Friday February 11,2011

Still in La Cruz.  Henry (my brother) arrived yesterday.  He brought us all kinds of goodies, including water pumps, coffee, wine, GreenBay packer shirts, fabric and tent poles for my shade project, and various and sundry other boat parts.  Is great to have him here.  We are planning a trip in to old town Puerto Vallarta today, then tomorrow we will leave the marina here at La Cruz and head out into the bay for some surfing and snorkeling.  The weather has been really nice - perfect actually -warm days, cool nights.  If I could only kick this cold...... Its the first full blown cold I have had in two years, so I guess I shouldn't complain, but I really hate being sick. So, it is vacation mode for a week with Henry, then back to full tilt project and provisioning mode.  More soon   Carol

Mazatlan to La Cruz

Finally left Mazatlan on January 29. The boat is fixed or at least has not overheated once since we left, and we have tried....We left the marina around 1400 to give the engine a bit of a run before we headed south to Isla Isabella. Its about 80 miles , so we left planning to arrive in the early morning. Last year we were uable to stop there becuase of unfavorable conditions so we were really hoping to spend time there this year. The over night trip was pretty uneventful. Dennis and Josh saw some phosphoressing dolphins, and I did my usual radar check of Venus (It comes up looking like a ship's light on the horizon, and always gives me a start.). We Buddied with Moondance who got the better dolphin show that night. We arrived to a settled anchorage, Yippee!!! Blue footed Boobies here we come!! Isla Isabella is basically an uninhabited island that is used as a base for fisherman and a group of scientists from the University in Mexico City who study the birds. It was a beautiful day for a hike and the birds were oh so cooperative. We saw cormorants with their red chests puffed out and fluffy white nestlings and lots of blue footed boobies. The boobies were in various stages of nesting, so we saw them on their nests with eggs, with brand new babies and older babies. It was so cool!!! The Lady from the university said these boobies have been being studied for 30 years. After our hike around the Island, we retired to our own private beach for a post hike bottle of wine and relaxation. After returning to the boat it was even warm enough for a quick swim to clean up (very quick I might add).


The next morning we left for Matachen Bay/San Blas again buddying with Moondance. We got caught several times in fishing lines, but fortunately never wrapped the prop or lost any tackle. Didn't catch any fish either. So far we have been skunked in that arena. We made it to Matachen for sunset - which was beautiful.

Don't know what the ground hog saw on the 1st, but we had another beautiful day. We did some school and finished off installing Josh's new bow seat in the morning. That afternoon we joined Doug and Carla from Moondance for an excursion into San Blas. On the spur of the moment Dennis stuck his thumb out as we were waiting for the bus and that is how we ended up in the back of a small pickup going into San Blas. What fun, and something you would never do in the States. The nice senors would take no pesos either. San Blas is a pretty little town with a nice central square and just about everything you could need, ferreteria (hardware store), tortilleria, esotetica (barber), market and tiendas. We enjoyed looking around and having lunch at McDonalds - no burgers to be found!!!!! Josh scored a new hammock on the way out of town. The bus ride back was far more conventional, but we didn't have to worry about losing anyone out the back either!!! When we got back to the beach we saw that s/v Scout had arrived. Josh could hardly wait to go see them, so after a bit of negotiation he was off to their boat to hang with the kids, and invite Lisa and Charlie to come in to the beach with the adults.

We left Matachen Bay the next morning managing to avoid snagging any lines or catching any fish for that matter. Our destination was Punta Mita. We were hoping for some good surf. A full day and another beautiful sunset later we were on the hook at Punta Mita. Sadly the next day did not dawn bright and sunny. We were experiencing the effects of the big high pressure system freezing the southern US and causing gales in the northern Sea of Cortez. Josh and Dennis fianlly decided to try it out, and did catch a few good waves. Two pretty tired and cold guys came back to the boat. We then decided to go on and head in to La Cruz (about 10 miles). We had great wind and actually sailed faster than we could motor. We dropped the hook in the La Cruz anchorage and here we are......

Being in La Cruz is sort of like coming home since we have spent so much time here. Many things are the same, and just as many have changed. Still it is comfortable. The anchorage is a little bouncy, and pretty full. The marina is busy too. We will eventually spend some time here at the dock, but for now we are out on the hook. Although we may move around the bay some, our next departure will be for the Pacific. Is kind of mind blowing. Also caused Dennis to break out "the list". I thought we had whittled that list down some in Mazatlan, but it sure doesn't seem like it to look at it!! Oh well got to have something to keep us busy, otherwise we would OD on social life!! We attended the Pacific Puddle Jump Party in Nuevo Vallarta on Friday, so I guess it is official..... We have the birgee (flag) and were interviewed for Lattitude 38 (the puddle jump sponsor) all that is left to do is finish the list, provision and leave. Wow again having a hard time getting my mind around it, it feels like a dream. Sure hope nobody wakes me up. In the meantime we have been catching up with old friends, meeting some new friends and are preparing for my brother Henry to visit. So yeah, we may not have jobs,but we are really busy.

Now you know where we are and what we have been doing. The one downside of La Cruz is poor internet coverage, so I will post this, then try to find a good place to upload pictures. Still waiting for warm tropical weather........Carol

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.

Essays by Joshua Morrison

Crocodiles of La Manzanilla


One of the days when my aunt and uncle were visiting with us we went to La Manzanilla to see the crocodiles. We got to the first place where you could see the crocodiles and we got out of the car that Larry’s (my uncle) brother drove us around in. We walked up to where you could see the crocodiles. I noticed that at some places there was no fence and you were just on a raised surface. Everybody was a little freaked, besides my parents, they had been there before. It was definitely a first for me in the respect that I had never been so close to crocodiles that big. I wanted to get some food for them from a place that sells fish for that very reason but mom said later.

We then went over to the north end of the pond where you could see the crocodiles. Even though they were farther away than the (sort of) fenced place there was nothing stopping them from walking right out to the heavily populated beach. It was a huge risk and we all thought “Never see anything like that in the States”. We sat down at a palapa restaurant and had refreshments. Since I was so psyched to feed the crocs we went got some whole fish (when my parents were here last there was only parts of the fish). The crocs weren’t really excited for fish at all but it was still cool seeing them lazily eat the fish. When we ran out of fish we got in the car and went back to the hotel.

It was a dark and stormy night
It was another beautiful day in the Barra de Navidad/Melaque area. The weather had been perfect, not too hot, not too cold with a nice afternoon breeze. It was great weather for my aunt and uncle visiting from New Mexico. We spent the day exploring Melaque and La Manzanilla. It was fun to feed the crocodiles and watch them lazily try and find the fish. We stayed that night with my aunt and uncle at their hotel instead of going back to the boat. The next day it was raining and that is quite unusual for that area. The next morning we bid my aunt and uncle goodbye, and headed over to the Barra lagoon. We took a panga in to the mother boat to find that she was wet because we had left some hatches open. Also to my mother’s horror we picked up a mouse somehow. That afternoon was filled with mopping up the boat and more rain.

Later that evening we were watching Mission Impossible III (good movie) and we started hearing thunder and seeing the outside get a lot brighter. We went outside and gazed in amazement at the incredible display of thunder and lightning. I felt sorry for the people in Tenacatita, a couple miles north of Barra, it looked like they were getting some of the lightning right above them. We eventually went in to finish our movie and I went off to bed. I didn’t go to sleep because I was a little freaked when it started raining and blowing so much it made the boat heel. I got out of bed to see that my parents were already securing items and my dad started the engine. My dad steered the boat so it stayed pointed into the wind to avoid the wind catching our side and using it as a sail to make us heel. My mom and I looked for any boats that might be dragging. I stood up in the back of the boat when it started to die down and commented that I should go get my shampoo and take a shower. After the ordeal I thought, ”it’s my mom’s fault for the wind” because she said earlier that “We’re in a calm anchorage” while she held up glass wine glasses. When we started heeling, they were on the side of the counter and just slid off the counter onto the floor, SMASH! PIECES!! . I blamed my dad for the rain because he ordered some drinking water from the store so Mother Nature said “OH!!! I’ll give YOU water!!” and that’s how we got rain.

Racing in the Banderas Bay Regatta by Joshua Morrison

When we were in Chamela on the way back up to the Sea of Cortez we were invited to go over to s/v Gato Go for dinner and a movie. Since it was a bouncy anchorage we didn’t put the motor on the dinghy and just rowed over to GatoGo. GatoGo is a big Kenner 43 foot catamaran, that’s a boat with two hulls instead of one, so it’s a big boat. When we got to their boat my mom started making dinner with Craig and Bruce the two guys onboard. While we were eating dinner Craig asked if we wanted to crew with them for the Banderas Bay Regatta and we said “Sure, why not”. When we got to La Cruz they gave us some papers that we would need to get into the party and so we could be crew. So for the kickoff party they did some folk dancing at Paradise Village (a very very expensive hotel resort) and I was thinking “I’m glad I brought my computer if this is going to go on for a while”. We met up with Craig, Bruce, and the other crew that they had, Tom and John. Then the party kind of dispersed to the yacht club and/or any of the restaurants around. We went back to our boat to sleep and get ready to go back in the morning for practice sailing on Gato Go. The next day we got to the marina at Paradise Village with Tom and John then set out for a practice sail. For the first part we practiced our start and got a bearing on where everybody was going to be and who would do what. After scaring ourselves half to death with how close the boats got we went out into the bay and practiced using the screecher (a big sail that’s kind of like a spinnaker). After practice we went in to go eat and go home.

The next day began the races, for the start of racing there was a parade of boats out the channel doing all kinds of stuff; we dressed up in various costumes. For the start instead of having 55 boats start all at once which would lead to sunken boats they had six classes leaving at different times. The slower boats did shorter courses than the faster boats. The course for that day was a lot of upwind sailing and catamarans don’t go upwind very well. We just tried to go as fast as we could on the upwind so we could catch up on the downwind. Of course that never really happened but we had fun getting almost last place. After the race, we hung out in the pool at Paradise Village and had dinner at another restaurant then went home. The second day we were happy because it was a course with supposedly not much upwind and a lot of angles good for catamarans. Although we didn’t finish we still had fun. We all got a little mad at one boat that completely didn’t go around one of the marks. The last day of racing was the same course as the first day so we knew we weren’t going to do very well. To make sure we didn’t finish the wind died right when we were headed up to the last mark. The committee boat gave us an offer to turn around and not go around the last mark and they would give us the points for last. The other option was that we could try and finish, so we took their offer and turned around. Not even five minutes after we turned around the wind picked up so fast that I had gone downstairs for a little bit and when I came back up it was windy! We were saying “couldn’t it die down and pick back up after we finished”. So we just went in with last place and the awards ceremony was next. I’ve been to enough things like that to know it’s going to take twice as long as they intended to. After dinner, I decided to see if any of the little kids wanted to go to the pool because they might have been bored, but none of them wanted to. So I ended up walking around and went to the boat and played on my computer for a while until everyone got back from the awards ceremony. Gato Go is so big they had two extra staterooms to spare so we spent the night on their boat.

On Sunday, instead of taking a taxi we went over to La Cruz with Gato Go. We had fun getting into the marina from their boat in the anchorage because it was very windy which made the water choppy. It was fun racing on Gato Go in the Banderas Bay Regatta. That is all the racing we’re going to do for a while. We won’t do any with our boat ever.