January 21, 2023

We had a nice dinner in Toscana and met two new couples who are on the world cruise.  One of the men had lots of interesting stories – he is an engineer and has worked on geothermal energy projects all around the world, primarily government sponsored projects.

Today, we went on a sail and snorkeling tour on a 75 foot catamaran called the Picante.  This is a tender port (no dock for large ships) so they use the lifeboats to transport us to shore.  Once there, we boarded small boats to take us out to where the Picante was anchored.  Here are some pictures of the port area. We were greeted by music and local dancers and everyone there cheered as we came off the tender! Happy to see us, I guess.

Weather wise, it was a perfect day.  Not too hot and nice breezes everywhere.  Carlos, one of the crew, told us lots of Mexico stories. 

This city is located in a protected bay and very popular with boat owners in the winter season.  There are a lot of American ex-pats living here. Carlos told us the name of the city means “Place of Women”.

There is a replica of the Parthenon here – it was build by a drug lord and then abandoned – the government took it over and plans to make it into a museum.

We motored out to the snorkeling spot and spent 45 minutes in the water.  The coral was not colorful (but it was big) but the fish were very pretty.  Unfortunately for some reason our underwater camera didn’t work.  The fish move pretty fast anyway.

On the way back to the town, the crew put the sail and spinnaker up and we sailed around the area and back to the harbor. Lots of interesting houses on the cliffs.

They had a lot of drinks, fresh fruit, croissants, etc – for us to snack on and they played fun music.  It was a really fun day.

I loved watching the many pelicans dive near the shore.  There was a boat with many of them on the top, just hanging out.

I spent a little time walking around the town and Norm went back to the ship to rest his foot (for those who don’t know, he has a torn tibia in his right foot and wore a CAM boot for 3 months before coming on the trip.) The pain is much lessened but it flares up if he walks too much.

I wanted to have lunch at a restaurant that the crew on the Picante recommended – fish or shrimp tacos and guacamole, but unfortunately it was closed.  It was probably siesta time – we got back around 2 PM.  So I had a quick salad on the ship. I wasn’t sure of the food safety of an unrecommended restaurant.

Tonight we are having dinner with the around the world host and hostess, Paul and Carolyn and another couple we met on board and liked a lot, Bruce and Karen.

Tomorrow we are in Acapulco which I could really skip – we have seen and done all we would want to in the past and it can be kind of sketchy.  One of our lecturers recommended walking to the fort which is in a safe area so we may do that with George and Eva.

Here is the picture Eva took of the group of us before the  Ensenada boat trip for (haha) whale watching.