Manzanillo

The weather forecasters keep telling us that the weather is "very unusual" for this time of year along the western Mexican coast. We are more than ready to believe them. After leaving La Paz, Bahia San Gabriel, and Bahia Los Muertos, we set out across the Sea of Cortez. It was our intention to go non-stop to Zihuatanejo, about 650 miles, seven days and six nights at sea.

We didn't make it that far!

After 4 nights out at sea and about 75 miles south of Cabo Corrientes, we noticed that the clouds to the north were getting bigger, blacker, and more flickery with lightening. Storm on the way.

We put two reefs in the mainsail, took in the headsail, and considered trying to put in at Chamela, an anchorage about 3 hours away. We decided to continue on, and would have been hit by the storm before making it to the anchorage in any case.

It lasted from 8:00PM until midnight, at its peak winds reaching 45-50 knots and seas building quickly to 15+ feet. We rode it downwind, about 150 degrees off our aft quarter, getting slapped around a bit by the waves, and pooped once by a relatively small wave.



We were tired and the black clouds moved further south and east, still loaded with lightening, so we didn't know if another squall was coming or not. We decided to stop in Manzanillo to rest a bit.



We were glad for the two days anchored at Bahia Santiago in Manzanillo...another storm hit the next night. We had 40 knot winds at the anchorage...further north in La Cruz, at the entrance to Banderas Bay, they clocked 80-100 knots of wind (that's hurricane force, folks!). And it rained! and rained and rained.



Global warming is alive and well: the ice caps are melting and they are condensing as rain over Mexico! The 15 inches of rain we got in 48 hours reminded us of all the old leaks we had on the boat, and pointed out a few new ones as well. We slept on the settee since the hatch above the aft berth was one of the weak spots in our moisture-defense system.


Manzanillo is a very busy port, so coming in and leaving required vigilance to make sure one avoided the commercial vessels. They travel a bit faster than we do!