Liebling in Barra de Navidad

After spending several months relaxing and enjoying the beautiful bays in Huatulco (southern Mexico) we made plans to start our long sail from Huatulco to Acapulco and then Zihuatanejo. Before leaving Huatulco we waited for a good weather window to travel north. We hung out in Bahia Jacuarel (one of the bays by Huatulco) where we had exciting wind and waves picking up to 20+ knots and waves 3-4 feet. We had to move over to Bahia India to wait for the winds and waves to die down. When we finally left at first we didn’t make much headway and were only doing 2.5 knots with the heavy wind and current against us but eventually our sped picked up the six knots. We traveled through the night and then stopped for eight daylight hours in a little bay outside of Acapulco just to rest and then continued on in the night towards Zihuatanejo. When we left Acapulco we did take a picture of a fishing boat with about a hundred Frigate birds all over it which seemed odd to us as they don’t normally land on the lines of boats. See pictures to the left. But just as we were gaining speed along came some of these same birds and they kept trying to land on Liebling’s rigging for the night. Jim armed with a strobe light went out on the deck and kept flashing the light in their eyes as they tried to land to disorient them and make it impossible for them to land. It was Jim against the birds for over an hour until they finally gave up and flew away for good. It was hilarious watching him but if you have ever seen what a mess they leave you would understand why we didn’t want them to land and stay with us all night and longer. In Zihuatanejo we meet up with our good friend and former owner of Liebling (Peter Heyden). Peter came to sail with us for three weeks on our way up to Puerto Vallarta. It was great fun having Peter on board as he is a great sailor and still loves Liebling as much as we do. While we anchored in the bay off shore from Zihua we got a call from Cathleen Linda’s niece. As it turned out she was in town for a yoga retreat and when she found out that we were there she sort of canceled the retreat and spent a couple of days with us on the boat. What a fun and happy coincidence. After a great time in Zihua we left and headed north to Barra de Navadad. We stop at a few anchorages to rest and swim which was great fun. One day we passed over a fishing long line which is a suspended net below the water line and snagged it on our keep and thought that it may have gotten tangled up with the prop. Fortunately Peter dove into the water to check it out and it wasn’t caught on the prop just hung up on the keel and then it worked itself loose. Thank gosh we didn’t have to cut the line and it didn’t wrap around the prop. After 3 days of sailing and motor sailing we pulled into Barra de Navidad. What a treat it was to see old friends and show Peter around one of our favorite places in Mexico. While in Barra there was quite a weather event as it started raining like crazy with over 20” falling in less than 24 hours. We are used to rain but usually it lasts a few hours and then the sun comes out, I am so grateful we were safe in the marina. The next day when we left for Puerto Vallarta you wouldn’t believe the debris in the ocean from plant debris washing down the creeks to the ocean. We had to dodge big trees and plants everywhere. After arriving in La Cruz (just north of Puerto Vallarta) it was most fun to see friends and enjoy the little city of La Cruz. I did have an event as I fell into the water from a friend’s dinghy and lost my glasses and my Kindle. What a bummer! It wouldn’t have been so bad but losing of my Kindle was tragic. Jim and Peter had no sympathy for me. Jim said he shouldn’t have trusted another sailor to bring me back to the boat. We brought the boat to Puerto Vallarta to have it hauled out and have the bottom painted as well as some work on the engine turbo but at the last minute we decided to wait till December for the haulout and only had the work on the engine and some other stuff completed. We did dive the bottom of the boat with our new underwater breathing device that makes it possible for two of us to be below the water for about two hours and clean the hull of barnacles’ and other things that like to take up residence on our hull. The cleaning along with the work on our turbo made the boat run like new again. A really nice thing happened in Puerto Vallarta, since we were going to haul the boat out, Carl (Jim’s brother) had some time share points and we got to stay for 4 nights at a condo in downtown PV. We did move Liebling over to Marina Vallarta which is close to everything in PV. There are crocodiles in this marina and one was close to our boat. The sad thing is that a dog was chasing an iguana too close to the water and the croc grabbed him and the last we saw was the croc swimming away with the dog buy the neck in his mouth. Poor dog I just hope he wasn’t someone favorite pet. We are now back in Barra and plan to leave the boat here until we return in December. Jim will visit the boat during the summer every couple of months and maybe sail a little as well. We will be returning to the NW by the middle of May for the summer. We look forward to seeing you all. Love Jim and Linda