Liebling on the move

Another year another adventure Here it is the 30th of January and we are in southern Mexico at the town of Huatulco. The adventure began when we left Puerto Vallarta and headed south. We wanted to have time to stop at all our favorite anchorages, but as the cruising life goes we had some boat servicing that needed to be completed before we left PV. The windless (anchor retrieval motor) wasn’t working and the variable pitch propeller needed to be serviced. To change the ball bearings on the prop we had to haul the boat out of the water to work on the prop. The definition of cruising is “fixing your boat in exotic places”. So because of this we didn’t get to leave PV soon enough to stop for very long any one place. We did get to be in Barra de Navidad for the Cruisers Christmas party for the third year in a row. It was great to see old friends and meet new ones. We couldn’t stay long as we had to be in Zihuatanejo by the 30th of December to meet Lucy (Jim’s sister) as she is traveling with us down the coast to Puerto Madero (Chiapas) which is about 1000 miles east southeast of PV and about 455 miles east of Acapulco. We are located in Huatulco which is in the southernmost part of Mexico just above Guatemala. Our idea was to go there and just sit and decide if we are going to keep going southeast or come back north. If we did go south we would leave the boat in either El Salvador or Panama. We are now in Huatulco which is about 200 miles northwest of Puerto Madero and in order to go further we would have to cross just below a stretch of land that is very narrow between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. This stretch of land is called the Tehuantepec. The winds can blow threw there at 50-60+ knots so watching for a weather window is critical. We have been watching the weather and it appears that there are two day window of opportunity about every 7 to 10 days. We had a great sail to Huatulco with Lucy and were rewarded with beautiful anchorages and the best snorkeling we have had in all of Mexico. The National water parks here in Huatulco have many protected bays and are full of coral and colorful fish. We are in so far East we are in Midwest/Chicago timezone. Although Lucy was to fly back to Chicago from Puerto Madero we have now decided to stay here in Huatulco for a month and enjoy to snorkeling and do some inland trips with our friends Ramona and Jan on their sail boat Jetimo. What fun as Ramona speaks fluent Spanish and we really haven’t done any trips inland. We went to an area named Oaxacan where there is a major city of 500,000 people which is the Capital City of this State in Mexico. We took the bus from Huatulco to Oaxaca which was a 9 hour ride. Pretty exciting as it is went up through mountains and high elevation of about 9,000 feet. We went on several tours including one to Monte Alba with ruins from 500BC. We also explored the city and all of its ornate and intricate churches and museums. We took a van back to Huatulco which was not for the faint of heart as it was very high traveling on the ridge of the mountains with a 2000 foot drop on each side and no guard rails!! We are now back in Hutalco and plan to stay here until the 15th of February and then watch for the weather windows to cross the Tehuantepec. Life is changing every day and our adventure continues……….