina and we were greeted with the assistance of no less than four deck hands, which was a good thing since the wind had just started to pick up when we arrived and it was blowing us away from the dock. Unlike most places where the dock floats with the boats as the tide rises and falls, here the docks are concrete and they do not change height as the boats rise and fall next to them. This creates an interesting challenge to the sailor as we often must cope with tidal changes of seven to eight feet or more. Arriving at high tide we had to quickly adjust all of our fenders to accommodate the concrete dock almost at the toe rail. But by nightfall we were dealing with a falling tide and had to lower some of the fenders, leaving others high for the eventual morning rise. Today we figured out that we needed to dress our fenders in extra T-shirts to protect the newly waxed fiberglass on the boat from being abraded by the residue of the concrete that had rubbed off on the fenders. Fortunately we each had a few extra T-shirts to use for this purpose, but we're thinking that some plain white T-shirts with our boat logo and name on the might look pretty spiffy.