We arrived in Marina Ixtapa about 0700 after a nice, mostly uneventful passage.
We had only two "events" of note.
One was being visited by a pod of dolphins, more than a dozen of which swam and cavorted back and forth across Intermezzo's bows. We called out and waved to them to encourage them and they played with us for about ten minutes and then left. We were pleased when a few of them came back for a second round, including a mother and her baby. They swam only a few feet below the surface, so we could see them clearly through the water and could occasionally make eye contact. Dolphins are graceful, athletic, engaging creatures; I'm always excited when they choose to visit us.
The other event was Renee hooking the biggest fish ever on one of her lines. It certainly pulled hard and put up a fight. Such a good fight, though, that it managed to shake the hook, putting the fish team on the scoreboard for the first time. Current score is Renee 3, Fish 1.
Intermezzo is in a marina so that we can take another land trip, this time to the colonial city of Morelia and, hopefully, to the monarch butterfly sanctuary where millions of butterflies spend the winter as part of their multigenerational migration from Canada to Mexico and back.
Before the road trip, we need to figure out what's going on with Intermezzo's steering. The wheel is making a clicking sound when turned counterclockwise. I examined the entire steering system and didn't see anything of immediate concern. I think it might just be a gear that's out of alignment and causing a link on the steering chain to hang up on a gear tooth. We'll see. I want to get it sorted out before our next long passage; losing steering while underway is undesirable. It will be "fun" working in confined spaces in the bowels of the boat in tropical heat.
