Bar crawl

red truck ride



So occasionally you just have to cut loose and have that happy childhood.  Such was the case this past Wednesday night.  We joined Doug and Carla from Moondance, Dot and Brian from Rainshadow, and the folks from Enchantress for a night in the historic section of Mazatlan.  Doug and Carla are excellent guides, and Carla manages to have her camera fully charged at all times unlike me on this particular night. (All photos are courtesy of Carla's camera)  We started off in one of the Mazatlan's "Red Trucks".  Brings back memories of when riding in the back of a pickup was a perfectly acceptable way to travel. 



sunset from Puerto Viejo



Our driver transported us to Puerto Viejo, a bar across from the beach - with the obligatory stunning sunset. 



Puerto Viejo

From there we wandered into the square with the full moon rising over the trees.  Dinner was at a place called El Tunnel across from the Peralta theatre.  After stuffing ourselves with guacamole, tortilla soup, enchiladas, pollo asado and bring your own beers we went to the "bull bar".  It is definitely a must see.  Next time I am taking a picture of the banos - Not something you will ever see in the US.  Our next stop was Topolos, definitely a leap up.  I had a spanish coffee that was a work of art in the making.....Fire and carmelized sugar, cinnamon, flaming brandy and kahlua....very cool, and very yummy and the setting  - WOW!  I would love a courtyard like that! 

Carol And Dot rest before 8peso beers

From there we took a sharp turn downhill into the 8peso beer bar. HHHMMM - I was wishing for the "bull bar" bathrooms.  About 11pm we decided to call it a night and this group of happy children dispersed into the fog......

January 21 2011

Still in Mazatlan waiting for the part from the states - went on the plane today - may be available to be picked up Saturday, but probably not until Monday. It continues to be chilly (48 at night, upper70s during the day), humid and foggy. Kind of weird weather, but I suppose we will be grateful for the extra cool time come July when it is really hot. Many people have asked what our daily lives are like so I thought I would tell you about today, which was pretty typical of days at the dock.

Dennis was up by 0700, I was up by 0730. I went with Carla (s/v Moondance) to the veggie truck. He comes Mon, Wed and Fri from 0600-0900 to Marina Mazatlan. I picked up some grapes, potatoes, bread (fresh), onion, mango and tamales. It is a little bit of a walk, but not bad - just enough to get the blood pumping.  Got back to the boat by 0845. At 0900 I woke up Josh and started breakfast (french toast and bacon). We ate, I did dishes and Josh did some homework. He usually does 2-3 hours of work every day. Today he got off early because Dennis needed help with some projects. There are always projects to be done on the boat - saltwater and constant motion have a way of making things just sort of break or wear out spontaneously. Today Josh went up the mast to reattach the running backstays, move the spinnaker halyard to the port side of the mast and work on the flag halyard. While they were doing that, I did a little work on the computer then went out to work on the sea kayak that we bought from s/v Just a minute. The sun does a number on everything and in the case of the kayak, a lot of the webbing needs to be replaced. We had lots of of people coming and going commenting on what we were doing - especially with Josh up the mast. After the mast work was completed, Josh took the dinghy over to El Cid to see his friends. About 1300 the guy (Ezequiel) who does sewing came by. He needed to see our dinghy in order to give us a quote for the dinghy chaps. So I had to track down Josh at El Cid. He brought the dinghy back and went back to El Cid. We discussed the dinghy chaps we are ordering from Eziquiel and he decided he needed to take the dinghy today. That involved removing the motor from the dinghy, taking it out of the water, putting it back in on the other side of the dock moving the dinghy to the boat ramp and loading it onto Eziquiel's truck. That finished we went back to work on the boat. Dennis fixed some sharp areas on the mast and installed the final mast steps. At 1530, we showered then met friends at 1600 and went for drinks at a bar on the beach. The sunset was beautiful. After the sun went down we went to a little place called George's a short walk away. We had a very nice dinner and were back at the boat by 2030.

Nights on the boat after dinner usually involve a movie/tv shows. Tonight Josh is holed up in his boy cave, I am working on the blog and facebook and Dennis is watching a movie. We have pretty good internet here, but uploading pictures is always iffy. Not so good tonight, so always check back for pictures. I am usually in bed by 2200, Dennis and Josh by 2300. So, there you have it. The chores vary and it isn't every night that we go out, but it is pretty typical.

Since we are at the dock, we are trying to get through our list of things we want to complete before we leave on the passage to the South Pacific. The more we get done now, the less we will have to do when we get to La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta). We hope to leave for Hiva Oa in the Marquessa's between March 15 and April 1.

Wednesday January 19, 2011 Mazatlan

A wise woman told me to forget the last 9 months and just post, so that is what I am going to do.  Play catch up as I go.  So, Evergreen and crew are in Mazatlan.  We spent the first week at Marina
Mazatlan and are now at the dock at the Singlar Marina undergoing repairs to our engine.  We have had a chronic overheating problem which we decided to have checked out prior to leaving for the South Pacific.  Total Yacht Works came highly recommended, so here we are.  Turns out that we have a leaky head gasket.  Took about a week to confirm the diagnosis after testing the exhaust manifold, pulling the head and sending it to the machine shop.... So, then it was going to take 10 days to get the part.  Well, Dennis decided that was not acceptable and ordered the parts himself.  They are currently in San Diego, where they will transported across the border and put on a plane to Mazatlan.  The parts are in a race with our French Polynesia Visas coming via DHL.  Their ETA is Thursday.  So we will see what gets here first. In the meantime there are always projects to do on the boat. We were without our engine when we moved from Marina Mazatlan to Singlar, so used our dinghy to move us to the new slip.  We had help from Patrick and Jack from "Just a Minute", Doug and Carla from "Moondance" (who have first hand experience with this procedure) and Robert from the boat next to us.  It was an uneventful move.

Josh is enjoying Mazatlan, getting lots of kid time in.  He has two friends at El Cid, so we rarely see him after school work is done.  He will be sorry to leave here.  School is going pretty well.  I found him a book on WWII which he really enjoys reading.  Math continues to be the most challenging subject, he does well with it, just doesn't like it.

As usual with cruising, there is lots of opportunity for socializing.  Could easily get in the way of boat projects if Dennis would let it :) !   We have been following football - unusual for us, except that the Packers are doing well.  There is a sports bar in town called Yoopers that broadcasts in English and has a good happy hour....We also enjoyed going to the old section of town with Doug and Carla from s/v Moondance.  It is very pretty.

It has been pretty cool temperature wise - lows in the 40s and highs only in the 70s.  Very different from our experience last winter.  Is good for doing projects and sleeping.  I have no real desire to get wet though.
The following are some essays Josh wrote about some of his experiences.


Spearfishing


by Joshua Morrison 1/2011

One day while my dad and I were at the anchorage of Agua Verde we decided to go spearfishing. I had just gotten a new speargun and was anxious to try it out. There was a large pinnacle rocck out in the middle of the bay that looked promising. When we got to the rock it was kind of murky but it was not bad. We circumnavigated the rock and saw some nice parrotfish but they were too deep and swam away. After awiele we decded to move to a rocky area on shore. Once we got in the water my dad caught a parrotfish about half an hour in. The thought of my dad having a better fish than me triggered my competitive nature. With my competitive side going I caught a bigger parrotfish less than 5 minutes afterwards. We were done after that and went back to the boat, cleaned off and cleaned the fish. My dad cooked the fish and it turned out very good. That was a good beginning to spearfishing in Mexico.

The Crossing from Muetos to Mazatlan

by Josh Morrison 1/11/11

My mom, my dad and I left La Paz for Muertos which is 58 miles, so a long day for us on our boat. We got into Muertos late at night, ate dinner and went to bed. We left early in the morning to go to Mazatlan, what a short night! Mazatlan is 190 miles from Muertos so we did an overnighter. An overnighter is when we go all night; we take shifts so one person is watching the boat and two sleep. The weather was uncomfortable but there was lots of weine, so we went fast. It was our first overnighter since we got back to the boat from our summer break in the states. The entrance to the marina at Mazatlan was kind of difficult because there were breaking waves it it. My Dad had to time whent we went in. Once we were in the slip and setled I went boogie boarding with my friend Jack. After boogine boarding we went to the hot tub at the marina and hung out. What a good end to a hard couple of days.