Early Sunday Morning

Sunday morning off La Ropa Beach in Bahia Zihuatanejo and all is well.  The music of a local wedding reception stopped in the wee morning hours and now there are just the sounds of the birds, waves and couple pangas making the transit across the bay.  A local fishermen works alongside the sailboat’s hull with a casting net attempting to catch bait fish that school in the shadow of the hull in the hundreds, this particular one is in what looks to be an old jetski hull and uses a homemade paddle that appears to weigh an easy 20 pounds.  Our cockpit still showing the remains of yesterday’s small afternoon gathering - empty chip bags, dried remains of guacamole, and a few empty Pacifico Cerveza cans. There is also juice box and grenadine bottle from my daughter’s experiments to create the sweetest drink possible.  The sun’s heat yet to build; it is a great time of day.   The kids remain in their coma like sleep caused by full days of play in the sun and water.  Soon the daily groans of hungry growing kids will warn me that the peaceful morning has ended and the day’s activities are coming.

I have done a few things about the boat ahead of the onslaught; some left over dishes, cleaned out the spilled juice from bottom of refrigerator box and set the boom to allow more sunlight on solar panels.  I will get the cockpit cleared and other odd tasks but Jen left me a cup of coffee to enjoy first.  She skunk off this morning to a yoga session on the beach with a new friend from a neighboring sailboat.  This is the general routine of the mornings.  Next it will be time to feed and direct our offspring to dress and clean themselves before another full day of hard play.  Their playmates, the kids of Sweet Dreams are most likely in the same mode.  Maybe we will attempt a bit of school as well today or not.   

Our stay here has been fun and busy.  We helped out with Sailfest, an event that raises money to help educate local underprivileged kids.  The event raised nearly $ 70,000 this year. That goes a long way here in Mexico.  The town itself is great with good food and shopping and friendly people.  Even watched the 49ers lose the superbowl here.  The kids snorkeled, skim boarded and boogy boarded the beaches, but the best thing they did here was renting Hobie Cats and sailing around the bay.  I was allowed to take the helm until I pitch bowed leaving my daughter hanging from the high hull.  I have to admit the couple hours spent with Richard and Carmen zipping around the bay were fun and brought back a huge wave of memories of sailing Industrial Waste (an 18 ft Sol Cat) around Lake Winnebago many  years ago. 

The next few days we are planning a trip inland to see the Monarch Butterfly migration and the old town of Morelia.  Then we will sail from Bahia Zihuatanejo to points south before making the big u-turn and heading north to find a place to tuck away the boat until the next adventure.  I am starting to hear the kids and the sun is starting to beat down on me – another day on Northern Passage is about hit high gear.