January 17, 2010 Tenacatita

Well, we are now in Tenacatita about 120 miles south of Banderas Bay. We left La Cruz on the 5th and headed up to some Islands at the west end of the bay for some snorkeling.  Spent one night there, then back to Punta de Mita (north western most anchorage in the bay).  We were hoping to get some surfing in, but no such luck, so flat we had no trouble landing our dinghy on the beach.  We spent two nights there, then moved to Marina Vallarta in Puerto Vallarta proper.  We had a slip right next to another Liberty 458, and there is another one that berths there as well, but they were out.  Then, as if that isn't "small world enough", a couple walked up and said they used to own a Liberty too.  Theirs sank on an uncharted reef in the south pacific.  Talk about old home week.  We spent two nights there, did some provisioning, bought the telcel card for internet, got laundry done (expensive) and filled up water.  From there we headed Yelapa. 

Yelapa is on the southern end of the bay.  Very picturesque.  No cars, streets are really glorified sidewalks, mostly cobblestoned.   Primary form of transportation is mules, followed by wheelbarrows for hauling things with one or two 4 wheelers thrown in to keep it interesting. People were friendly, lots of permanent gringos.  We had some adventures in dinghy landing on the beach.  It is a very deep bay, our mooring was in 170 feet.  I guess sometime in the not so distant past the beach used to go out about 400 yards, but an earthquake did away with that.  Now, it is deep right up to the beach.  So, on our first landing attempt, Miss Grace and Coordination basically fell down as I got out of the dingy (right after a shower I might add).  We went back to the boat, I changed and we tried again, new strategy, Dennis and I will get out at the front of the dinghy....... Well, a wave hit my side, and in I went (did I mention we had just done laundry??). I guess it just proves that I am more than a little nuts, cuz all I could do was laugh.....We ended up walking around wet, got some good intel on where to eat in town (where they actually have a dock), went back to the boat, changed again, and went into town for dinner.

The next day we went into town again and did a short hike to a waterfall.  We met some nice folks from Iowa who were there for a wedding.  After lunch, we attempted dinghy landing number 3.  Bathing suits on, dry bag packed - dry like a bone.....  Josh and I had our pictures taken with a huge iguana on the beach. It was pretty cool holding them.  We had heard that there was another longer hike to a waterfall, so off we went.  It was sort of surreal, we waded thru the river to get to the path/sidewalk/trail.  Then proceeded to basically walk thru everyone's back yard.  So we're walking along, and it is very primitive feeling and yet kids go by on bikes, and the occasional 4 wheeler passes you.  Most homes had at least one mule and chickens, a couple places had cows and we saw one pig.  The path was becoming more trail like, and what do you see, but a street light!!! There were street lights all the way to the first river crossing.  The foliage was green and felt like the jungle. (probably cuz it is).  After the first river crossing the path became a trail, fortunately the nice couple from Iowa had mentioned that the turnoff to the waterfall was under a fence marked "to the waterfall". Felt kind of weird going under a fence, but sure enough we ended up at the bottom of the waterfall.  Very pretty.  On the way back, I am sure I saw Macaws.  Made it back to the beach before all the palapas closed, had a couple of margaritas, went back to the dinghy only to find that my backpack had been gone through and the only thing missing was my camera.   I know it is my own fault, I shouldn't have left my camera there even though the dinghy was in our sight....So, that is why there are no pictures of the iguanas, the mules, the waterfall,s the beautiful rooster, the poinsetias growing in the garden or anything else since I last  downloaded pictures. We left Yelapa the next day.  I am trying not to let the camera thing ruin my experience there, cuz it really is a neat place.

Our next stop was Ipala for one night.  The guys caught a bonita that day.  The next day on the way to Chamela they pulled in a 45 inch dorado. In Chamela  we caught up to s/v Totem and s/v Capaz.  Josh was  overjoyed to have friends to hang with again.  We had a great afternoon on the beach, then a day snorkeling, the next day we thought we might move to a different anchorage, but Totem scouted it and called to say it was not so good.  They came back and hosted a yummy dinner on their boat. That brings us to today and Tenacatita.  We stopped at the not so good anchorage to go snorkeling at a  place called the aquarium.  It was good snorkeling, some of the best so far.  Now we are anchored in the good anchorage and will be here for a few days........

more later

January 2, updated January 17

On Internet access


Okay, how hard can it be to maintain wifi in the marina?? So sure, I know nothing about how it works. It is basically magic in my book, but really when it is not working, it makes me want to chew nails. Part of why we are willing to pay to stay in a marina is to have at will internet access. I don’t suppose we’ll get a discount either. Oh well, I shouldn’t be such a gringo about it. It could be worse; I could be sitting at my desk in Tracy with internet at the speed of light. I suppose it’s a small price to pay.
Well, we succumbed to my frustrations and bought a mexican internet usb card.  Whew!!! I now get internet in places that I don't  get  cell service - crazy!!  Is nice to have reliabe access though.

January 2, 2010

Happy New Year!!! It is hard to believe it is 2010, we are in Mexico, it is raining, and I am in shorts and a tank top. Gotta love it!!!! We spent the first day of the New Year zip lining through the jungle. What a blast!! It ended too soon, and then the scary part - riding mules back up the mountain to our starting point! Whew!! The whole day was an adventure including the bus rides there and back. We were all tired, but quite pleased with our Christmas present. 

Josh asked his friend Jamie to come along too. She and her family from s/v Don Quixote are moving to New Zealand for a year in February. This was Josh's first permanent goodbye to a new friend.

New Year’s Eve 2009

Sadly I have no picture of this, but we decided to pay to have a couple more coats of varnish put on the teak. It was a hard decision for Dennis, but the price was reasonable so went ahead. Well, do you know that it never rains here in December? Except when the Morrison’s are doing their varnish. The night before the work was to start it must have rained at least 2 inches. The taping and sanding started though, but it turned out that we had some water invasion on the starboard side which slowed things down (other things did as well, but that is another drama and part and parcel of having work done in Mexico). Back to New Year’s Eve. Should have been done, but weren’t, so decided to skip New Year’s Day and finish today. Guess what? It is raining. Very frustrating to say the least. Hopefully tomorrow….. On a lighter note, we were able to see fireworks in panorama and in two time zones. The finale done here in La Cruz (earlier time zone) was right over our heads – very cool! Josh spent the night on Don Quixote who graciously hosted a kid’s New Year’s Eve

December 29th - Behan's Birthday

On turning 40                           

As you all know, Dennis and I have left the 40 milestone in the dust, but we have been fortunate enough to help initiate a couple of new members to the over 40 club in the last couple of months. PJ from Capaz turned forty in November (while we were in La Paz). Her husband and family threw her a party on the beach, complete with a birthday card in the sand, margaritas, cake and a bonfire. Note the tiara in the picture. Next up was Behan from Totem. Behan turned 40  in La Cruz. We had a party on the dock, I made enchiladas, and there were 2 kinds of chocolate cake and poetry. I was a little behind the eight ball with my contribution to bad poetry, but managed to come up with the following:

Ode to 40

Welcome to 40, our club you’re now in
Anytime now the shooting pains will begin.

Your eyes are still bright, but soon you will wonder
Why your arms they’re just not longer.

The print on the page your read, remember when?
If you could only find your glasses you could do it again.

Your kids, genius teens soon will become,
They’ll wonder how you survive being so dumb.

Menopause it is coming, for Seattle you’ll be yearning,
When in the tropics your insides are burning.

(Menopause it is coming for cool climes you’ll be yearning,
When all night long your insides are burning.) for the non cruiser

The slide down the hill this is just the start,

Old age really ain’t for the faint of heart.

Don’t give up hope for although there’s no cure

A few things to have will comfort for sure.

To help ease the pain have available at will,

Chocolate, tequila and lots of advil.

Certainly won’t win any literary awards, but hopefully brought a smile to your face. Note in the picture that the tiara made another appearance. Behan kept it in place the whole day.

Christmas in La Cruz

Merry Christmas 2009


This was a first for Josh is many ways. It was his first one on the boat and in a different country. It was also his first away from all the hype and commercialism. It is just not that big of a deal here, or maybe it is because we don’t understand the language, listen to local radio or watch TV. Josh did comment that it was the fastest Christmas morning ever. We came in to the Marina on Christmas Eve, and I made cookies and posole. It is nice to be at the dock in some ways. Access power being the primary one. Our big gift was a trip on New Year’s day to go zip lining. More on that later. So Christmas day was pretty quiet - lots of kids around so that was nice. In the afternoon Josh and Dennis took the dinghy out for some fun in the anchorage. Dennis pulled some kids behind the dinghy on our water toy, while Josh, his friends Nikita and Jamie went scurfing. Scurfing is when you get pulled behind the dinghy on a surf board. According to Josh this is pretty hard. He certainly complained of being sore the next day. We spent Christmas dinner with the Capaz and Totem families. It was a great way to finish the day.

Finally a post - From Banderas Bay December 19,2009

True to form, I am a little behind the eight ball with this post.  Time sure flies when you are doing nothing.  Anyway, lets catch up.....

We left Catalina on the 9th of October and spent almost a week in Newport doing boat work and staying out of the weather. It is a very protected anchorage, so we were able to get lots done. From there we went to Dana Point for another week. We had a blast there. The Wards out did themselves in the hospitality department – again. With their help we were able to provision for the trip down the coast and tie up all the getting out of the country loose ends. In between it all we took surfing lessons, the kids played, we got a little sail in, bought a couple more surfboards and in the end were ready to go.

The trip down from San Diego with the Baja HaHa had some exciting moments. We clocked a gust at 40kts on our 3rd sailing day - was wild and crazy. Josh was very seasick that day, but fine by the next day. So, we left San Diego 10/26 headed for Turtle Bay, should have taken about 2 days (so 2 nights on the water) the morning after we left, the weather forecast was not so great wind and swell wise, so the fleet (most of it) stopped at a place called San Quintin. Probably should have stayed one more day, cuz the next day was worse than the day before! But, the boat was fine and we just hung on for the ride. That day out of San Quintin a boat was surfing down a 15 footish wave and hit a whale, the whale hit them back, ripping out their rudder. The boat sank within 40 minutes. They deployed the life raft and were eventually picked up by the Coast Guard out of San Diego. The crew is fine, the boat is gone. Can’t imagine how the Captain felt as she watched the wind vane pass by her face.
We made it to Turtle Bay on Thursday late afternoon. Had a beach party on Friday, and left there Saturday by 1130. From there on it was great. We had one night of totally cool sailing the wind was 15kts or so all night under a big full moon. Pulled in to Bahia Santa Maria relatively early on Monday. Had another Beach party on Tuesday, left at the buttcrack of dawn on Wednesday and pulled into Cabo San Lucas Thursday mid afternoon. Cabo is beautiful to look at, but very touristy, expensive and definitely wild. Too many days there, and we would be checking into the Betty Ford Anchorage for rehab! Left Cabo the next Tuesday and made it to La Paz by Friday afternoon. No overnights, but 40 -50 mile days which are kind of long at a whooping 5- 6 kts. Met quite a few kid boats, some we knew from Alameda and some new. We felt like we were finally starting to unwind some.

Had lots of irritating mechanical issues from Turtle Bay to Cabo. The fitting on the engine block that holds the oil pressure gauge and a couple of other things broke off and spewed oil all over the engine compartment - that was the night before we left from Bahia Santa Maria for Cabo. Dennis was able to fix it, but in the process, we shorted out the voltage regulator, so the batteries weren't charging. Dennis hot wired the alternator so they would charge until we got to Cabo. Somewhere in there the fresh water pump on the generator died (Turtle Bay actually). We were able to find a replacement in Cabo, but after Dennis replaced the pump, the new one lasted about 20 minutes. He returned it, but they wouldn’t refund our money, so Dennis made them hook up the replacement to a battery -it did not work either, thankfully the last one on the shelf worked, and seems like it will continue to work. The engine (Izzy) had lots of overheating problems all the way down from San Francisco, seems Dennis may have fixed that -we ran it very hard 3 days in a row, on our way to La Paz, so we'll see. It is entirely possible that Izzy is just lulling us into a false sense of security....

To keep me on my toes, I have spent some quality time with Mexican government agencies. It took me about 5 hours to get checked into the country in Cabo San Lucas. A stop at the bank, 2.5 hours at immigration, a long walk to the Port Captain's office for another 2 hour wait. Such fun!! Had to get the Temporary Import Permit for the boat in La Paz. That only took 3 hours. Thankfully our friends from “MoonDance” have access to a vehicle and Carla taxied Tracie (Black Dragon) and I down to the place where that had to be done. The bus ride would have added at least 2 more hours to that process.

Fish wise, we are doing -well - 2 skip jack out of San Diego (soso eating) and a 30lb yellowfin Tuna. Josh hooked a marlin the day we were coming into La Paz. He was so funny, all excited and adrenalin rushed. Thankfully the darn thing spit out the hook, god only knows how we would have gotten on the boat and subdued it without needing stitches!!!!! We hooked a MahiMahi later in the day, but let it go because it was too skinny. Since then we have caught Sierra (yum) and another Jack type fish.

We actually had a traditional US thanksgiving with friends from Alameda. "Moondance" had access to the home of other Alameda friends that are still in SF. They are usually at their La Paz casita by this time of the year, but let “MoonDance” open up the house for them so we could have our little "fiesta de paavo" (sp?). So it was very nice - Turkey and all the usual trimmings.

One of the funniest things we have experienced thus far is the Mexican equivilent of WWF or Lucha Libre.  Yes they take it very seriously.  I wish I had pictures to post.  It was so fake, yet so funny.  The fans just added to the hilariousness of it all. 

We finally decided to say goodbye to La Paz the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  It was sad to leave familiar faces and a place we were comfortable with.  Especially for Josh, as he was able to experience more personal freedom than he has ever had.  There were lots of kids in La Paz, and he was able to run around with them alot.  There is a club house at the marina for them to hang out at, they had a campout on the beach (the Magote), a game night, a bonfire on the magote and he is our designated dinghy driver.  But, it was time to move on to warmer places.....

To get to Mazatlan we left from Los Muertos.  It is about 190 miles, so that involves an overnight sail.  We spent a beautiful day on the beach and at the resort at Los Muertos before leaving at 3am for Mazatlan.  It was a good sail and we arrived in Mazatlan in the daylight as planned.  We spent 3 days at the El Cid Marina and resort.  Josh got his first taste of the Mercado.  Not sure he realized that food didn't come from the animal in packages.....

We left Mazatlan on a Sunday evening and overnighted to Isla Isabella (a wildlife refuge) -got there about 1100a. Sadly we couldn't find an anchorage that we felt comfortable with, so decided to press on to San Blas (note to self, if ever in the same situation again, leave early enough from Mazatlan to be able to bail and reach San Blas in the daylight!). Made it to Matenchen Bay (San Blas) after dark in the rain. The next day was beautiful and humid. We took the dinghy into San Blas, Josh met up with his friend Jamie (a girl) and Dennis and I went for provisions. Jamie came back to our boat for a sleep over and surfing. They all went surfing, and I stayed on the boat and rested- I had a cold, and didn't want to make it worse. We got up and surfed the next day too, before Jamie's family came and got her on their way to the next anchorage. Of course Josh was ready to pack up and leave that minute too..... Surfing was pretty good, small waves. Dennis and Josh are both standing up etc... but although I can catch the waves, I haven't been able to stand up.

The next morning we got up and went in for a Jungle tour. Was pretty cool. Saw lots of birds, a turtle, an iguana and a couple of crocodiles - big too. The half way point was a fresh water pool for swimming, just upstream from the last croc......... hmmm maybe not. Those crocs looked like they would have no problem with that little ol’fence installed to keep them out. Liability is just not that much of an issue here.  It is a pretty spot though, lush and green.
 
After another dinghy ride into San Blas for Jamie's laundry (another note to self - do not try to pay your 9 yr old sister to do your laundry......) we left for the next anchorage about 8 miles away - Chacala. It was a pretty anchorage, Jamie got her laundry and had a sleep over again with us. Sadly, the surf was so big, there was no beach landing in our future and no sign of a water taxi either. So, not wanting to spend a bouncy day on the boat......

We left the next morning for Punta Mita - Is interesting our charts have us sailing on land...........Punta Mita is the northern point of Banderas Bay (home of Nuevo Vallarta and Puerto Vallarta). As we came up to round the point, we could see the surf breaking - way out from shore. It sure looked big -like Maverick big.  Gave me a severe case of heart burn. We ended up taking a very wide turn around the point before anchoring at Punta Mita. We all went surfing the next afternoon- thankfully it wasn't as bad as it looked, again I could catch them but not stand up. Josh was a crazy man - said he caught 12 waves - It is scary cool to see him up there doing his thing. Dennis and I went out the next morning hoping for smaller waves - which there were, but they were breaking closer to shore where the bottom is all rocks. I did finally manage to stand up though, so it was not an entire wash.   Because the surf was so big, we had to anchor the dinghy at the edge of the waves (maybe 100 yards from shore?). Since the wave action over the rocks was a little scary, Dennis and I  paddled our boards in to the Palapa (beach restaurant) for a late breakfast. The surf had been building as we were eating, so Dennis left to go rescue the dinghy while I paid. As I was paddling my board out to meet him, he came closer to meet me....I'm sure my expression would have been kodak moment worthy. A big wave was building up behind him, and looked like it was going to break on him. He turned the dinghy around  in time and gunned it as a just as the wave came up - He went almost vertical and said he caught air on the back side.......too close for comfort.

That afternoon we motored down to La Cruz - about 8 miles. Caught up with Jamie (Don Quixote) again and met some nice people living in the Marina. So, here we are. We'll be here in the bay through the New Year. Will probably move around some and explore. I am disappointed with the water quality, it is a huge bay, good anchoring, but I have a hard time wanting to get into it. Dennis was in scraping the junk off the bottom of the boat, and came out with little critters attached to him. Probably is related to the whole scraping thing, but eewww!!

The weather is actually pretty pleasant here, in general not as hot as I thought it was going to be, but the humidity is meeting my expectations. Actually had a cloudy day yesterday - was nice as I was working on a sewing project outside on deck. It was actually cold last night. So unlike Tracy which only has 2 kinds of weather (sunny and hot or cloudy and cool) they actually get a variety here.

We have seen a lot of wildlife - lots of dolphin and some whales.  Rumor has it that the bay here is home to many whales.  We went out today, but did not see any.  We took a 5 day cruise out to the Islands around La Paz and went snorkeling with some Sea Lions at a place called Los Isolotes.  It was very cool.  I just love it when a pod of dolphin swim with us - it is so cool, they seem humanish as they play in the bow wake.

Well, we are caught up,  I promise to try to be better, and will post pictures soon