Today we took a tender off the ship into a much more relaxed port, Zihuatanejo. We took a water-taxi to a beach on the other side of the bay where we spent the entire day in the sun drinking “the world’s best” piña colatas and eating mouth-watering shrimp tacos.

What I learned: Don’t follow the crowds like lemmings. And, when you say, “there’s a sucker born every minute,” sometimes you’re that sucker.

As we got off the ship, the “lemmings” were boarding water-taxis headed off to this beach or that. We took our chances on the private deal with no line that took us all across the bay for 3 bucks a head round-trip, payable after the first half of the trip. Mike commented, “I usually only pay for services rendered.” Would they be there at 4:00 to pick us up? Would they drive us to a deserted island, steal all of our money and hack us up with machetes?

Something about the sun-scorched Mexican told me he had been around a while and he wasn’t going anywhere soon.

They ferried us to a gorgeous coral-riddled beach and directed us to Franco’s restaurant where we feasted like kings while the kids played in the sand and surf. I balked at the “world’s best” pina colada, but in the end I conceded it certainly was. Served in a hallowed-out pineapple, it was adorned with various carved fruit, cherries and flowers in the shape of a human face about a foot and a half tall!

As for the sucker that was born on this day, it was me in a way. Our private water-taxi pilot, Victor insured me that we were on our way to paradise. This was the best beach in the bay. The restaurant was top-notch. Everything would be taken care of. As it turns out, I’m sure that Victor gets kick-backs from his buddy Franko at Restaurant Ortilla.

The so-called restaurant was nothing more than a bunch of beach umbrellas and some guy cooking tacos and such in the shanty in the trees. The beach was completely covered with coral and swimming was perilous at best, body surfing deadly. They insured us the water was purified, “better than the ship.” Mike and I mused about their purifying equipment: a guy out back using his fishing net to scoop leaves out of the rain water that had collected in the buckets.

There may be better beaches at Zihuatanejo–I certainly read about them–and we may never know, but we’ll sit back satisfied with a pleasant day in the sun, eating and drinking for less than $15 per person.

Only 5 minutes late, Victor picked us up and came through on his part of the bargain, no machetes involved. He never even complained about the inch-long gash he just got in his right foot. Yeah, he’ll be around for a while.

Click the photo(s) here to see a larger version. And check out the photo album from the trip too.