This is certainly a different trip from the fierce rain storms on the way down.  It is warm, there is a new moon. Alan puts on a Dave Brubeck Christmas album on his watch and we drink hot chocolate.  There is lightning off in the distance so I got out the battery cables and attached them but it passes behind us.  Typically the wind has dies at sunset so we use the engine all night and into the next day.  The point of this trip is to get back to the safety of Puerto Vallarta as quickly as possible.  We need to run the water maker, now that we are out of the very dirty marina.  While he is doing that, Alan spots the gecko disappearing into a cupboard.  I had thought she was gone for sure but apparently she is just fine.  Must have stuffed herself with bugs in Huatulco.  Next day we took the head apart and spent several hours scrubbing it.

There is not a cloud in the sky during the day, at least not where we are.  Although as usual we can see them building over the land in the afternoon.   It is so hot that I rig a sun shade for the cockpit out of fabric left over from the awning.  We are having our usual bout of wind from the wrong direction so we tack every hour or so trying to keep on course.  It does not seen quite fair that the wind was in our face all the way down and now it is in our face again on the way back.  At least on way should be the “right” way.  Early the next morning, just at the change of the watch, there is lightning all around and a sudden wild burst of wind and we are going 7.5 knots.   That is faster than this boat is supposed to go.  Glad that it happened when we were both up.  It only lasted 20 minutes and then the wind dropped back to almost nothing.

About 9pm on the 3rd night we see the lights of Acapulco.  We need to wait for dawn to enter the harbor so we continue to tack slowly up the coast.  Unfortunately our lovely sail is about to end miserably.  Every other night the clouds had built up in the afternoon and passed out to sea in the evening.  We would see the lightning in the distance but it had not come close and we had stars and moonlight between the clouds overhead.  But this last night the clouds just got thicker and thicker.  Suddenly there was lightning all around, everywhere, way too much lightning!  Thunder.  And wind, in sudden fierce and unpredictable gusts up to 20 knots.  Not letting up.  Not passing in 20 minutes.   From midnight until dawn, just off a very rocky coast, we had rain, wind and lighting and cargo ships.  Finally the sky lightened with the dawn and the wind let up and we motored into Puerto Marquez, just off the mouth of the main harbor and dropped anchor.  (We found out later that this is where Drake used to hide out to attack the Spanish galleons)