We arrived late afternoon to Galera to find that the anchorage was choppy and bouncy and the swell was impressive enough to dissuade a shore landing. Cameron and Jenny had already been here a day and managed to get to shore and reported that the town was cool and the Semana Santa crowd was surprisingly hip. There were a number of surfers at the edge of the jetty.

The next morning we woke to find ourselves between where the waves were breaking and the shore. The swell had increased during the night. Luckily they broke at a diagonal and by the time the break was parallel with where we were, it was inside of us. Still, not pretty and we decided to just take off for Escondido; landing today was even less possible than the day before.

The trip between Galera was most irritating due to a major chop (out of where?!) and vague if any wind. Then our motor crapped out. So we bobbed uncomfortably along in a less than seven-knot wind (our windspeed meter doesn’t register below seven knots). Also it was very hot and the sails were on the wrong side of the boat to provide any shade. Bleargh. Joshua started to remove parts of the motor and finally discovered that the spark plug was fouled, cleaned it, and got the motor started again. (We did not want a night arrival in Escondido.) Velella had left Galera shortly after us and went motorsailing by midway, they said they would radio us when they arrived at Escondido to let us know how the situation was, night landingwise.

Once we got the motor started, the wind picked up to sailable levels, but we were too paranoid to kill the motor. We set it low enough to not die and let it rumble in the background. Also, the wind was coming out of the direction we were headed so we had to tack back and forth the whole way. We made it to Escondido right at sunset and motored around and around the anchorage snarling at the depthsounder trying to find a decent spot to drop our hook. There is a deep canyon cutting into the anchoring area but a bump randomly placed in the middle where one might anchor on an “anchorable pinnacle,” whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. On the very bright side, Velella had dinner waiting for us when we arrived and it was just awesome; we could smell yummy smells wafting out the back of their boat as we puttered in circles.

The peak weekend of Semana Santa in Puerto Escondido is a thing to behold: there are no less than four banana boats (these are long yellow inflated things that people sit on top of and they are pulled around in circles by pangas) running at any given time, not to mention jet skis, “eco” tour boats (we didn’t figure out what part of the boat ride was the eco; they appeared to chase down pods of dolphins or just bob around looking at the sunset), regular panga fishermen, and then planes dumping out masses of skydivers. The beach is jam packed with people sunbathing and children screeching in the water. You can’t walk two steps on the beach without someone trying to sell you a banana boat ride or a fishing excursion. The majority of tourists are from Mexico City, although there is a sizable expat gringo population here. Once you make it through the throngs of beach goers, the town is mellow and quaint. And steep. You have to walk up a bloody mountain to get to the market. Luckily the market is well worth the hike.

The above is smoked maguey (what they make mescal from) and the guy would cut it into strips to snack on. It is very fibrous and has a caramelized sweet smokey flavor. It’s not alcoholic at this point, by the way.

That is a large pile of habanera peppers.

We bought some random fruits: the smaller green one has a very nice sweet flavor sort of like cherry and plum and yogurt. There is also a very large pit inside so there isn’t a lot to them. The scaly thing needs to be eaten when it is well ripe (soft) and has a flavor and texture like firm applesauce, with a bit of spice (clove? nutmeg?). Very interesting. We forgot the names already unfortunately. The market also had sweet basil and a great vegetable and fruit selection.

As Joshua mentioned in the previous post, we arrived braced for turistic mayhem and prepared to pretty much hate the place. We entered the bay just after sunrise and could see in the morning smog a fringe of high-rise hotels lining the entire coast of the bay. We came up around to the northwest nook of the bay and proceeded to circle the anchorage for at least 45 minutes in a vain attempt to find a spot where 1) we weren’t in danger of being run down by enthusiastic banana-boaters or overzealous yachties; 2) where there wasn’t a 200-foot derelict rubbing up against a haphazard concrete mooring disc with ear-splitting abandon whenever a wake disturbed its rustful slumber; 3) where there wasn’t freakish bottom anomalies (65-65-40-35-65-34-23-35-65…wtf. I shudder to imagine what might litter the Acapulco harbor bottom); or 4) where we were vaguely out of earshot of the party barges (they will give that karaoke mike to anyone). Heady criteria indeed. We managed a spot in a somewhat alarming depth of 65 feet, a satisfying distance off of the derelict, and a neat paddle amongst the shining plastic megayachts to the elaborate Club de Yah-tays, where rumor had it that the dinghy landing fee wasn’t being enforced.

We immediately docked illegally at the Club de Yates dinghy dock and made a beeline for the flush toilets (oh heaven) and then tracked down every boating supply store in town. We were on the lookout for toilet tank chemical, a porta-potty repair kit, or a whole new toilet in general; have I mentioned that we have been having head issues lately? A complicated myriad of problems include a five-day max holding tank capacity (that 750ml issue is a killer), difficulty of finding tank chemical worth half a damn, a broken flush pump, general Cheyennian irritation at the whole situation, and let us not forget the most unfortunate phenomenon of pressure build-up. (“We’re going to have to rebuild the whole head. I said, well, do what you gotta do.”) Adding to the problem is the hair-tearing irritation that the very head we want to buy was in Puerto Vallarta at the fantastic Zaragoza (a good Mexican marine supply) at an excellent price and WE DIDN’T BUY IT WHEN WE HAD THE CHANCE. Woe. Woe and Frustration. Add a dash of Irritation and at least three cups of Foul Language. Long story short, there is no head to be had in Acapulco for less than $450 but there is toilet chemical that is strong (says ‘poison’ all over the bottle in more than one language and gives an alarming description of what must be done in case of ingestion), comes in a gallon jug, and ought to take care of at least one of our problems until we either get a proper marine head or go insane. Maybe in August. Head, not insanity. So we hope.

Business taken care of, we shifted into explorer/obtain-delicious-snack mode and laid a course for the zocalo. The road between the Club de Yates and downtown is a busy street with 12 inches of sidewalk where you are constantly honked and shouted at by taxis and busses (because nobody in their right mind walks from Caleta—suburb where the marinas are—and Acapulco proper). This would have been more annoying if the busses were not so elaborately decorated on the outside (inside too) with airbrushed masterpieces of Ren and Stimpy, or Dracula and his Seven Sexy Nymphos, or Extreme Sports Bettys (imagine Lara Croft, blond, ollying up a handrail), or Death Rocker Metal Screamer, or Stuart Little (Stuart Little??!!). Weirdness, to be sure. Not to mention that most busses have the first (top) half of the front windshield obscured by a ruffly curtain, the bottom quarter obscured by prismatic stickers with slogans like “DIOS ES MI COPILOTO” and the muddy in between taken up with dingle-balls (from the bottom of the curtain), dangling virgin statuary, woven palm frond Semana Santa crosses, firecrackers, etc.

Along the malecon, there are vendors hawking all sorts of weird beach outfits and sticky coconuty treats as well as a gang of old dudes who approach you with fishing/diving/esnorkling/beach excursions and who sport the Dress Whites as if they are the Captain Himself of some fine yacht moored just over yonder and they are inviting you personally, perhaps as a favor to the king to spice up the boring tropical days.

Once you hit the zocalo, a shady treed place with a built-in shoeshine stall ever 30 feet (we’re in flip-flop territory so the majority of the stalls were occupied only by ornery looking old ladies), you have but half a block to go to escape where any and all tourists seem to ever go. Surprising, but honestly, we did not see any western tourists outside the confines of the Club de Yates–only a few walking the malecon near downtown and a couple in near the zocalo–and then none anywhere within downtown. This is not to say we didn’t see any tourists, oh no: there were droves, mostly from Mexico City (Semana Santa is just around the corner), but they kept primarily to the malecon and beaches. Downtown is a snaggle of shoe stores, cheap clothing stores of vast selection and questionable quality, wedding announcement printing shops (yes, they deserve their own category; how such a dingy greasy black hole manages to produce cards of such whiteness and laciness is a miracle rivaling the resurrection), weird shit stores (plastic buckets, screwdriver sets, thong underwear, cake decorations), and paletas/helados/aquas shops (we promptly outfitted ourselves with a plastic bagful of pina colada agua). The streets were filled with shocking potholes, varying qualities and vintages of paving, obscure traffic signage, and berjillions of pedestrians, taxis, and painted busses, who clearly have a deeper understanding of the way Things Are Run. We ran into Cameron and Jenny from Velella en route (we have been bumping into each other as we work down the coast; they use kayaks as dinghies and have been pronounced “cool”) and spent the day wandering with them through town. Like us, they are used to spending a day in a new town traipsing aimlessly about with no particular destination and certainly no map or direction. We spent the remainder of the afternoon walking about in the sweltering heat, ducking into bookshops or anything that might be air conditioned, then headed back to the Club de Yates to scope out the shower situation.

I had to actually ask the doorman of Club de Yates where the showers were (they were well hidden) and we were ushered to a tastefully lit stairwell leading off in either direction (dames, and horse-riders). The stair was stone and cool and let up to a sparkling bathroom with toilets to one side, showers to another, and a massage parlor and towel rack splendid with fluffy navy-blue towels in between. I already felt acutely that I didn’t belong here (not having paid for the dinghy dock and all) and so I stuck with my REI space-age chamois towel; however, this did not stop me from taking advantage of the liquid soap dispenser located within the shower stall and working my bathing suit into a frothy ball, not to mention my Tevas and shorts, which I proposed to wear the following day. Water pressure was firm and fast and I was enjoying myself immensely until a crowd of several hundred children entered for their daily washing. Ayyy. Two or three at a time entered the unoccupied stalls and commenced to absorb all the tepid temperatures. I believe they were yacht club pool urchins and they possessed the strange power to control the shower temperature with voice alone; within moments my shower bliss was shattered, I was enduring icy hot sputtering blasts and my once-every-six-months-deep-conditioning moment was getting all fucked up. Their controller was a sole harried women who periodically barked commands like, “Let Jose use the water temperature controls,” “Lupita! Stop squirting soap on your sisters,” or “Only one towel per person!” Like a summer squall, they were gone within minutes and I was left alone with one hand testily on the temperature control, my heart pounding, and St. Ives facial scrub all over the place.

Clean as two whistles, we kayaked back and forth to the boat a few times, then headed into shore to check out the night cliff divers, who chuck their very bodies from a height of 75-100 feet or so nightly in hopes of earning a living. Impressive stuff.

The next day we found out that somebody had been taking advantage of the dinghy dock and not paying and the Club de Yates did not approve; a guard had been positioned on the quay to escort any newcomers to the office where they were expected to cough up ~38 dollars for use of dock and “services.” Good god. So everyone who had been mooching off the supposed generosity of Club de Yates went down the way to Marina Acapulco, a quasi-derelict boat dock with strangely shabby/schmancy yacht clubhouse (pool on roof, palm cabanas and swim-up bar; no running water in the bathrooms, docks broken into many pieces and roped together using various bits of multi-colored and sized ropes). They were very friendly and helped us tie up to one of the floating dock pieces and did not charge anything.

We spent the rest of our time in Acapulco on restocking missions: grocery store, market, Home Depot (whoa), etc. The bus ride to Home Depot was very fascinating; there is a dizzying array of commercial activity afoot in Acapulco. We left the harbor in the late afternoon and anchored for the night at the south edge of the bay, a mini-cove that is rapidly being developed into one big massive multi-level hotelmania. Ayy. The next morning we started out for the overnighter to Galeta, the next possible anchorage to the south.

We saw a lot of turtles, many of them with avian passengers.

Food Report

We didn’t eat out too terribly much while in Acapulco—we ate at a couple Comida Corrida places and had mole chicken, fried fish, that sort of thing. The road between the cliff divers around the outer edge cutting back towards the bay between Caleta and downtown Acapulco had a lot of popular restaurants and guys at tables working cutting open shellfish (like, shellfish out of pretty seashells, as well as oysters, clams, conch-like things). We did eat at a couple of roasted chicken places that were very good; the photo above is of a great place called La Fogata that is right up the side street by the Comercial Mexicana supermarket. A massive plate of barbecued chicken is 22 pesos. They have Negro Modelo.

Downtown, a group of ladies on the street had plastic buckets of a light-brown thick liquid drink (I forgot the name!) that was made of rice flour, chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar. They would dip a dipperful and pour it from a height in order to keep things well-churned (no settling) and charged 5 pesos for a cupful. One lady’s five-gallon bucket had the faded words “industrial soil plasticizer” or some such on it. Hmm.

Zihuatanejo I think has suffered a bit from the tourist mania; massive cruise ships anchor out in the middle of the bay now three times per week and ferry all passengers to shore for the day to buy random trinkets at the millions of gift shops and ‘artisan markets’ lining the first four blocks parallel to the beach. As you walk along the beach on the first tier of restaurants/gift stores, everyone tries to entice you inside by listing off the various specialties of the day, most often, “cold beer.” Heading inland block by block you pass bars and quaintly decorated restaurants with English menus displayed on wooden podiums outside, and of course, more trinket shops and silver shops. Despite all this, the place is very friendly and the main beach in front of town is still taken up nearly exclusively by the fishermen and their fishing market. Once you walk beyond the four-block tourist section, the town reverts abruptly into Normal Mexican Town with pharmacies, central Mercado, hardware stores, tiendas of all sorts, and ice cream/agua shops.

We ate at a couple of barbecued chicken places, which were very good (I wasn’t a huge chicken fan in general); the chicken is served with a cole slaw and rich rice (cooked with chicken broth perhaps?). The central market is pretty good, although a better bet for vegetables are the veggie stores lining the streets off the back of the market; the prices are better and you have a wider selection of quality since there are maybe twenty of the stores all in a row. A bad day to go to market is when a cruise ship is in town; I tried to buy a couple of kilos of tomatoes and limes, the guy looked me up and down and then named a shockingly high price for the stuff; I just poured the limes back into the vat and left. Highlights were the large bunches of Thai basil that everyone was selling—for cooking? Not sure. We saw that people just put the bunches in vases like flowers. We hadn’t had basil in a very long time and I made pesto with almonds and a bit of parmesan we managed to find in Manzanillo. Also, I was overjoyed to finally find decent coffee in a small shop in the hottest corner of the indoor market (that’s how you find it; wander around the edges of the market until the heat level attains a dizzying level and there will be the coffee stall). They make three different roasts: mild, medium, and strong—the strong is indeed black and oily and they will grind it for you. We bought a pound for 30 pesos (less than $3). Oaxaca cheese is also very good here; the stuff we tried further north was always pre-packaged in saran wrap and tasted primarily of saran wrap. Bleargh. This stuff was excellent and slightly sharp; we went back three times to get more before heading out of town.

The first day in town we dinghied ashore and made it about two blocks before we heard someone calling “Joshua!” And it was Sundi, Joshua’s dad’s ex-wife, who we haven’t seen in probably ten years. Small world; she said she was sitting on the beach near where we anchored and recognized the boat (and port-a-bote) from the website photos! We had a great time with her and Steve, her husband, who came out to the boat (the Baby Jade) for drinks; later we all headed to town to a restaurant they liked called Any’s, which is famous for the pozole (it was indeed mighty tasty). She said that she has been coming to Zihuatanejo for many years and it is only in the last couple of years that the tourist business took over the town.

Tourist season was actually winding down by the time we were there; Rick’s Bar, the main cruiser’s bar was closing the next week for the season. The waitress had some interesting statistics: 80% of the customers at Rick’s were Americans, and 80% of those were cruisers. When we left, there were maybe ten cruising boats left in the bay.

Some fisherman in a small rowboat collecting their nets; the frigate birds were going nuts. There is also a group of guys who dive for some sort of shellfish (we never figured out which one; we guessed clams/chocolates) in the bay; they floated small inner tubes with baskets around and dove underneath them for the shellfish. They were out every day and a small group that dove near our boat let out frequent whoops and hollers as they dove.

Papanoa

We arrived after dark to the small harbor at Papanoa, dodged the night panga fishermen, who were thankfully well lit, and anchored just inside the jetty. There were no other tourists here at all (there would be, however, come Semana Santa) and the place was pretty mellow. The town itself was very small with one road leading up around the hill; on the outer side, there was a beach with a few palapa restaurants and small funky hotels. Velella showed up the next afternoon and we kayaked with them north outside the harbor to try to surf; however, the sand was so well packed that we were unable to anchor the kayaks outside the breaks and only a Crazy Person (not me) could land through the waves. We headed back to town and hauled the boards over to the palapa restaurant side where we mostly just swam in the waves—the, um, break just wasn’t ripping and the waves were all blown out anyway (cough cough). We later ran into the one resident gringo, an retired guy named Frank Brink from Coos Bay, OR, who lived in a groovy shack at the edge of town, who had been there for over fifteen years, and who was delighted to meet someone also from Coos Bay (Cameron was from the Oregon coast and he and Jenny had lived in Charleston).

From Papanoa, we sailed overnight to Acapulco. The entire trip I had what fragments of Love Boat theme I could remember (not much) stuck in my head. Woe. Exciting and New Woe.

We bypassed the anchorage at the Hotel Las Hadas (where ‘10’ starring Bo Derek was filmed) and headed directly for the port at the center of town. As we were came closer to the breakwater we were still scanning the visible harbor debris for the masts of other sailboats but discovered upon entering that we were it. We anchored at the edge of the panga/fishing boat mooring section, just inside the channel markers. Inside the breakwater is very still but there is a lot of large shipping and tug activity so we get wakes occasionally. Nobody has hassled us, nor has officialdom come out to talk to us so presumably we are in an okay spot. The only people who have talked to us are curious fisherman who want to know where we are from/where we are going; a navy boat just motored by (there is a base here) and we just overheard the comment, “Barco de vela! Tranquila!” So basically, people are pretty damned friendly.

We spent our time mostly stocking up on supplies: veggies, ice, beer, Nutella, and Coconugs. Nutella is something I am indifferent to the states but rises in status to a necessity the moment I set foot out of the country; Coconugs are similar to the candy bar Mounds, minus the corn syrup and another 30 odd ingredients. We tell ourselves that they are good “watch snacks” in an attempt to justify the fact that we are buying a box of candy bars. However, this is a lot of bullshit because we generally eat nearly the entire lot before we even get out to sea. (Nutella, by the way, is good for you; it says so right on the container. “Energia de las avellanas; los elementos nutritivos de la leche; rica en proteinas y sales minerales.”)

We spent a bit of time at the main mercado, buying vegetables, eating lunch in the upstairs food stall section, and just leaning over the railing on the second story and watching the alimentary action.

Aerial view of the mayhem.

One of our favorite street snacks here is the tuba drink served into plastic cups out of quaint gourd jugs by very nice guys who, if asked, will not hesitate to describe in detail exactly how tuba is produced, start to finish, with a little history thrown in, while the bees swarm. (Bees really love tuba.) They congregate along Mexico street at intersections mostly and we have seen them mostly in the early day–i.e., they are not night venders. The tuba is served with a couple spoonfuls of peanuts in the top (if you wish) and has a tangy sweet bready and slightly fermented flavor. It reminded us of kvass (from Russia/Ukraine). We tried a couple of different tubas from different venders and they are actually different. Our favorite was less sweet and had a stronger flavor; the tuba guy said that it was ‘tuba natural’ (but they all say that if you ask), however, this time I think he was serious.

Other notable street food mentions go to El Bigotes Taco stand on M. Galindo near Mexico and the churro dude more on corner. He sells the churros by the piece and they are crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside just like they should be.

Meat, and lingerie.

We pulled into the little cove at Chacala just after sunset and were surprised to see, not only fancy homes lining the point, but a fat RV park glistening in the dusky air in all its green-tinted windowness. Charlie’s Charts (we must have an outdated version) had us thinking we were pulling into a sleepy fishing village with a few palapas on the beach where you might be able to scare up a cold beer or inquire about water or something. Rather, there are a lot of resorty-looking homes and new agey hotels (the one at the end of the beach features a Zen master behind the bar and yoga workshops), of course the RV park and campground, several palapas, and a streetful of souvenir shops and mini-supers. So basically, you can get pretty much everything you need here, travel-wise: veggies, water jugs (garafones), beer, ice (block as well as purified cubes), sarongs from Bali, lacquered seashell plaques that spell out “Chacala,” and the luxury of having others cook for you while you sit on the beach with your beer. We had a fish cooked for us for lunch today and it was excellent. It was a snapper cooked “sarandeado,” which means they split open the fish (hard to describe) and place it between two wire griller things, then slowly cook it for ~25 minutes in a smoky fire. It is tender and crispy with a great smoky flavor and they put a tasty barbecue sauce over it. Very good. It seems to be the thing here because we saw a couple of the restaurants cooking fish in this manner or advertising ‘pescado sarandeado.’

Despite the tourist mania in Chacala, we like it and give it a thumbs up. It is a really nice cove, has a calm clean beach perfect for swimming, and the food (at least what we tried) from the beachside palapas is reasonably priced and very good. All supplies are right on the beach so you can get groceries/garafones/ice and not have to lug it across town. There are no jejenes to speak of here either.