Merry Christmas 2015

     We left Huatulco on the 21st of December at 09:45, course set for Zihuatanejo, ETA 15:00 on December 24th.  Approximately 81 hours later, December 24th, hour 19:51 we dropped anchor in the anchorage at Zihuatanejo.  It was a HOT trek, and we motored almost the entire way.  We did find an opportunity to sail on the 22nd, the winds were a steady 15 knots out of the north-west.  The sails were raised and the motor was given a break at 17:30, about an hour and a half into my !6:00-20:00 shift.  Marshall came on shift at 20:00.  We made our tack as we we growing to close to shore.  I went down to get some rest and Scott would follow Marshall and pick up his shift at 23:00.  As it turned out the tack and continuing to sail almost perpendicular to our rum line.  HA HA!  We ROCK! We had seven hours of peaceful sailing and it set us back 6/10 of a mile!  Our new ETA was 12-24-2015 @ 18:00.  We motored the rest of the way and arrived on Christmas Eve at 17:36.  We all had a glass of holiday Ronpope (mexican version of eggnog and rum), and dove into the 90 degree salty sea water that we had just dropped anchor in.  We ended the evening with a fresh water shower in the cockpit followed by meat, cheese, and crackers and fell into a very much welcomed deep and uninterrupted sleep.

Grant taking the 08:00-12:00 watch....he seems to be enjoying the journey

     We awoke Christmas morning, had juice and coffee and Marshall handed out gifts.  What a thoughtful guy.  He was the only gift giver of the four.  Sweets for me, Ronpope  for Captain Scott, and a soap dispenser shaped like R2D2 for Grant.  After gifts we rowed to shore, strolled through Zihua, sat under a palapa eating pistachios and cacahuates (peanuts), drank 2 for 1 margaritas and micheladas while watching people play in the surf and Velvet Sky dance gracefully in the bay.  We bought some ornaments for our grandchildren from one of the wandering venders.  he ornaments are coconuts, hand painted to look like fish.  We made some phone calls to our family members which was the icing on the Christmas spirit cake.  It was a good and relaxing day. 

This is the woman that made ornaments.

     We rowed back to the boat around 17:30 where we prepared and ate a lovely Christmas dinner of roast chicken, with tarragon, garlic, and honey glazed carrots, stuffing, and jelled cranberry sauce.  We toasted to family, friends and good sailing adventures with a drink called Caldo De Fruta (soup of fruit). Caldo De Fruta is a fermented drink (tasted like moonshine), made only with fruit and sugar, we bought it in Guatemala and  had been saving it for this toast.  As my gift to the fellows, and they were pleasantly surprised, I added ice to their drink.  As most sailors know, ice is rare and precious, Marshall calls it “liquid gold.”  I had it stashed in the back of the ice box and was looking forward to serving it on this special occasion.  It was a Merry Christmas!