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March 17, 2010, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Mexico
Ok, so we have been very delinquent in posting our activities. We apologize. We have been getting ready to go as well as enjoying the wonderful country of Mexico. Mexico is truly wonderful, and the people here are the best part. A big part of us will stay here with them as we travel the planet. Since we have been here, we have made many friends, and have had our hearts touched by the kindness, generosity and grace of the Mexican people. It really is the people that make the world special, and the world (especially the United States) can learn so much from these folks. We certainly have, and our lives are richer for it. We will remember them always. Alex, Tony, Mario, Rafaela, Rosario, Delia, Luis, Carlos, Benjamin, Jerry, Lalo, Doctor Pimiento, Rafael, and more. Thank you for everything, and we look forward to meeting you again.
Tomorrow, we leave La Cruz. We will then take the boat over to Nuevo Vallarta where we will check out of the country. Then on Saturday, we head out of Banderas Bay for the Marquesas. We are ready. We have bought three huge grocery carts of food, and Elisabeth has done a masterful job of stowing them without the boat looking like a wherehouse. The jacklines (deck safety lines) are rigged. The water maker is un-pickled from its two month storage. The list goes on. It’s time to leave. We are ready. We hope you follow our progress on the Current Position button, and if you send us an email while we are at sea, we can receive it, and we will answer you. I think that we will have the time.
Feb 27 Still in La Cruz, Mexico
We are getting clost to our departure for the marquesas, and have set March 17 (my birthday) as our departure date. We have installed new life lines, and tuned the rig. Elisabeth made a trip to California to retrieve a battery charger (replacement for one that failed) and a sail that we had originally thought we wouldn't need. She is now back, and we are getting the final push ready.
In the mean time there was an earthquake in Chile today, and many were concerned about possible tsunamis. We are fine, and have seen nothing. We are in a bay located on the west coast of Mexico, behind a break water, in a marina. This bay is very well protected from anything rolling in from the south. So, we do not expect any activity here, and of course, as such, we have seen nothing.
Just so you know that we have fun, I need to report that we had a really fun outing today. Along with about ten people from other cruising boats, we took an outdoor adventure excursion from a local group called Vallarta Adventures. These things are typically geared for tourists, and as such, we run from them. But this just looked like too much fun. Outdoor adventures....isn't that what we're involved in?? So, we boarded a fast inflatable boat that took us to a beach near the forest/jungle. From there, we rode a UniMog vehicle up into the steep canyons to a base area. From there we rode mules further up to what is the largest "zip line" complex in the world. This is where one dons a harness, clips to a line suspecded over a canyon, and jump/ride to the next landing. After many zips, we rappelled down to a different level, and then more zips followed by more rappelling finishing the day by a zip down into a pool of cool water. The forest and canyons were spectacularly beautiful, with iguanas in the trees (not pets or plants - they just live there). Our guides were just super. They were alot of fun, were very professional, and saved all of our lives, time after time , all day long. If you come to PV, give them a call. It really was a high point to play in the canyons with these guys. Then, this fun was followed by a stop at the boutique tequila distillery for tasting. How's that? A good day, yes? Elisabeth is asleep now, and I go follow, heh, heh. It's not late. We're just....relaxed!
Feb 21. N20 44.9, W105 22.7, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Marina Riviera Nayarit, Mexico
First of all, sorry for not being more communicative for the past month. We were a bit tired and in need of a little rest.
Things were nice at Punta Mita for a while, but then things got wierd the last night we were there, just off the beach from our condo. The tides and surf had been really high the past week, and we had been only able to get ashore a couple of times. The rest, the surf had simply been too high. We tried taking the kayaks in, but we both crash landed, and Elisabeth got a little scrape. So, we had been thinking of checking in to the marina at La Cruz a little early.
So, here we are on Thursday evening when the wind clocked around to the south. Now the guide book says that in a south wind Punta Mita ceases to be an anchorage. We took the precautions and deflated the kayaks and put them below. We moved the dinghy to trailing in the water off the stern of the boat. We got everything ready to move if need be. We had a safe heading out to clear deep water, radar on to watch the distance to the beach (1/4 mile) - not very far if the anchor did not hold. Engine ready, etc.
Well, the wind was light, in the low teens. This made things uncomfortable because with the open water clear to doomsday (open to the south), the waves have total freedom to grow and become choppy. About midnight, the wind dropped to still - for a bout a half hour, then it picked up to the low to mid twenties and stayed there until well past dawn. It doesn’t sound so bad, but be ashured that my night was spent sitting in front of the radar screen watching, being ready to jump if we moved at all. The boat was jumping and hobby-horsing quite briskly all night long, but we had put out a little extra anchor chain, and we held. (we love our anchor).
We decided that if the conditions persisted until morning, we would then just head over to La Cruz and check in to the marina - enough is enough. So, in the morning, we are trying to find information on this weather. It was not in any forecast. But it was here. We did hear some radio chatter about a waterspout being spotted near la Cruz. (You all know that a water spout is a tornado on the water). Oh great, we thought, out of the frying pan and into the fire. We did end up seeing it. I think we saw the end of it because even though it was a funnel cloud we saw, it did not go completely to the water surface as depicted in the photo.
We arrived at La Cruz, and it turned out that nearly all of the boats in that anchorage had also experienced a similar night as ours and were also checking in to the marina. There was room enough for everyone, thankfully.
Just to keep our little adventure interesting, on the sail over to la Cruz, the weather and cloud cover was making the water surface nearly black. This makes it very difficult to spot whales, and of course, I heard a loud and close "exhale". Looked over, and sure enough, there is a big humpback close enough for me to see all of the warts and scars on its back. It was very beautiful, but we had had enough excitement, so we wished her a nice day, and turned immediately away.
La Cruz
What a wonderful little town. It is a beautiful little traditional Mexican town with brightly colored houses and building , cobblestone streets, and most of all, some of the nicest people we have ever met. Elisabeth has been attending Spanish classes, and is getting really good. (I have started refreshing my French in prep for French Ploynesia). Our friends from Fly Aweigh are here, and they have decided to “buddy boat” with us to FP. What this means is that we will maintain a radio contact with each other. We expect Fly Aweigh to be the faster boat, so we will leave first. Then they will play catch up and pass, all the while we will be in somewhat close radius.
La Cruz has provided some excitement too. One night, after watching a movie with Fly Aweigh, while saying good night and climbing back on our boat, the wind came up. The weather experts are calling it a "weather bomb". But it felt like a tornado. Basically, it was a circular storm, and from out of no where, the wind went from calm to about 100 knots in the space of about 10 minutes. We saw 72 knots on our protected meter here in the marina. We are fine with no damage. Others were not so fortunate. Torn canvas work, lost dinghys, surf boards, broken windows, sails, etc. One woman was hit by a big fence being blown down. She is expected to recover, but for the time being, she is having to use a walker to move. Out in the anchorage, one boat (a family we know) dragged anchor and ended up aground. The wind was carrying toward the rocks. I heard their call for help, but we were powerless. By some miracle, the wind then blew them back into deeper water, and they were saved. I called them on the radio and talked them into coming into the marina. The anchorage was just too dangerous. Almost all of the boats dragged, and there were many collisions. They just couldn't see. It was night, and the rain was blinding. One boat planning to make the Pacific crossing hit by another, and was damaged to the point that they cannot go. Instead, they have to return to the states for repairs. It was pretty hairy, but as I said,we are fine. No damage at all. Our dock lines are big heavy things and held. Our dinghy was in the water, but was protected in between us and another boat.
The weather is just a bit crazy this year. This sort of thing has never happened here before. The locals are all perplexed.
Now we are less than a month from departure. We are ready. We have the “list” but the “list” is never completed – only made smaller. We love it here, and we will miss it when we leave. It really is a wonderful little town. Photos to come.
Passage to Banderas Bay, 6-7 January 2010
We had come to like Mazatlan a lot, but we decided it was time to move on before our boat needed another bottom cleaning (We had that done in the first week of our stay in Marina EL Cid). Having Allan and Allison (from Fly Aweigh) as neighbors in the Marina was great. We much enjoyed spending time with them. When it was time to cast off, we had a whole crew line handling and waving us off. Hopefully we will see them all again pretty soon.
But now to the passage. The weather forecast was very benign for the next week or so, actually too benign for a nice sail. But we needed to make water anyway. After all, it felt good to be on the move again and we quickly settled into "life on passage".
After we left Mazatlan, we traveled south with the intention of seeing the Island, Isla Isabella. This is reported to be a very beautiful island which inspired Jaques Cousteau to go there and film. It is a national park and only the wild animals live there. It is also notorious for being difficult. The south anchorage is well known for “eating anchors” and the east anchorage is known to be marginal in any kind of weather. Neither is hospitable to more than just a few boats at a time. Hmmmm…sounds great, eh?
As it turned we were making better time than we planned and were set to arrive a few hours before daylight rather than at daylight. We discussed that we would watch for the light, and once we saw it, we would maintain a safe distance away until daybreak. But there was fog. We got as close as we dared, and remember that the charts here in Mexico are very inaccurate, with a mile and one half error quite often. So then, with the fog, seeing no light, and with the making good time felt good, we chose to keep on going straight through to Punta Mita. We will find Isla Isabella another day.
The next day finally broke and in the distance behind us we saw….yes, that was Isla Isabella! We just waved and looked ahead to our next destination. The day was pretty, and even though we were out of sight of land, we saw many fishing pangas laying out their lines – the dreaded lines that so many boats seem to get tangled up in. So we were watching intently.
These days on passage pass unbelievably fast, and being coastal we were watching like hawks for fish lines just waiting to trip us up. The Pangaros lay them out and mark them more or less obviously, we know of much too many boats which got tangled up in long lines. However, you can watch all you want, in the end it all comes down to being lucky. The same is true for the whales. We saw a lot of them during day time, so at night, you only can hope that they will get out your way. During our second day out, we did run over a fish line. We had just finished adjusting the sails, when I (Elisabeth) suddenly saw an orange painted soda bottle, used as floater. It was complete with a yellow line leading away to both sides of the bottle, right next to our boat. Too late to turn, so all we could do was to take the engine out off gear, and we were going over. That is exactly what happened, we passed over the line, but it went under and did not get caught on the boat. How lucky! Writing this down, it doesn’t sound like much, but I (Elisabeth) was rather shaken.
During our second night out we would be getting close to Banderas Bay, and since there are rocks and islands to consider upon approach, we decided to be safe and make a large circle around these obstacles. We did not want to arrive in the dark anyway, especially since this was one of those completely dark nights, no stars, no moon, lots of clouds. One of the rocks we needed to get around was supposed to have a light, we spend hours staring into the pitch black trying to detect it, but never found it. This lead to both of us staying in the cockpit all night, just taking turns with naps every now and then.
The water was totally glassy, not a breath of wind. Suddenly it started to pick up, the wind got up to 20 knots in no time. There was no room for changing course, since we could not be sure where the little island really was located. Then, just outside of Bandaras Bay, about 2:00 in the morning, we saw on the radar a HUGE ship coming straight for us. Well it wasn't a ship. It was a squall and rain cloud, so for the next three hours we were treated to a totally dark, can't see a thing, rain and lightning event with high winds and big choppy seas. Mr. Toad's wild ride.
Then once it got light on the way into Bandaras, we saw whales. Lots of 'em. Finally we got to Punta Mita, dropped the anchor and got some sleep. We earned it!
When we awoke, we discovered that were anchored next to a mega-yacht complete with helicopter on deck and celebs on board, or so we were told by our neighbors on our condo. Not being celeb watchers, we weren’t interested in going over and see who might be there. But we were very happy to be there and planned on staying on the boat, rather than the condo, to stay about a week before we moved on to La Cruz. One Sunday, we made a dinghy landing on the beach. Sunday is the day when the locals don’t work and many head out to the beach to play with their families. Where we usually landed our dinghy, this day there was a nice old guy setting up a stand to sell fruit. He offered to watch our dinghy, so we in turn bought some pineapple from him. We were not prepared for what he did to it. He made us a plate of fresh cut pineapple sprinkeld with salt, lime juice, and cayenne pepper. Mexican style. It was absolutely delicious. Now, this how we make pineapple ourselves.
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Making Friends in Mazatlan, January 2-3, 2010
The day after New Year was the day we took a bus across town to walk up to the light house. We found out that we needed to stay on the bus all the way to its last stop, all along the Malecon and across town to end up near the Ferry Terminal and the Anchorage. Since we had friends anchoring there, we wanted to check it out, albeit only from shore. So we enjoyed the bus ride, and eventually there was only one woman left on the bus besides us. When she gathered her shopping bags and got off, we decided to get off as well, since we figured we were pretty close to were we intended to go. So we stood on the sidewalk trying to decide which direction to explore first. The lady with the shopping bags had started to cross the street. Half way across she turned around and came back to us saying “I speak little English, you look lost, may be I can help?” This friendly approach was the beginning of a wonderful day with Delia and her family. It turned out that she lives on Stone Island, she described how to find her house and invited us to visit should we ever come back to Mazatlan. Instead we offered to help her carry her bags, she must have had about a dozen, and we all took off to catch a Panga to get us to Stone Island. Once arrived, we walked up a steep trail to her house, where we met Rosario, her husband, and their three children, Oliver, Clarissa, and Jocelyn. They all live in small wooden cabin right now, while building a new house overlooking the entrance of the port of Mazatlan. Rod and I were about to continue on, when Delia offered to show us around. Since Rosario promised to take care of lunch for the family, Delia, Rod and I left to walk to the beach, where her aunt and uncle have a restaurant. All along we were chatting happily with Delia’s English being rather good, but when she got stuck and didn’t know how to say something, we would try in Spanish and somehow always managed to understand each other. She introduced us to her aunt and uncle and we had lunch in their restaurant, where Rod and I drank coconut juice fresh from a coconut for the first time, and after the juice was finished, the flesh was turned into delicious deserts. Delia took us through the town on Stone Island, introducing us to friends and more family as we walked along. Eventually we ended up at her house again, and we took a couple of pictures of the family and exchanged email addresses. We returned to our boat feeling very fortunate having met such wonderful people and I certainly felt that I know have an amiga in Mazatlan.
The next morning we decided to print the pictures and hand deliver them. We called Rosario and let him know of our plan. So we set out on our way to Stone Island, feeling like quite the ‘locals’ with getting on the Panga and knowing our way around. Since this was a Sunday, the entire family was at home, with Rosario working on construction of the new house, and Delia preparing Tamales, for only the second time in her life, as she told me. The children have a lot of books to study English, and as Delia was working on the lunch, we looked up names of vegetables and other words in the books, so I actually learned some new Spanish words beyond ‘El torro esta corriendo’, a sentence from my Rosetta Stone Spanish CDs. This sentence had become somewhat of a joke between Delia and me, because I say it when I get lost with trying to speak Spanish. Needless to say we stayed for lunch, and we all had a great time talking and coming to know each other. The ceviche and tamales were absolutely delicioso! When it was finally time to leave, the whole family stood in front of the house and waved us good by until we could not see each other any more. We feel really fortunate to have met such wonderful people whom we can now call our amigos.
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