May 14, 2012, Monday   Manzannillo

Monday morning we arrived at Manzanillo Bay.  The bay is dotted with rocks and something was wrong with the depth gauge so that it suddenly started reading 2-3 fathoms a mile off of the coast.  I know it could not be right but Alan got out the hand held gauge just to make me feel better.  It was over 20 fathoms.  We made our way into the bay and anchored in front of a lovely resort called La Hada across the bay from the old town.  There were only 4 other boats in the bay.   2 looked as though they had not moved in months, one left just as we came in and the other was a little day sailor.  Once we were settled we took the dingy in to check in with the port captain and to look around .  It is obviously the off season.  The shops are closed, the restaurant deserted and the port captain’s office closed.  Just a handful of people in the hotel swimming pool.  As seems to be the pattern in Mexico, the resort is way out of town.  In this case, I could not even find the main road where the buses to town run.  And once again the concrete was crumbling, the wiring unfinished and the paint pealing when we looked behind the lovely facade.  We returned to the boat for an early dinner and to catch up on our sleep. 

 Next morning we headed into shore again to see if we could find the port captain and check in and also to see if anyone knew of a sailmaker and to be sure the gas dock was open.  There was a little more activity this morning. The ship chandlery was open along with a couple of other shops but no one knew of a sailmaker.  The port captain was finally located and happily stamped and photocopied papers to show that we had arrived.  He also informed us that there was a $20/day fee to use the dingy dock.  We tried telling him that we were just going right back out to the boat but since we were obviously already tied up we had to pay the $20.  Of course once we paid, it seemed like we should get our money’s worth so we spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool.  But tomorrow we are going to get gas and sail across the bay to the old town while we figure out what to do about the sail.

There is one other cruising boat here, Adamansour.  On board are a lovely young couple from England.  They are on a voyage around the world and she is 6 months pregnant.  They are heading for Puerto Vallarta where they will stay until after the baby is born. They have it all worked out. and apparently have met several other cruising couples who are pregnant or have very young children.   They are going to Guadalajara where there is a natural birth center.  Once the baby is born, they will fly home to England to show off the new one to the family before coming back to continue their circumnavigation.

Our main order of business is to mend the torn sail.  The rip was held together with sail tape and was not too bad.  I broke out my sewing kit and added stitches to the tape to hold it all together. We had put the word out via email and radio to see if there was a sailmaker either here in Manzanillo or on south in Acapulco.  All the responses that came in said that we needed to go back to PV Sails in La Cruz, 100+ miles in the wrong direction.  We really did not want to sail north again.  We were already really late to be going south.  And in fact the first named storm of the season was building to the west of us.  Since we have some extra pieces of sail cloth, I could hand sew a patch onto it, but we would rather have it done professionally if possible.  Finally we got word that there used to be a guy  Barra that made sails although no one knew if he was still in business or not.  Barra de Navidad is only 25 miles north.  We could sail up overnight, be there in the morning.and hopefully be on our way south again in just a few days.  Eventually someone came up with a phone number and Alan gave him a call.  He was still in business and would be happy to patch our sail.

That settled, we spent the afternoon exploring the town of Manzanillo and ended up having dinner at a Chinese restaurant overlooking the harbor.  1:00 in the morning we set out for Barra de Navidad.