"Cars" in La Cruz

Sold our hard sailing dink to this nice family. 

Friend June from Shamaness tooling around in our new to us kayaks.  A nice little bit of freedom!

Whale!

We have been seeing a lot of whales on our way to Banderas Bay, where Puerto Vallarta is located.  However, it is not that easy to get a photo of these amazing creatures.

How our whale pictures usually turn out

Occasionally we get one of these!

FINALLY! 

Chacala

Heading south from Mazatlan was a long overnighter to Chacala.  We buddy boated with Wastrel and had a fine time.

Wastrel flying all her sails

Chacala can be a rolly anchorage so most people anchor bow and stern.  Marcus putting out the stern anchor.

Raton

  The special was shrimp stuffed fish wrapped with bacon and covered with cheese.  I couldn't quite figure out what this was supposed to be, maybe a lobster with olive eyes and shrimp tail?  When the waiter cleared my plate he said, so you liked the "raton"  it was fashioned to look like a mouse.

This family sold crafts out of the back of Dad's truck and on the beach.

Rainbow Warrior

190 feet with an A frame mast design

Greenpeace came to Mazatlan for a few days.  We took a tour, amazing. Built specifically for Greenpeace at a cost of over $30 Million Dollars.

We were already had a pretty good grasp of solar usage and the many options available.

The Bridge

100 year old Mexican Casa

Newlyweds Dennis and June on Shamanes stayed at a friends place for a few days and invited us for dinner.  A beautiful 100 year old Mexican home, a very traditional home of the upper income Mexican family.

Plenty of room for multiple chefs!

Bedrooms are located directly off of this large living area.

Main bathroom, the oversized shower had a tile mosaic of a parrot.

Time in Mazatlan

 Mazatlan is one of our favorite cities here in Mexico.  There is something for every mood, traditional mexican shopping, gringo get togethers, parks, beaches, town squares, cultural events, and great bus system for getting around.

Fred and Kathy on Sonrisa took me to town with them to do a little shopping.

Shopping at the carneceria or butcher shop

Verduras-Vegetables

All these lovely vegetables for 53 pesos, about $4 

We finally met up with Bay Area Shamanes again.

So long San Carlos

12/28/13

Just up from the beach a lovely little apartment

Left San Carlos around 10am in the company of 3 other boats heading across the sea to Puerto Escondido, or La Paz. An uneventful 24hour motorboat ride to Puerto Escondido, stayed 2 days, then headed back across the sea to Mazatlan, 309 miles, should take 3 days. Took off around noon and started sailing right away, the sea was pretty lumpy/rolly, but the forecast said it should be smoothing out right about now. I thought I had my sea legs under me, but I was wrong. The sea did not smooth out, the boat would sail along for a bit with a little side to side roll, then suddenly it would veer wildly through the waves. Pretty quickly we had the few things not stowed properly tied down, but you could hear cans in the bilge sliding back and forth, never heard that before!!

I got sick. Not violently ill, but pretty much useless, sleeping on and off for 24 hours. Poor Marcus didn't get much in the way of relief at the helm. The good news was, we sailed for 24 hours, the bad news was I still wasn't up to being much help the second day either. In my already dark mood, this was just not good. If I could have gotten off the boat I would have. UG By the 3^rd day I finally felt good again and started to enjoy the trip. I'm sure being less than a day away from land and one of my favorite cities may have had something to do with my improved mood.

About 6pm the last day, we realized we were going to arrive in Mazatlan around 2am, and we sure didn't want to negotiate the narrow channel going into the marina at that hour. We could anchor out at Isla Venados, or we could just drift for a few hours. The sea was flat and calm with a just a breath of wind, so we put up the gib (small sail in the front) and just ghosted along at 1 ½ knots for four hours. About 2am we fired up the motor and headed to Mazatlan, arriving as the sun came up. We pulled into a slip, and went below for an early morning nap.

Last days in San Carlos

12/20/13

Closing in on our departure date, we took Chuck and Judi out to a nice Italian place to show them how much we appreciated their hospitality. It was wonderful food, the owner was from Italy, so you know the food was authentic. Marcus chose the best dish, a garlic mushroom spinach pasta that was delicious!

Soon the work we needed to do while the boat was out of the water was complete and we put her back in the water and took a slip for a couple of days. We moved out of our friends house and onto the boat, it was good to be home.

Pretty sunrises and beautiful views from friends lovely home

Since it was so close to Christmas, I suggested we have Christmas in San Carlos. We went to a Saturday night Church service and sang Christmas carols. On Christmas day, we went to the church again for more music, then to a cruisers Christmas dinner. By then we had moved the boat to a mooring out in the Bahia which was pretty nice, and was much less expensive than a slip in a marina. The down side was that when the wind picked up in the afternoon, the ride back to the boat was slow, wet, and uncomfortable. We tried to always get back to the boat by 1pm! The cruisers Christmas dinner didn't end till around 3pm and by the time we got back to the boat we were both pretty wet puppies!

sewing sail cover

Wherever cruisers gather, there is a morning net on the radio. Boaters in the area tune in to the VHF radio at a specific time, in San Carlos it is 8am on channel 78. Emergencies, people looking for rides, people heading the the US or Canada that can mail letters for others, local information, happenings, weather, sea conditions, things people want to sell or buy, kind of a craigslist on the radio.

The wet dinghy ride inspired me anew to find a little bigger, therefore dryer, dingy. One morning, we heard of a dinghy for sale, and went over to look at it on our way to go hiking. The seller was working on his boat and didn't want to show it just then, so we continued our plan to go hiking, and would look at in on our return. When we returned, he had sold it, bummer! The next day, just before we were leaving San Carlos, Marcus announced on the net that he had a solar charger controller available, and we were looking for a dinghy. A guy named Mike, on Firefly (name of the boat) responded that he needed a solar charger controller and would trade a dinghy he had for it. That was a good deal for us!! It did need some gluing, which he would do, but it wouldn't be ready for maybe a week. Lucky us, another friend agreed to bring the dinghy down to us in Puerto Vallarta in about 2 weeks. You need to be pretty self reliant cruising on a boat, so other cruisers are always ready to lend a hand when one is needed. It is an awesome network of friends, some of whom you have yet to meet!

Moonlight Margaritas and Mariachis

12/16/13

From others viewpoint, this lifestyle may appear paradise, and sometimes it is, but is not all moonlight, margaritas, and mariachis. Ours is a simpler life, but it takes more effort to get things done. I love it, but sometimes I get tired. We have always know that we would not be “forever” cruisers, after a few years, I want to settle down in a land house close to my family. Leaving family and friends is probably the toughest part for me, with a close second of not being settled in one place for very long.

When Marcus hurt his back, and it looked like we may not be able to take the boat out, I started to think. He hates it when I do that, because you never know what kind of ideas might start germinating, sometimes they are sheer genius (in my humble opinion) sometimes they are ravings of a lunatic. What if we just stay here and rent a house for the winter . . .hmmm what kind of house/apartment can we rent here and what will it cost? This is not a new idea, but it was gaining ground with our potential setback. We looked at a couple of places, two of them looked right over the bahia where all the sailboats were anchored out. AHHH it was so wonderful! Upscale gringo community and small, but nice and about $800 per month. This is a little expensive in Mexico, and for us, but as in real estate everywhere, location location location.

Now I am really thinking hard about just renting a place and staying for the winter, but Marcus is now recovering, so we make plans to head out. I'm feeling down, just not up for the challenges ahead. One of the up sides of cruising is meeting new friends, on the other hand, you may leave right after you start getting to know them. I get moody, and neither Marcus nor I like living with me very much. It will pass, and the sun will shine again.

Mi familia

Hot and dirty work, I seem to manage to get any project I attempt all over me. Marcus called me his little blue smurf wife.   

12/15/13

Considering the boat had been on the hard in the Sonoran desert for 6 months she looked pretty good! For 2 weeks we sanded, scraped, painted the hull. The lines were run, the dodger reinstalled, through-hulls checked, and systems checked. We had brought a gallon of the bottom paint, which was had been just enough to paint the bottom last time. We barely had enough for ½ of the hull this time! Even though while scraping and painting it felt like the boat had grown longer, we knew she hadn't. Our theory is that the hull dried out during the Sonoran summer. Marcus was heading to town, had to bite the bullet and spend big bucks for additional paint from the very expensive chandlery when Marcus had an idea. He asked the boatyard worker if they had some left over paint we could purchase. Happy day! They had just the right paint at just the right price!

Back trouble, Blood on the deck and Dulce

12/5/13

San Carlos bound! After a short 2 hour trip we pulled into a San Carlos gas station, Marcus got out of the car and he could hardly walk. Shortly before we arrived in San Carlos Marcus sneezed and felt a shooting pain in his lower back, He has had back trouble for years, and hours sitting in a car it not good for him. This was something much more severe than he had experienced before. We drove another 10 minutes and arrived at our friend Chuck and Judi's house. Thank goodness for Chuck and Judi! If not for their hospitality, we would have had to rent a room because there was no way Marcus could climb up and down the ladder into the boat while we readied it for our trip, if we even were able to go, considering his condition.

We settled in and Marcus rested his back, hobbling around the best he could. He took hot baths, got a massage and treatment with an electronic neuro muscular stimulator. He slowly improved and after a week, he had improved enough to start work on the boat. Seriously thought we might just be spending the winter in San Carlos!

We certainly didn't waste our recuperation time! Chuck took us fishing and we fished until I could not physically reel in any more fish!! The Bonita were running.

The next day Judi set up the canning gear, and away we went, we canned for hours and have the best canned tuna I have ever eaten.

We left the US so quickly I didn't get a chance to stock up on dark chocolate, but I did have some dark chocolate chips and had wanted to make home made peanut butter cups. This mix of dark and milk chocolate yumminess will hopefully get us through most of the season.  This recipe is a keeper!

Regreso Aqui - Return Here

I'm catching up on our trip to date, so I'll try to catch up in the next week or so!

last minute pampering!

12/1/13

After spending an amazing summer exploring the US and visiting family and friends we settled in California to wait for our new grandson to be born. Family challenges kept us in the states until just a few days before Thanksgiving, so we decided to enjoy that with our girls and their families and we headed South the Friday after Thanksgiving.

We dropped our 5^th wheel and truck off at a storage facility, and headed straight for Marcus's childhood hometown to spend a couple of nights with his best buddy Bill and wife Gloria. After 2 fun days, we headed to Newport Beach and spent the night hanging out with our Mexico cruising friends on a catamaran named Moontide.

From there it was Tucson to spend the night, and pick up a few last minute things. It took us much longer in Tucson to find what we needed and I tried to convince Marcus to spend one more night there, but he was too excited about getting back to Mexico, so we didn't cross the border till about noon.

I admit, while in the States, I became completely addicted to my smart phone. The ability to map, research, email and facebook anytime I wanted was just what this internet addict craved. Not that it was good for me, Marcus had a difficult time convincing me to look up from the screen during our travels. I suffered MAJOR withdrawals as soon as I was unplugged.

We had some trouble locating a hotel, finding ourselves at the back side of one the the recommended hotels I had researched I saw some “ladies” lounging on street corners, and we quickly decided to head back to a place we had seen on the main road through town. It was getting late, and we sure didn't want to be out after dark in an unknown city. As dusk arrived we finally checked into a place right on the main street of town. The lobby looked nicer than the rooms, but still it was pretty nice by Mexico standards, although the bed was HARD.

bed was as hard as cement, oh that's why!

We went out wandering to look for some dinner. There were a few gringo type places nearby, but we tend to like the little places, the street vendors and mom and pop places. I saw an interesting place just back from the street past an OXXO (like a Mexican 7-11), we met Carlos, the owner and set us up with some yummy tostadas. The beans are always so good in Mexico, YUM. Marcus asked for a beer, and I wanted water, Carlos said they didn't serve beer, but he would get him some. In little places like this they usually serve the beer in a bottle, but Marcus received his beer in a cup. The proprietor said it was beer from the cooks. Coors lite, hah!  Welcome to Mexico