Sailing from Papanoa to Acapulco passage - 2015

Middle of January 2015 - Anchored in Acapulco, Mexico

We went from Zihua to Papanoa (aka Puerto Vicente Guerrero) and had a lovely two day rest.  It was a quiet fishing village with a breakwater protected anchorage.  Not a lot of room for too many boats but plenty for us (and another boat came and went while we were there).  Then we left at 2am - luckily still had the moon so the early morning hours were vivid with stars and a calm sea. 
Once day broke, we were able to sail for about 2 hours before the wind gave out - quite a lovely sail at that!!  Without the wind we were really sweating that we would get in before sunset....that fear was luckily unfounded as we dropped anchor right at sunset - with a beautiful red sky to look at! We were right to be concerned about coming in at night because it was our first time here and we wanted to anchor. 

We anchored in 17’ of water at mean low tide as we scouted for rocks. We then took a nice shower and watched a show before going to bed for needed rest.

 Because we had our Garmin GHC 10 Class A under-deck autopilot break down on us and since re-installed it in a new position and made a couple other modifications to it after getting it replaced under warranty, we have been slow at testing out all the functions.

We did have some wind for a while and got some sailing in. For the first time we used the "Wind Hold" function on our Garmin GHC 10 Class A under-deck autopilot.This worked like a charm and we actually stayed close to our route because the wind was East SE and we were pinching. We had a double reef in out genoa and a single reef in our main. The sail plan and boat felt balanced. We did 5-6 knots and had a great sail.

Sailing on autopilot.

We were quite anxious for the sun to rise!!

Debbie in the cool morning hour.

It was my turn to get a concert! Debbie playing the flute 

and reading music from her Kindle Fire.

Hamming it up :)

The sweet sound of music from a sweet girl!

We could have followed the route Debbie made for the 

Boca Chica Channel but there was a fair amount of boat traffic so 

we hand-steered and you can see the bread crumbs.

Approaching  

There were several fishing pangas on the approach, this shot

 taken from the boat to starboard.

 When we were entering the bay through the Boca Chica channel (not as scary as it looked), there were a lot of party boats going out for the sunset. We did not see any buoys but there may be lights for markers on land

Yet another party boat, going out for a sunset cruise!!

. We had no pangas approach us for a mooring however we also weren't over in the marina area to the left. We had researched the internet about anchoring places in Acapulco and found a blog that mentioned this area, as recommended by Henry and Pam on s/v Rapscallion.We are anchored right in front of the Port Captain's building, near all the fishing pangas. (16 51.045N 099 53.933W) We had a smaller tour boat operator warn us from going too far left as there were bocas (rocks!!) so we steered clear!! There is not any clearly marked anchoring areas here. There are rocks scattered around and that makes it more difficult. From what we here most people get a slip at one of the four marinas and mooring balls are offered. Our friends Heinze, Margarit and daughter Dominique on v\v Meridan a 48’ Tayana were put on a mooring ball to wait for a slip at one of the marinas. They dragged the ball! We have not checked out the marinas yet but think they are med-moored to a non-floating pier.