Acapulco - Boys on Their Own

We had a couple of options when we arrived in Acapulco; only one of them was remotely acceptable.  The first option was to tie up in the Acapulco Yacht Club Marina, but they were charging an outrageous $3.50 per foot, per night, plus the 15% federal sales tax on top of that.  This equates to $185 per night for us, not including water or electricity.

This is out of our budget.

The second option was to use one of their mooring balls out in the bay.  This is essentially, a permanent anchor on the bottom of the sea bed, with a short chain which goes up to the surface, and then is attached to a floating ball.  In your boat, you approach the ball and then run a line (rope) through an eye on the ball and you are now secured down to the anchor.  For this they wanted $1.50 per night per foot, plus 15% federal tax.  For Calpurnia, that equaled $79 a night. Still out of our budget.

The last option the Yacht Club offered was for us to anchor out on our own, and then we could bring our dinghy into their marina for a cheap $30 a day to use their facilities, including restaurants and swimming pool. Even still out of our budget.

Apparently, outrageous prices are the reason no one travels to Acapulco any more.

Not liking any of the above options, we went with our own plan.  We choose to anchor out, using our own anchor, directly next to the mooring ball field. Cost: $0 per day.

We then went and met with the Acapulco city marina manager.  This is a separate marina, but just next to the Yacht Club Marina.  The difference in appearance, safety, amenities, and cost could not have been more striking.  For $5 per day, we could tie up our dinghy to their marina so that we would have access to town.

Shown to the right is Robert sitting down on the city marina's floating "dock."  Robert is practicing the well-rehearsed drill of sitting on the dock because it is not safe for a three-year-old to stand on the shifting dock by himself. 

The city marina has 2 or 3 guards who watch the dinghies while the yatistas go ashore.  The deal only got better when the guards showed a complete lack of interest in taking our money, but continued to guard better than if we had been over at the yacht club.  Granted the yacht club has a great pool and a modern playground for kids, but you can't beat free.

The trade off is that there was only about a 20 foot section that was remotely safe for a 3 1/2 year old to be near.  Surprisingly, that 20 foot section is pictured above.  The five foot wide dock was strapped together with different ropes, cables, and planks to build a type of sea saw effect as you methodically took your next step.  It only got more fun at night when you arrived back from town in the dark.

Parts Run

As frequent readers may recall, we still did not have an autopilot. 

So, arrangements were made for Amy to fly to Georgia where an autopilot motor and several boxes  of other parts had been amassed, awaiting a method to get to Mexico in one piece.  Amy was shocked when I told her the trip was for 7 days, but I remember her panic when talking to her on the phone when she only had 2 days left in Georgia, and she was nowhere near being done with her shopping.

So with mom gone, Robert and I were left to our own devices in Acapulco, out in the bay in 75 feet of water, for 7 days.  Robert's first question was, "Can we stay up late when mom is gone?"

Every couple of days, Robert and I would choose to ride what we called, "the crazy bus".  This was a cheaper bus than the first- class tourist buses, by 10 cents.  The drivers somehow owned their own buses, and they were free to personalize them as they choose to.  All of these "crazy buses" were tricked out in an "East LA" style.  Most had stereo systems appropriate for a football stadium, some had disco lights, most had black lights as shown above; one had a flat screen TV.  Oddly all of them had stuffed animals, or cartoon references somewhere in or on the bus. 

All of these buses spent a lot of money having both the exterior as well as the interiors "air brush painted."  One bus was painted as a "transformer" (ask your 10 year old if you don't know what this is).  I saw two that had an amazon female warrior theme, another had "Porky Pig" on the rear.  One driver had his image painted onto the ceiling, depicting him as Satan (horns and all) being very intimate with some young lady whom I'm sure was his wife.

Nature

With Amy gone, we had time to focus on things she would not want to, and one of those categories is "things that move."

Robert and I saw these ants in a park one night.  We thought they were extremely interesting, because they were all carrying these huge flowers, which are several times their size and weight.  It really was amazing to see this highway of moving flowers headed towards a hole in the dirt and down they went.  Captured here, was one ant's misery of not only having to haul this huge flower, but then also carry some lazy ant along for the ride too.

Another thing we enjoyed spending time looking at were these cool fish, which we think are called "box fish."  They are about 10 inches long, and their body shape is squarish.  They enjoyed hanging around our dinghy dock, so Robert always struggled between looking at the fish, and watching where his next step was going to be.

Mom's Back

After her week-long sabbatical in USA, Amy is now back in Acapulco. She was stopped and questioned very thoroughly at each security check point. She was carrying in her backpack the auto pilot drive motor, which fits very exactly the specifications the security personnel are trained to look for: a cylinder 3 or 4 inches in diameter, 4 or 5 inches in length, with wires coming out the ends.

Amazingly, she was able to make it through all security checkpoints, and even more amazingly, she literally got the "green light" at the Acapulco airport which meant the Customs personnel didn't bother looking through her loot that filled two large duffle bags.

Installing the auto pilot motor wasn't easy, but it only took Mark two days.

Departure

As you read this on Tuesday morning will will have departed our latest stop in La Crucecita (little cross) and started our voyage around the Gulf of Tehuantepec.  It will be over 250 miles and we will stop just once (we hope) for a few hours rest.  At 6 or 7 miles per hour it will take almost 40 hours to complete the passage.

View Larger Map

We will be stopping in Salina Cruz, which is highly recommended as a place not to stop.  It is at the foot of a valley for which all wind in the Gulf of Mexico is funneled through.  We will be racing to get out of the gulf by Thursday when gale force winds are predicted.  Some time Wednesday morning, we will be passing a spot which is directly south of our home in Kansas, by just 1566 miles.

See you on the other side in Puerto Madero.