Farewell to the Mexican Riviera

Jack Crevalle, one hell of a fighter but inedible, and, of course, very plentiful...

0800, Tuesday, 31 January, 2012 At anchor off The Las Hadas Resort, Manzanillo
Nothing much exciting had happened over the past week or so, hence the delayed update. We have been anchored off this lovely resort and enjoying the facilities as much as we can. It is a great location to get to town and shopping with all of the major Mexican chains, including Walmart, just a short bus trip down the road.
We are with a number of boats, quite a few Canadian; Chanty 5, Nauti Moments, and Kasasa, which are getting ready to depart for Zihuatanejo in the next day or so. We will be leaving behind others that we have been close to for the past few months; Rose of Erin, Full & Bye and Seychelles. With the Seafest beginning on the 7th there should be quite a number heading south. The winds are predicted to be from the SW so our hopes of sailing most of the way might be dashed, we’ll see.
The weather here has been odd for the past few days. We have had 3 days of overcast conditions and actually had a few brief periods of rain, a rare event during the winter in this area. The solar panels aren’t doing their job under these conditions so we may have to flash up the generator today to make up some battery reserve.
This is our 5th time at this location and, other than the enforcement of landing fees, things haven’t changed much. This year they are enforcing landing fees for all dinghies using the facility. They are asking 200 pesos per day or 800 per week. We chose the latter. That includes full access to most of the resort’s facilities and activities so Fran has been taking advantage of water aerobics, Spanish lessons and Yoga. The issues they had last year with the marina occupants seem to have been overcome. Rates have stabilized marginally higher than last year’s but the permanent occupants appear to be content. Many and his Sea Scouts have moved their boat to the mooring outside the Marina and are still using it as a Saturday club-house. They are doing some major work on it this year, replacing the big Perkins 6 cyl engine with a used one they have found locally. The funding has come from a grant from a Canadian philanthropist. With the assistance from John (Lykke) a permanent resident of the anchorage here, and Jonco, the mechanic in Barra they hope to get the job done in the next few months. They then hope to sell “Adventure” and then concentrate on smaller, less maintenance-intensive vessels for their scout fleet.
Shopping here is a lot of fun. The Saturday market in neighbouring Santiago has a wide variety of products including the pine needle basketry that we saw in the Copper canyon last year. There are also several stands of pirated movies where decent quality late-run movies are available. We have seen War Horse and the Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, both recommended by the Gosling academy..... Fruit and veg shopping is a crap-shoot but we have found that the Commercial chain has the freshest produce. There is something to say about the smell of fresh guavas in the cabin. They are an awkward fruit to eat with the small seeds but very tasty. Our “mini-hammock” fruit hanger is full of various fruits for the next leg.
Well, lots to do today to get ready for an early departure tomorrow. The next edition will be from Zihuatanejo. Getting the rig ready to sail, filling up with water (by jerry cans from the dock) and securing everything that can move will take us a good part of the day. Full & Bye is arranging for a farewell get-together raft-up this evening for most of the boats in the anchorage. Should be fun.

1830: The raft-up was great. Good food and great company. We look forward to seeing many of the boats in Z-town and said our farewells to those not continuing south. It will be sad to see this bay for the last time but we must move on to different pastures, much to Fran’s chagrin. She is in her comfort zone here.

Note the lashed extensions on this ladder. It must have been 40-50 ft. I always managed tom miss a photo op with the painters on this ladder. They are painting the water tower at Las Hadas with rollers on the end of 15 ft poles and with a bucket of paint tied to the ladder. They do not have any safety lines but the ladder is guyed.