We were mistaken about the time zone here and had to make one more change to U.S. Central Standard Time to catch up. We hustled over to the actual Port of Manzanillo eight miles away so that John could spend the day waiting in offices for officials to figure out how to process us in to the country. Not too many sailboats clear in here and there were special manuals to be searched for to find the special code for "sailboat" to be entered into the computer. This was after being redirected to about three different offices in search of the right place to begin. But we probably saved a couple of hundred dollars by not using an agent, and John got to spend the day hanging out with Stan while they waited together.
Formalities were finally completed by late afternoon and we motored the short distance back to the other side of the bay to anchor at La Boquita in Santiago Bay. This is a beach where the roads ends at the mouth of a small river. There are lots of beachside palapa restaurants offering all manner of fish lunches with vendors strolling by exhorting you to buy jewelry, woven masks and baskets, brightly painted pottery, wood carvings, beach cover ups and dresses, and assorted gew-gaws. John bought a woven finger pull toy without even blinking at the requested price, and Ziggy now has a new toy. We shared a table with Casey of V'ger and Stan, both of whom made sure John got his fill of Pacifico!
Before going to shore for lunch we spent yesterday setting the boat to rights by undoing all the things we did in preparation for passage making. Our projects were pleasantly interrupted by the appearance of old friends and acquaintances visiting by dinghy to say hello and catch up on news of each other. This is one of the main reasons we're back in Mexico, and it's already fabulous!
Linda
{GMST}19|06.338|N|104|23.722|W|La Boquita|Santiago Bay{GEND}