SailingKnitter

Ta-da! The "Estonian Garden Wrap" stole for my sister, Dana is officially finished, blocked, photographed, and packed into plastic for it's trip to the USA. It is knit in deliciously soft laceweight baby alpaca from Misti Alpaca.

So, next I started a "Faroese Peaks Shawl" from Knitpicks in a varigated blues wool lacweight yarn. The instructions were both written out line-by-line and charted. Hmmm...the charted instructions omitted the row 25 shoulder increases which is what makes this shawl a Faroe Island style piece. I emailed KnitPicks and they will review the pattern. Seems I liked this yarn & pattern enough to have mistakenly ordered it twice! I discovered this when I packed up the yarns to move onto the boat. Oh well, I'm sure I can find a warm body for the second stole, or maybe the scarf version some day.

Before dawn tomorrow morning, Jonesy and I will be heading out of Manzanillo Bay and sailing south to Zihuatanejo. We've really enjoyed our stay here at the anchorage in front of the Las Hadas Hotel & condos. This is where the movie "10" was filmed. No, I didn't get my hair braided like Bo Derek. But we did lounge by the beautiful swimming pool at the hotel a couple of days.

Our journey which starts tomorrow will be about 185 miles, so we will stop in a some very small coves just for the night a couple of times. Unfortunately, this piece of coastline can be dangerous because of the drug smuggling. For that reason, we will not be going ashore - just sleeping out at anchor and then moving on in the morning. Some folks sail straight through. Even so, we can expect to be contacted and/or boarded by the Mexican Navy again along this route. We've heard that they have really stepped up patrols.

Zee French Baker: Here's a photo of Jonesy buying his last couple of Baguettes from the French Baker in the Barra de Navidad Lagoon. We were at the fuel dock fillin 'er up before heading down here to Manzanillo, when zee french baker spotted our boat. This guy goes around each morning (not too early) to all of the boats in the anchorage delivering fresh breads, croissants, and pastries to all of us hungry yachtistas. And yes, the French Baker is french. Because I can't eat wheat, Jonesy let me sniff his baguettes. Pure heaven.

The Lagoon back behind the sandbar town of Barra de Navidad is where most of us cruising yacht folks anchor (for free of course!). The rich mega-yachts and some cruisers pay for slips in the little marina at the Grand Bay Resort Hotel. We paid for 2 days of wireless internet service here - at $10 per day, so we got to wander around the resort a little and I took this picture. The marina is in the foreground and us cheapo yachties are the little dots way out in the lagoon.

To get into town, we would take our dinghy to the wall at the friendly Sands Hotel. Here's Jonesy tying up our dink (Scooty Puff Jr.). We wandered around the corner and found this cool place for breakfast - $2.50 including coffee and a second story patio with a view of the town and cobblestone streets below. Barra de Navidad has a couple of good little tiendas (stores) for produce and other general groceries. The ocean-facing beach is lined with little hotels and open-air restaurants. Yep, we like it. We'll be stopping by here again on our way back north in a couple of months.


Well, the dinghy is up on the davits, the hammock is stowed, the windscoop is packed away, there's food in the fridge and plenty of beer. We're ready to set sail in a few hours. Adios!