Scenes from Mexico

The first shot is of one of the tiny villages where we anchored, south of Puerta Vallarta. The second photo is above Bufadero Bay where Nomad was for 6 weeks.

surf

Here's a couple of shots Brian took at one of the surf spots he found.




Just kidding, the crocodile was seen on a ride up into an estuary somewhere else.

Cliff Divers of Acapulco

Cliff Diving....ahh. just like it used to be at Casa Bonita restaurant in Denver Colorado when I was a kid. Just kidding. it wasn't much like it except the diving part. No ladies in distress, no gorillas chasing anyone. There WERE street vendors pushing carts of homemade icecream. We walked up to watch the diving from the cheap side of the highway with our binoculars. About 8 different men or boys climbed around on the rocks and dove into a narrow place in between two protruding fingers of the cliff. We found out that not only are they diving from very high up, they are also diving into relatively shallow water. They time their jumps to land when a swell has just come in so that the water will be deep enough.

We were happy to leave Acapulco (see previous post on Thursday May 22) but were glad we saw this the evening before.

Captain Vicente

This is our fish barbecue by the lake just outside of Acapulco. Vicente was a boat captain we met. He invited us home to hang out with him and others of his friends next to the lake near his house. The fish was incredible and I got to ride a jet ski for the first time, with Vicente's son teaching me.

Chachalacas and More

The large birds that sound like gobbling turkeys in the now-green forests around the marina are Chachalacas - Plain Chachalacas or Wagler's Chachalacas, according to Plate 23 in Princeton's "Birds of Mexico and Central America". When we arrived here 13 days ago, the hills were brown and the tops of trees looked crisp in the heat. All that changed within 2 days of the advent of the rain. Lush jungle surrounds us. Plumeria blossoms add white polka dots to the green canopy, and the wild sounds of whirring bugs and chattering birds remind us that this town was a jungle less that 25 years ago.

All day long, Spanish Mackerel leap out of the marina water, expose their white bellies and splash back down. Puffer fish, indigo adults with white spots and gold juveniles with brown spots, graze along the edges of the docks. Great Kiskadees and Grackles fly between coconut palms.

We've been accepted into the small community of sailors here who are also en route to elsewhere, waiting for the hurricane season to come and go. Going on walks with the ladies, sharing cabs to the downtown, being invited to a surprise birthday party, and borrowing tools are welcome signs that we are in a community again-albeit temporary.

We celebrated our 6th year of marriage on June 1 by taking an early morning hike to a small beach enclosed by hills and going swimming. We did no boat projects that day - a true celebration!

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Huatulco, Mexico

We are settled in to Marina Chahue which is a small
Marina in the new town of Huatulco, Mexico. It is a
planned tourist town that was built specifically to
attract tourists, just like Cabo, Cancun, and Ixtapa
Mexico all were. It is however much quieter and
smaller than those places.
Brian and I are working on many projects that were
difficult or impossible to do for the last few months
while we were anchored in various places.
We have taken time off of these projects to play in
the rain (it´s rainy season), swim in the crystal
clear ocean, take a bus north to a rural surf spot,
get to know the other cruisers in the marina, and to
celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary.

One of the highlights lately, was the taxi ride we
took out through rural coconut and papaya fields to
get to the surf camp. Our taxi driver and 6 other
people crammed into his small car and we drove around
dropping people off in small villages en route to the
beach. A couple of miles before getting to the beach
we had to avoid a coconut tree log across the road.
Our taxi driver had an animated conversation with the
log´s cutter and pulled over to the side. "You want
coco?" He asked us. Of course we did. He dug a
machete from under his seat and started whacking
coconuts off of the fallen tree. He opened 2 up and
handed them to us. They were delicious! Next Brian
and the taxi driver helped roll the log to the side of
the road for the tree cutter to chop into smaller
pieces. Soon we were on our way.

We are getting the boat ready to leave it for the next
2 months. We arrive in California on June 15. Brian
will be working with Appko part time and doing side
jobs. I¨ll be working for the same Alternative High
School where i´ve been for the last few years. LOoking
forward to spending time with friends and family!

hi

Hi all,We are in Acapulco. It's a big city. Like the
San Francisco of Mexico. When we were pulling in
yesterday we could see cliffs with stairways snaking
out to them that had platforms on top. We presume
they are for the famous cliff divers that we think of
when we hear the name of this city. As we were
pulling in Brian commented that it seems like a place
where alot of margaritas get consumed. Just has that
feel to it. There are steep cliffs, deep clear water,
and hotels that lining this natural harbor. It is
almost officially hurricane season (Doesn't mean that
instantly storms are everywhere, just increased
possibility- we are paying more attention to the
weather reports now). Nearly all the rest of the
cruising boats that haunt the Mexican waters all
winter long, the snowbirds, are gone. About a month
ago the last of them were madly bashing north to get
out of the "hurricane zone". We have only 5 days of
sailing to get to our marina, in Huatulco, Mexico,
where we'll leave the boat for the summer. However,
Puerto Escondido is in between here and there, we'll
stop there for Brian to get in more surfing. We are
looking for a new outboard motor for our dingy. Ours
is up the coast under water due to large surf and
being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In our
searching for a new one a guy named "Nacho Camacho"
has become our self appointed chaperone. He's got his
tentacles feeling around town for a used motor. He
will find one, then inflate the price in order to get
his finder's fee. He is currently aboard our
neighbor's boat showing him where to re anchor and
delivering some fuel filters (for which he collected a
finder's fee). That is how it goes down here. They
watch and wait for a gringo to walk down the street
and say, "What are you looking for?". As soon as you
let them know, the race is on. You follow them from
here, to there, to close, far, over, under, around,
in, behind, above, below, etc. The Finder's are
usually the semi-sleazy kind of guys you don't want to
hang out with, but you have to in order to get
anything done. They are the salesmen that never have
any product and don't work for anybody. They are in
the know and will find you anything you want. Nacho
was trying to hook our neighbor up with a 30 year old
hooker, he just could not understand why a single man
would not want to do that! This is our second city to
search for a motor. We figure there is a finder in
the next city down, same type, same thing. Hopefully
we can get a motor located and use our days in other
ways. We've had fun running all over the place on a
mission, but it will be nice to have mission
accomplished. We'll be flying home in mid-June to work
for 2 months and then come back and continue to
Central America. We'll see most of you within a month
or so!Brian and Megan