Dan, Sylvie and Felix Blog: Zihuatanejo

Happy New Years everyone,

Here is a fashionably late update from my amazing week long adventure onboard the USTUPU over New Year’s 2012.

I arrived in Xitapa alone on Dec 27th after spending two weeks travelling Mexico and Belize. The instructions were simple. Meet us at 17 40’36 and 101 39’23, a location on a nearby island after 2pm on Dec 27th.  Although I've never used GPS coordinates to arrange a meeting, I knew I could figure this out. I uploaded Google Earth to my iPhone. Instead of an exact point however, an image of the entire Island with a 3km radius came up. I tried dozens of times to find a more specific location with the coordinates given, roaming on the Mexican network of course, with no further luck. "Dan's a yachtsman", I thought to myself. "He can't fuck up basic GPS coordinates".

He did. Dan gave me hours and minutes, but left out the seconds. I was meeting them at one of the bays on Isla Grande, a name that can be translated to Big Island. I thought the best thing to do was go to Isla Grande, see how many bays there were, and e-mail him the coordinates where I end up.  Yep, it was a great plan.

Fortunately, I was travelling light. Unfortunately I had been lugging the Ustupu's spinnaker around the continent from Vancouver to Newark, to Cancun, to Playa Del Carmen, back to Cancun, to Mexico City, to Ixtapa, to Zijuatenejo, and finally to Isla Grande to be re-united with its boat. It was the size of a hockey bag, and although not particularly heavy, it was awkward and gargantuan.

I spent the early part of the afternoon getting to the pier, then over to the island. I arrived on the northern tip of Isla Grande via water taxi, where I thought would be the best place to send my coordinates. Then I realised, Isla Grande had no cell phone service at all. We we're lost with no means of communication; it was like being back in the 90's. So I did what I'd been taught to do when lost in Scouts as a young lad; stay still and someone will find you. I found a table on the beach, ordered a Sol and told the server to keep them coming. Dan and Sylvie were going to find me.

After half drunkenly waving down two other similar looking sail boats, a few hours passed...I spotted its green. And even more specifically, it’s red. I could see Sylvie's hair, as well as a frame similar to Danny’s but with a mullet like hairstyle. It was definitely Dan and Sylvie. Waving a pink shirt on the end of the pier for 10 minutes worked.  Captain Schrodes and his faithful rower we're coming to get me. I'd found them. We were all elated. This was going to be a great week, and it was.

No phones, no e-mail, computers or watches. I fell into the groove right away. I had needed this. Eat dinner when it gets dark (mostly fantastic dinners from Sylvie), go to sleep when you get tired, and get up when the sun comes back up. Swim, eat, have a few beers in-between and repeat. Fantastic, I was a happy boy in great company.

Aside from waking up frozen with panic from the thought we had been boarded by Mexican banditos trying to rob us (which actually turned out to be Sylvie tying down noisy ropes) the first day and night were very relaxing.

For the next three days we snorkeled, back flipped, scrubbed the boat, fished with disgusting canned hot dogs with absolutely no luck and enjoyed catching up. Isla Grande was a great little place. It was about a 150m swim to the island, where we could get food and beers that we didn’t have on the boat.

We spent the next few days exploring the island. After a few days we were also joined by three bearded lads from Chicago with whom we would head to Zihuatanejo for NYE and a few days to relax even further. Alex, Nick and Dave were piloting the Saltbreaker to New Zealand from San Fran, and also happened to enjoy snorkelling, drinking 40’s and were thankfully much more successful fisherman than Dan and I.

The short trip we took with them to Zijuatanejo Bay provided some sights I’ll never forget. It was 8 nautical miles from Island Grande, the only 8 miles I spent not anchored on my weeklong visit and we got the whale show of a lifetime by a calf and two full grown humpback whales. In fact, after these disappeared about 200 meters away from us for about 3 or 4 minutes, one of them surfaced about 10 meters off the bow of the boat with a full breach. One of the most amazing sites I had ever seen, and all Dan and I could do was yell for Sylvie to hit the gas and get us out of there before the next one surfaced and landed on our bow. An amazing, yet briefly terrifying, experience.

Finally we were in Zijuatanejo anchored next to the Saltbreaker just off the beach from a bunch of nice modest sized resorts. It was a swim-in swim-out scenario from the boat, which means a lot of dry bags for clothes, drunken end of night commutes and an unpleasant number of Schrodi’s bits viewed.

NYE was spent in the city Zihuat, drinking beers on the street and spent the highly uncoordinated countdown on the basketball courts of the town center. There was a very appropriate amount of firecrackers and street dancing. We hit some bars, saw a quite surprising number of Drag Queens, and owned the dance floor with some of the whitest dance moves the state of Guerrero has ever seen. We then went to get a very late night meal, where Dan proceeded to have me eat part of a habanero pepper, that perhaps was hotter than the Mexican sun itself. The pepper, seemingly spiced with turbolax genes, created a very awkward walk home for everyone. But especially for me.

The next few days we’re followed with snorkelling, skin diving, Pacificos, our boat being circled by a leatherfaced man, diving birds, jumping fish, and the sound of banditos on the deck, despite no actual visits.

I had an absolute blast, Dan and Sylvie. It’s pretty painful to think about it from my office, but you guys are on a wild adventure I enjoy the frequent updates and pics. Thank you both so much for making me at home on the Ustupu, I hope to come back.

Jeff