Daily Life Here in Zihuatanejo

Right now Augustin is cleaning the bottom of the boat.  Yesterday he came swimming up and asked if we needed that done - and we had just been complaining  about how we needed to get it done, opined that the filthy bottom was partly why we made such slow time getting here, whining about not wanting to do it ourselves, and fearing poor Magda Jean looked like the Ma Kettle of sailboats when like a gift from heaven Augustin appeared.  And this morning, while I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes, there was a knock on the hull, which turned out to be a lady and a young man in a panga.  She asked if I had any laundry?  Did I!  I scurried around collecting all the things to be washed and am eagerly awaiting the delivery to my boat of fresh clean laundry tomorrow morning.  How do I love thee Mexico?  Let me count the ways . . .

We are truly carniverous these days - because the fridge is on the blink, we need to eat up everything that might go bad.  So today we had pork steaks with our eggs.  I just hope we can get it all eaten, but I figure something will likely go bad, it can't be helped.  Maybe we can use the bad meat for lobster bait?  We are not upset by this - in fact, I am sort of inspired by it.  I have three books with long chapters about cruising long distance without refrigeration and still eating well and in a healthy fashion.  And the only reason we are dragging our feet about fixing it is because Mike really wants a completely new system, and the best place to do that where we will be is Panama.  And we have discovered the unit itself functions well as a built in icebox and keeps things pretty cool.

Otherwise, things are quiet and calm with us.  The anchorage is a fun place to be - during the day, the tourist pangas and water taxis come by, the fishing boats come and go, the jet skiers and water skiers speed by, and people come and go from the other anchored sailboats.  The seabirds are always searching for food, doing these amazing bomber dives into the water from way up, and schools of fish come right by the boat, jumping out of the water making a sound almost like applause.   The set of the boat in this anchorage has been perfect for the solar panels, and when the sun sets, the breeze comes up and the wind generator takes over.  With no frig (our sole biggest power consumer), we are pretty much maintaining our power supply without using either the generator or the engine.  And that includes using the computer as muich as we want to, and watching videos on the TV in the evenings.  We are further off the grid than ever, and really enjoying it. 

Well, this is about it for today.  I am going to relax and read a book while Mike takes a nap.  The only bummer is that because of the need to empty that frig, we can't eat out as much as I would like to, because this place has some incredible restaurants.  I may just sacrifice something.

"Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can."  Virginia Reed, survivor of the Donner party.