My daughter Kate was born in January, which meant my late husband John and I missed our annual Christmas vacation to a Mexican beach, where for two or three weeks we would laze in the sun and forget about icy New England winters. Undeterred, we took off a few months later to introduce Kate to the warmth and beauty of Zihuatenejo, Mexico, and continued going for several Christmases to follow.
We often stayed at a rambling, spotless alabaster-white hotel in the surrounding hills. Our sun-lit room had a spacious blue-and-white tiled terrace lush with greenery overlooking Playa La Ropa, a gorgeous crescent-shaped beach. Over the hill on the opposite side of the harbor, the deep blue Pacific Ocean stretched out to the horizon. Frangipani, jasmine and bougainvillea scented the soft sea air, and the cries of vendors selling their wares on the beach wafted up to our terrace. When Kate took her afternoon nap in the room, John and I sprawled on comfortable wooden chairs in the shade sipping fresh lemonade, and admiring the boats sailing into the harbor.
We met an expat real estate broker, who regaled us with town gossip, and left brochures of inexpensive houses for sale. I imagined us spending the winter months in our vacation home in Zihuatenejo, gorging on fresh wahoo and luscious ripe mangoes. John, though, kept his eye on the harbor, dreaming of sailing there one day.
To sail to Zihuatenejo, we would have had to traverse the Panama Canal, which would have been thrilling, and scary. We never made it that far, but his sailing dream did take us to the Caribbean coast of Mexico, and as far south as Guatemala.
If you'd like to learn more about our three-year sailing adventure where we left everything behind to follow John's lifelong dream, go here.