58 to 15 -- We've Come a Long Way!

    Thursday, January 20, 2022, marks six years that we have lived on Kyrie. Such an anniversary seems a worthy time to revamp this much-neglected blog. In six years, we have traveled from Washington to Southeast Alaska, then explored much of Southeast, before embarking on this grand adventure we’ve been on for two-and-a-half-years. Juneau sits at 58 degrees north latitude. Today, Kyrie sits in Marina Chahue, Bahias de Huatulco, Oaxaca, at 15 degrees north latitude. If there are 69 miles in one degree of latitude and we’ve traveled south by 43 degrees, we’re 2,967 miles south of where we started… if I don’t include how far east we’ve traveled. We’re on the same time zone as Austin, Texas, and Chicago now. We have come a LONG way since leaving Juneau!

We’ve also come a long way since the last time I wrote a post. I think we were still in Barra, before the Panama Posse, the last time I wrote anything, so there is a lot to catch up on. However, you’ll have to just be okay with an overview. The Panama Posse Kickoff was a fun weekend, with new friends, and lots of information, but we were definitely happy to say farewell to Barra and turn left at last. From there, we spent a couple of days in Bahia Santiago, just outside of Manzanillo. There was a sunken ship we were able to snorkel on. The visibility wasn’t great, but there were so many fish to see! 

Our friends on Tulum V arrived in Manzanillo our second day in Santiago, and we joined them around the corner at Las Hadas, which was as far south as we traveled last year. A gaggle of boats started gathered to jump down to Zihuatanejo, which included boats we had met on the 2019 Baja Ha-ha. Besides Tulum, SV Samadhi, SV Boundless, and SV Juliet all traveled south with the Ha-ha, and it was fun to begin reconnecting with their crews. 

Six boats left on the same day for the run to Zihuatanejo, dodging long lines for a good chunk of the first day. We actually had one with a floating line get caught on our rudder, but thankfully, the owner came by and cut the line so we could get free more easily. That day kept on our toes, on high alert, watching for the telltale floats stretching across our path.

We stopped one day at Isla Grande to play tourist a little. Our girls got to ride with the Samadhi kids on one of the floating couches behind a panga. We could hear them screaming with laughter and bouncing around as the adults sat at a table on the beach, enjoying beers and limonadas. Joe and I also got to experience a fantastic massage in a little palapa, with just the sound of the waves and the birds around us. It was lovely!

Speaking of lovely, I really like Zihuatanejo. We anchored out in front, and although we didn’t feel comfortable swimming (a lot of growth in the water that took up residence on Kyrie’s bottom), it was easy to take the dinghy ashore and wander around the town. We enjoyed some incredible pozole at one restaurant and delicious pizza at another restaurant. Christmas was quiet, but a nice day with a number of the boats showing off lights, and music playing on shore. All in all, I would like to go back there some day.

   

Acapulco was next in line, and I’ll admit it, it is not my favorite place. It’s a big city and not one that was easy to get to shore and explore. However, I feel like we did the quintessential tourist activity and spent an evening at the La Mirador Hotel to have dinner and watch the famous cliff divers of Acapulco. Moreover, we went on our 21st anniversary, with a big group of friends. There were fifteen of us there, including five kids, so even our kids had a great time and didn’t get bored!

  

 

After leaving Acapulco, it seemed like a long run down to our next stop. It was nearly a 48-hour run to Marina Chahue, and we were only able to sail about 15 hours. Frustrating, but that has been par for the course on a lot of this trip. There was a bit of excitement on that trip—lightning both nights, although thankfully a long way away, as well as a two-knot current that sped us along right when I wanted to slow down so we didn’t arrive before daylight! 

This area is one of my favorites we’ve spent time in so far, and I promise I'll spend a little more time on this place in a later post. Bahias de Huatulco is on the north side of the Golfo de Tehuantepec and the winds that cut across it are no joke. 35-50 knots are not unusual and they kick up the seas for miles around. As I type this, there are nine boats here in the marina that came south  roughly around the same time as us, and we are all waiting on a good weather window to make that 240+ mile crossing to Marina Chiapas and our last stop in Mexico. What a weird thought—our time in Mexico is drawing to a close…

At the start and now..  The first picture was taken near Ketchikan, June 2019.  The second is about a week old.  What a change!