ZIHUATANEJO

Mirador arrived in Z-town on Sunday evening January 26 about 5:30 PM.  The non-stop trip from Tenacatita lasted 37 hours and covered 225 nautical miles.  We sailed six hours of that time and motor sailed, with the engine running very slowly, about 10 hours.

I would have sailed more of the time but the best wind came up just after dark on Saturday night and lasted about 10 hours. 

That wind blew 13 to 16 knots from directly astern Saturday night so I would have had to pole out the genoa or drifter and I was just too lazy to do that in the dark.  The seas were somewhat confused at about three to four feet.  I didn't feel like going up to the foredeck, in the dark, and trying to set the pole.  And, the main was not up because the wind had been from mostly astern all day but not strong enough to bring the apparent wind aft as Mirador motored south.

Just after daybreak on Sunday the wind moved to forward of the beam which allowed me to set the main and genoa for a nice upwind sail into 15 knots apparent wind.  As the day progressed the wind slowly diminished as it moved from the ESE to the SE and finally around to the WSW.  By 2 PM there was only about 6 knots out of the WSW. That,  however, was enough to allow Mirador to motorsail with just the main up.  With the engine ticking over at 2000 RPM Mirador maintained a steady 6.8 to 7.0 knots directly toward Punta El Faro (Lighthouse Point) which is the entrance to Bahia Zihuatanejo.

I was making such speedy way SE that I decided to go directly to the Z-town anchorage and bypass Isla Grande. 

Saturday night I managed to spend a comfortable night at sea and did get a fair amount of sleep. 

Our radar is mounted under the dodger.  I lay on the cockpit seat with my head aft, resting comfortably on a pillow, where  I can see the radar without moving.  I can even change the range on the radar with my toes.  I have a very loud, 100 dB, electronic timer that I set for 30 minutes.   The timer goes off and I check the radar at 3, 6, and 12 miles.  I then press the timer button and it resets to 30 minutes and starts up again.  Every hour I get up and check all the lines and take a look around the boat.

I know 30 minutes sounds like a long time to sleep.  But, I am alone and I do have to rest.  I can see boats 12 miles away on radar which is 36 minutes at a 20 knot closing speed.  During the night, while I was sleeping, I was only 5 miles off the coast. All the fast ocean going traffic was about six to eight miles further off shore than was Mirador.  Since Mirador was only making six to seven knots I wasn't concerned about running ashore in the thirty minutes I slept.  Besides, the autopilot and the GPS each have alarms that ring if Mirador gets more than 1/4 mile off the track to the next waypoint.   I also set an alarm zone along the coast line in the Visual Suite navigation software.  If Miradors position, or even the position projected 90 minutes into the future, crosses the alarm zone boundary I set two miles off the coast line, the computer starts beeping continuously.

I also set a radar "guard zone" with a three mile radius centered on Mirador.  If any radar target crosses into or appears within the guard zone the radar starts beeping each time the radar sweep illuminates the target.  The radar is also wired to a 120dB buzzer at the nav station that is really annoying if the guard zone is violated.

Sleeping as I did is not as safe as not sleeping, but a single hander does have to make compromises.  I've done everything I can think of to make night time sleeping as safe, and just importantly, as restful as possible.  The more I single hand the more resigned I become about these issues, and the less they bother me. 

About 10 PM I closed with a large vessel that displayed a set of lights indicating it was "a vessel constrained in her draft" - that is a lower white light and further aft a white light with three red lights below it.  That vessel contacted me and wanted to pass port to port which I acknowledged and did.  What was confusing was that we were in 800 fathoms of water and more than five miles from water less than 100 fathoms.  As far as I could tell from my radar plotting the vessel was moving toward me, parallel to the shore at about 3 knots.  I never did figure out why it was showing a "constrained by draft" light in almost 5,000 feet of water. 

I never saw another boat after midnight.

 I checked in with the Zihuatanejo Port Captain yesterday afternoon.  It was a quick and painless process except for one minor detail.  This port requires a vessel provide proof of liability insurance when anchored here.  My Certificate of Insurance, written in Spanish for just such an occasion, had expired on November 1, 2002.  Blue Water Insurance did renew the policy since they cashed our check in mid-October. But, as of my leaving Tacoma on December 3, they had not sent me a new Certificate of Insurance.  The Port Captain allowed me to sign a form saying that Mirador can not leave Zihuatanejo until I provide the appropriate document.

Later, I tried to give the Port Captain another Certificate of Insurance, also written in Spanish, that Blue Water had provided as proof of insurance.  The Captain would not accept that document since it only showed the effective date but did not specify the end date for the policy.  I tried to explain that the policy automatically renews each year but they would not accept that.

On Monday evening I sent Blue Water an e-mail asking them to e-mail me a copy of the required form. Tuesday afternoon I received an Adobe Acrobat copy of that form and will present it to the Port Captain today (it is now Wednesday morning).

The reason the Port Captain requires proof of insurance is shown in the picture to the left. That is "Freedom", a Mariner 35, that drifted ashore last summer and was never claimed by the owner.  The half-buried boat is adjacent to the city pier and the port captains office.  It blocks a good part of the beach used by pangareros for landing their fishing boats and it also blocks the dinghy landing area.

Freedom was in good shape when it came ashore.  There is a roller furling genoa on the forestay, a main on the boom, boathooks on the mast, fish filleting table on the pushpit, and a 2 kW Honda gasoline powered generator on the foredeck. 

So, now the Port Captain requires vessels have liability insurance so he can have a deep pocket from which to pay for removal from the beach if another boat comes ashore.

The social calendar here is very full.  Today I have to decide if I want to attend a seminar about wireless e-mail or play volleyball on the beach in the hot sun.  Choices - Choices.

Here are a couple more pictures of Bahia Zihuatanejo.  Mirador is anchored at Playa Las Ropas which is in the SE corner of the bay, about 3/4 of a mile from the city pier and the dinghy landing area.

I'll write much more about Z-town and Sailfest 2003 in a day or so.  For now - I'm off to see the Port Captain and then play in a Cribbage Tournament at a bar in town.

Here is the bay looking NW towards the Pacific Ocean.

And here is a view looking NE towards the beach and some of the big houses on the hill above the bay.  There are about 80,000 permanent residents here.  The entire industry is tourism.  A couple of big cruise ships stop here and there is a lot of serious ocean sport fishing.  Additionally, Z-town is a destination for tourists who just want to sit on the beach.  There are hundreds of small hotels here and dozens of new big hotels in Ixtapa which is about 8 miles NW along the coast from here.