Yesterday morning we got up early and had breakfast with Bruce. This time we went to a different restaurant in the marina complex, which was more expensive and not quite as good. Man, we should have gone back to the first place. Right after we were done eating, Bruce caught a cab to the airport. We were sad it was a short visit. Gone Native also left, too. The weather window was still excellent and they wanted to make the most of it. They had really only stopped for fuel.
Even though we had gotten a full 9 hours of sleep, we were both tired. We knew insta-adjusting after a 2 ½ day passage was too good to be true. Short passages always leave us feeling totally “out of it” for at least a day or two after arrival to port. We wound up having a low key day aboard. We hired someone to wash the boat. We did some light chores in between naps. Eric took a 5 hour nap. Christi took a 3 hour nap. We met a Nordhavn 64 owner and toured his boat. Christi lusted over the gigantic kitchen and is now re-thinking not wanting a boat that big. Actually, she really doesn’t. She just wants a bigger kitchen.
Today we were feeling back to normal, which is ironic. We just adjusted to land life, but it was time to go to sea again. Sigh. We really wanted to stay here longer and explore Zihuatanejo some more, but the weather window was excellent. Even though we had made much better time than expected up the coast so far, we still should probably keep moving. We have a deadline to be back home by and we just can’t take the chance on being stuck here for a couple weeks waiting on another window. We keep reminding ourselves this is the easiest place in the world to come back to.
Since this passage was expected to be 1 ½ days, we didn’t need to leave until late afternoon. We decided to try to make the most of our day on land. Eric got right to work and changed main engine oil and filter and on-engine fuel filter. Christi worked on getting the boat ready to go. Eric went to the marina to check out and they told us to come back later in the day to pick up our port clearance.
We had brunch at the cheap but yummy restaurant in the marina. Eric ordered a dessert called rompope and peaches. We had no idea what rompope was. Out came peaches in a bowl covered in a thick mystery liquid that was absolutely delicious. It turns out that rompope is the Mexican version of eggnog, made with eggs, milk, vanilla, and alcoholic spirits.
We decided we needed to do something fun, so we headed over to the waterslide park. It was only $6.00 to get in. There were only two slides, open only from 1200 1400. It was 1130 when we entered, so we had to wait a half hour. There was a kid’s area with small slides that was already open when we arrived. There is a long, skinny pool that wraps around the outer edge of the park. It should be one of those eternal loops, but it actually only encompasses three sides of the park. So, you get to the end and have to turn around. That was open. There was also a wave pool, but it is only open from 1500 1600 daily.
Even though there are only two slides, they are pretty darn good. One of them is really fast. There weren’t many people there, maybe two dozen total, so we got to go a whole bunch of times in a short period. We were a little taken aback by the lack of supervision by adults. Kids were doing dangerous things, like sliding down in groups of 4 and 5, stopping in the middle so the person behind them deliberately crashes into them, etc. Christi smacked hard into a group of kids stopped in the middle, but no one was hurt. Eric hurt his toe, unrelated to the kids.
After an hour of runs, we had gotten our fill and headed back to Kosmos. We picked up our clearance, showered, and listlessly got ready to go. Even though Ixtapa isn’t our kind of place, we like this marina. It is flat as a pancake, has power, and has wifi to the boat. The wifi connection is pretty good and is some of the cheapest wifi we have gotten in the world.
When we were ready to pull out, we decided we should have one last meal on land. Can you tell how hard of a time we were having with leaving? We finished eating close to sunset, and we knew we couldn’t procrastinate any longer. We needed to go right now.
Pulling out was a little bit tricky. The wind was blowing us into the dock. We actually had to manually pull the boat over to the empty slip next to us in the double slip and re-tie on that side. Then, we had to do some creative maneuvering using certain ropes as leverage t ensure we cleared the dock without hitting it. We got out with no problem, but had another boat been next to us, it would have been more difficult.
While we were in the process of pulling out, Eric bumped his hurt toe. He has been complaining all evening about how much it hurts. Poor thing.
We are sad to report that the seas aren’t nearly as good as we had hoped. There was a very light wind from the tail and no wind chop, but there were a lot of swells. We were hobby horsing like crazy and it wasn’t all that pleasant of a ride. We are starting to understand why they call it the “Baja Bash”. If it is this uncomfortable with a small tail wind, how bad must it be in the typical strong headwinds?
Our speeds have been slow, so we must be going against the current now. We are only doing 4.5 knots at 1750 RPM! On the good side, the moon is full and visibility is excellent. The temperatures are actually cool. Christi put on long pants and a sweater.