Merry Christmas from Zihuatanejo

We arrived in Zihuatanejo after a mostly uneventful overnighter. There were some illegal fishing long lines about. These are usually small polypropylene lines that stretch out for long distances and have multiple fishing lines attached to them. They are buoyed up by coke bottles and are nearly impossible to spot.  We saw one and narrowly escaped it by running parallel with it to a spot deep enough we could successfully glide over it. The three boats behind us all managed to tangle with one or two nets and had to get in the water to cut away the lines. We got lucky.

We were very happy to arrive in Zihua, we were here once before, almost three years ago, later in the cruising season and just before Covid started.  This time the town was all decorated up for Christmas and looked great.

Our friend on Ghille has a much better command of Spanish and asked a local police officer where the best place to watch the Christmas Parade would be. He pointed to a second-floor restaurant right in front of us. We took his advice and we had the best seats in town for the parade.

It seems like every night there is something going on in town, lots of music and families all out enjoying the festivities. There are many great restaurants and ice cream stands to choose from in Zihuatanejo. We’ve sampled quite a few of them.

On the 21^st Chris and Rob moved off the boat into the condo they will be staying in for a week. We got an invite to come by and enjoy the pool. To make it worthwhile we decided we would pick a morning and walk up and see if we could get a tour of the Parthenon in the morning with a pool stop in the afternoon.

High up on the hill overlooking the bay, there is an abandoned structure known as Zihua’s Parthenon. It was built in the 1970’s and it was the Mexico City’s Chief of Police’s summer home.  Rumour has it that there were a lot of wild parties, people that “disappeared”, pet tigers and escape tunnels. It was only vacated when the Chief was arrested on charges of corruption. It has remained vacant for 40 years. We slid the caretaker 100 peso’s each and he let us on the grounds to look around. It is very rundown and vandalized now but it must have been something in its day. Current rumor has it that Zihua has acquired the property with plans to turn it into a museum. Time will tell.

It was a hot sweaty walk up and back to the Parthenon so the swim at Chris and Rob’s place was a welcome relief.

The anchorage in Zihua is busy. It starts early as the fishermen work to collect bait for the day. The bait fish tend to school in the shade provided by our anchored boats so the fishermen are close by as they cast their nets. With several pangas after the same bait, its always entertaining to watch, even if it starts before sunrise.

This year is the first time we have not been home for Christmas. It’s a strange feeling. Even with all the decorations in town, the sunshine and 30-degree Celsius temperatures, it was a little challenging to get into the Christmas spirit. We still managed to get some lights and a small “tree” on the boat.

There are 10 boats in the bay and 8 of us got together at one of the beachfront restaurants on the afternoon of the 24^th. Three of us carried on to a nice dinner at another restaurant. Christmas morning we woke up to find Ghillie had been over early and placed 2 Christmas stockings on our decks. What a nice surprise. Barb is making cookies and we have some chocolates we will be taking to neighbouring boats today.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Tomorrow we will be on our way to Acapulco for the New Year celebrations there.