So Much In So Few (Days)

on
It seems that we have crammed quite a bit into just a few days in Mazatlán this time. One thing that stands out right now is that the food, in general, has been superb! We have managed to hit several restaurants in the area and with one exception have been very pleased (indeed)! There is a place at the head of the dock called “Gus Gus” and it is the place where we found the melt-in-your-mouth fillet Mignon (Filete Miñon). Their breakfasts are very good too. We popped up to the “Citrus Ocean” (third floor at the lighthouse) and experienced excellent service and cuisine. Last night we went to “Isaa”, which oddly enough is located across the street from Wal-Mart, had free margaritas along with a spectacular array of fish dishes. My Mahi Mahi in cream sauce was “to die for” and the rice and vegetables combination was the perfect topper. The one that didn’t work out quite so well was a franchise USA sort of wings/bbq place that seemed like part of Texas had plopped itself down to give us truly awful food. It even served Bud Light to any dumb enough to order that in Mexico… I stuck to Negro Modelo and came out slightly ahead even though I could not finish the ½ chicken I ordered. We have been into downtown twice in the short time we have been here too and that has allowed us to hit the open market there. It is still one of my favorite things to go to such places because of the non-Wal-Mart-ness of them. There is an element of chaotic charm that beguiles me every time. It was here that we buy the T-shirts and flip flops that are our mainstay for clothing. The produce is as fresh as any you will find in the box stores and a whole lot less expensive too. Within a few blocks are, typically, plenty of other stores that cater to all sorts of needs and we can be fairly leisurely at everything except crossing the streets. If you like people watching there is lots of that available as well. I especially like to watch first encounters of tourists with the meat section of the open market!!

So, now we have put in the waypoints for the trek across the Sea of Cortez and will take off tomorrow for La Paz. This leg is just Sandy and I for crew because Patty is doing a side trip to Loreto (via Los Angeles). We will all meet up again in La Paz and then wait a few days for Hank to come for a visit. We also have to have the boat hauled out for a survey and perhaps a new coat of bottom paint. It is my hope that there will be enough time for me to have an eye exam and obtain some new prescription sun glasses and maybe some regular glasses. It has been awhile since I have had my eyes checked so I am looking forward to this even though I think not much has changed.

Slipping into a Memory

It is still there!!

From the top of the Freeman

Panorama of old beach

Playa at Olas Altas

Yesterday the crew of Faith joined the crew of Periclees and jumped onto a local bus headed for the old section of Mazatlán. We wandered past lots of history there and then ended up walking to the beach… the old section of the beach. Suddenly a bit of history was there in front of me; my history.

Many years ago, when I was a lad, my Uncle Munro, in particular, was traveling in Latin America often. Occasionally when he went south he added family members to the trip. On one of those occasions I was along as he came north from Guatemala and we ended up at the Freeman Hotel on the Olas Altas in Mazatlán. It was a great place to spend about week and, being summer, the water was warm but inviting to our small band of determined travelers. All in all it seems to me now that this was a prelude to many more visits. On one of the trips south “Tio Barfy”, a name he was tagged with on this trip having nothing to do with what it sounds like it does, loaded up seven or eight kids along with the appropriate notarized parental permissions and related documents and pointed the old (1956 or 7) two toned (blue and white) Ford station wagon toward Mazatlán. When he got the non-power steering vehicle to the beach he rented an apartment and the month that followed was spent at the beach in the morning, lunch at the apartment and charades during siesta time. There was time for reading and such but it was the mornings at La Playa and the Copa de Leche restaurant and bar that hit me again as a place I had encountered many times in the past. The funny thing was that I was recalling this particular trip even though I wasn’t along on it. Oh, there had been many others of like kind but I was remembering the excitement of my siblings when they told me about what a great time they had on this outing. It was so like what other times had been for me with Tio Barfy!! We didn’t have to do much to invent our own fun then.

The pictures are from the top of the sea wall and the top of the still existing Freeman Hotel (now a Best Western). A small note on the Freeman: as we went to the top floor we got off the elevator and walked the last two stories, passing the elevator motors, where we saw the plaque stating that the elevators had been installed in 1944.

Lifestyle or just life?

Trimaran on the hook, Isla Isabela

Frigate bird, one of thousands

Anchor chain in 25 feet of water

One of the things that has been going through my head as we have progressed northward is that this IS a lifestyle, albeit a very strange one at times. Yesterday we pulled into an anchorage at Isla Isabela and dropped the hook into the clearest aqua blue water I have seen in a long, long time. I mean, it was stunningly beautiful and we were the only boat there. A bit later a trimaran popped around the corner and eventually settled on a spot too but it was not crowding us in the least. Here we were in the best of all possible places I thought as we watched whales leaping and cavorting just off the island. Here we found a kind of solitude and surroundings that you dream of finding.

It was not until the next day that the full force of what we were experiencing hit me. We jumped off the boat into 25 feet of water and started snorkeling around the anchorage. I could see the anchor from the surface and the fish, in great numbers, swarmed over the bottom. In a way it reminded me of what I had seen years ago in Lake Tahoe, a sense of greater depth ran over me. We had talked about taking the dinghy into the island when we were approaching but once we were snorkeling there was not going to be enough time to do both. Part of our problem was that we needed to carry on to Mazatlán so that our guest, Sue, could get to the airport in time for her flight. Our sail up from La Cruz had already been punctuated by seeing a couple of sharks and several pods of whales so we were not starved for wildlife encounters. It was made slightly more complex too because the shortwave net that morning had mentioned a weather front coming in and the anchorage and the rest of sail north would have gotten a little dicey. The other thing that happened and had me chuckling was that about the time we started getting the boat ready to go several more boats topped the horizon making for the island and the anchorage was going to get more crowded. We have now seen what holds the promise of a trip back next season and we will time our approach with the possibility of staying several days.

Jumping into the momentarily brisk water was a chance to explore a whole day of a new place and gave us a fresh look at why it is we enjoy doing this so much!

On the Move Again!!

A Sign in Nuevo Vallarta showing what NOT to do and why!!

We are leaving La Cruz after picking up a guest (Sue came down to Mexico for a conference and had some extra time) to take back to Mazatlan to catch her flight back to Portland. The marina experience has been good and the boat is clean again; after the two months on the hook she needed some attention. Now that all is good it is time to continue the move northward. Once in Mazatlan we likely won't stay long because we want to get to La Paz in time for Patty to meet some friends (after a bus ride) in Loreto.

The thought here is to sail to Isla Isabela because it is a bird sanctuary and Sue is a birder by profession. It is always fun to have someone aboard with something to add to the general knowledge and experience aboard. As an aside, it doesn't hurt to have someone aboard to stand a watch now and again either!!

With luck we will be able to stay at Isabela long enough to get some pictures of the island covered in birds.

Delfines!!

A Smooch

Some Smiles

Some Touches

...And more fun than you can imagine!!!

Some fun, now!! Somehow we got wind of the availability of dolphins to swim with in Nuevo Vallarta. Since nothing would do but to see what this was about we signed for a bit of time in the water with dolphins.

We took the bus to where we could easily get a cab into Nuevo Vallarta and found the center to be a fairly modern facility. We got down to the boat for the very short ferry ride over to the area with the tanks. We stayed in a waiting area while we watched a group ahead of us doing a “train the trainer” session. Here there were lots of people belonging to various groups sorted by what color wrist bands we wore. Then the trainers came in and gave us a few ground rules for getting in the tank with the dolphin. Essentially we were told how to touch the animals and how not to touch them. The trainers were great in their presentation and concern for their charges. Our group of eight was with Sue and our first dolphin (Alii) was a real charmer. At about 200 pounds Alii was a fairly small, just past the juvenile stage, animal with scars on his back from encounters with other dolphin in the pool. It was Alii that gave each of us in turn a ride around the pool in the belly-to-belly mode. This was accomplished by holding the fins close to his body and stretching our arms out to then slide over the top while keeping our feet clear of the tail. The tail, it turns out, is very hard. We learned too that a dolphin is a bit over 80% muscle as we tootled around in our towed position. Once we started smiling we couldn’t stop.

The other part of the fun was in simply touching the animals. They each had a very wet rubber feel to them. The second dolphin, Lluvia (translates as Rain), was slightly larger and a bit stronger than the first. She was less scarred and then Sue (our assigned trainer) mentioned that she was a bit more aggressive in her personality. While we were crowded around stroking her she made a grab for the draw string on my swim suit but was polite enough to stop when the trainer asked her to. We did kisses and hugs for the camera, as well as feeding her. The young man next to me said, “Yuk, they gave me a squid to feed her… just the thing I didn’t want to touch!” My own feeding experience was a large mackerel and it was fun dropping it down the mouth. I noticed that the tongue was different, with little nodules around edge, and I did not ask about it as I should have. Now that means a few minutes of research to understand the reason and meaning of this adaptation to complete the field trip.

As one of the things to cross off the (bucket) list this is near the top. It has been a “wanna do” for a long time. Check. Done. Kewl!!!

The Marquesas for Some

One of the things that has taken hold in the last few days is that the Puddle Jump group is well into getting ready to head to the Marquesas. There has been a flurry of car rentals and mass shopping and last minute boat repairs over on 3 dock. We have many friends getting into the long distance mode and it has been interesting to watch since this IS something I would like to do sometime. There have already been a couple of boats that slipped the ties and turned west but thus far they are reporting little or no wind and are only a couple of hundred miles out of Banderas Bay. In looking at the weather reports it seems to me that it will be at least a week before conditions are such that, if I were going, I would choose to follow them. In any case, it is interesting to watch the collective progress being made over on 3 dock.

This morning I joined Dietmar and Susanne (Carinthia) going to the swap meet in Nuevo Vallarta along with Alan and Rena (Follow You Follow Me). We had a good time at the brief event and then managed to slip in a shopping trip to fill their last minute needs for the Jump. I think that Dietmar has finally hit stride and has started to relax again. His last few weeks have been all about the preparations but now he seems to have come to that point where he has done all he can and it's time to go as soon as conditions are correct. I recall this turning point from earlier in our trip when, even though the work was not done in Portland we had to stick to the leave-the-dock plan or be there for another year!! It is a wonderful thing to reach that place where you just can't get yourself past a certain state of Ready.

If you have a shortwave radio you can hear them chatter at around 9:00 am (CST) on 8.188 USB as they get organized around their new net. It's not clear to me what they will do about daylight savings time so it would be at the top of the hour, based on what they decide on that, and if you want to follow their progress you might have to hunt for them an hour or two either side of that time.

Where we have been.

View of the anchorage from the Las Hadas hotel.

View of the Las Hadas from the anchorage.

Ken & Linde join us for Valentine's Day dinner at the Paradise

Seeing where we have been.

Barra de Navidad from the dinghy dock looking toward the Grand Bay Hotel.

The Aquarium at Tenecatita (our much lonelier anchorage was around the corner)

Sandra with Sandra at Tenecatita.

Quiet anchorage at Tenecatita.

A few pictures courtesy of my new camera that recently fell off the nav station and broke. It has this great panorama feature!! It will be getting repaired soon I believe.

Other Visitors

Fellow Cruisers

Robert & Sushila (note empty wine rack)

Robert ready to perform miracles with food.

Robin in a reading moment

You will have noticed that one of the things that interests us are the people that come and go in the time we have been cruising. There are lots of them if you figure that in a normal year (in my old life) only a few people would pass through and stay at my home. Here we have had people stay with us (very cozy on a 41 foot boat) much of the time. Oh, there have been lots of breaks for us to have alone time but it seems there is always someone to look forward to coming for a visit.

Awhile back I mentioned that I would include a bit about this so here it is.

Recently we first had Robert join us and then Robert returned with Sushila (spouse of Robert) for a wonderful time of frivolity and good food. Robert, you see, is a great cook. A trained cook. Yikes!! We were and still are experimenting with the local fruits and veggies in our mix of meals and Robert upped the amperage on that considerably! We are good at some of our inclusions of local items but Robert made us aware of lots of ways to add to the flow. We enjoyed their company immensely and while boat life was different than what they came to Mexico to do it likely enhanced their trip as well.

Robin was here for a short visit too. While she did not have the luxury of an extended stay we found that her positive energy and open-to-everything attitude helped us all have a great time. A boat is a very small place and it takes this sort of world view to create the right experience. It helps us too because we would otherwise have a tendancy to stay some places even longer than we do. We get comfortable somewhere and the inertia is sometimes hard to change. Having people come in for a time helps us with that. Our attitude is that WE are not the entertainment but rather the facilitators... have boat, will travel.

All down the coast we have had crew volunteers that have helped with that. At this point I have to say that we have been very fortunate in all of those experiences. Again very positive attitudes help make living together in a small place a joy rather than a struggle. Michael, Mike, Fin, Hank, Alan, Sue, Mary and all were tons of fun and added some great spice to what the cruising experience is. It is sometimes hard for us to be in a certain place at a certain time but if everyone realizes that it may require a bus ride or some such to join us wherever we are then it is all coordinate-able!!

One other aspect of this is that we have also met some great new friends while on this trip. A typical bunch (pictured above) were an impromptu trek into Manzanillo to find a Club Social (say it like, "clube so-see-awl") and walk around the downtown area. Lots more on that later.