To Manzanillo for Supplies

It’s now three days into March and I have noticed a big change.  The talk amongst the folks down here has changed from “How long you staying?” to “When are you leaving?”  As it turns out the consensus is that we will be one of the few hold outs and most in our friend group will have hit the road a least a week before we continue our journey back.

Talk around the pool touched on some of the changes that everyone noticed last night.  Late in the middle of the night the ocean break grew and the waves crashing on the beach got very loud.  Morning brought currents of colder water on to the shoreline and I am interested to see if all the birds move to different waters.  We have had huge flocks of Pelicans and Frigates attacking the waters for the past few weeks, but with the cooler water this might change.

As it stands now we will probably leave around the 25^th and make our way up north via highway 200 through Puerto Vallarta.  Once we hit PV then we will continue through to at least Tepic.  From there we will probably follow the same route we took on the way down.

It seems like all this is a long way off, but when you think about it time will fly by.  It feels like we just moved over to the laguna lot, and every day Linda and I talk about how lucky we are to be able to be involved in this adventure.  It still has a surreal feel to it. Every day we sit by the ocean and watch the sun set.  The nights are pleasantly cool and the days are hot, but not too hot.  We know we are very lucky people!

The port of Manzanillo.

Today we drove into Manzanillo and did some shopping and sightseeing.  Barry and Leigh were the leaders and we tagged along for the ride.

USS Coronado visiting the area.

Our first stop put us in the heart of old town Manzanillo, right in the area where the big ships come to unload.  We parked the car and Barry and I were immediately drawn to a huge ship flying the US flag.  We walked to the gate and Barry summoned one of the guards to come over and we had a nice chat about the ship, how long they were in port for and when they were heading home.  The young sailor was very polite and gave us very little information.

We did find out that the ship was very new and that there were only two of this type built and on the seas.  I ask him how fast the ship ran and he smiled and said very fast.  They were scheduled to leave port in two days and return to San Diego with in the week.  Putting the distance they needed to travel to get home into that schedule and you could see the ship was fast.  When we returned home I looked the ship up on the web and this is what I found.

No I didn't take this photo.

USS Coronado (LCS-4), a 418-foot warship built in Alabama, boasts a top speed in excess of 45 knots, or about 52 mph, and sustained 44 knots for four hours during builder trials. The high-speed trimaran hull and will be designed to defeat littoral threats and provide access in coastal waters for missions such as mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare. There are two different LCS hull forms – the Independence-class aluminum trimaran, and the Freedom-class semiplaning monohull designed and built by Lockheed Martin. These seaframes will be outfitted with reconfigurable payloads, called mission packages, which can be changed out quickly. Mission packages are supported by special detachments that will deploy manned and unmanned vehicles and sensors.^[1][2] Coronado is being built by Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama. Total cost, 430 million.

Statues on the bay walk.

Fabric store, again.

While we were in the store this crash happened.

The classic Manzanillo Marlin photo.