Banderas Bay

Our friends from home (Jay, Linda, David and Angela) had planned a vacation in Puerto Vallarta for December so we sailed south from La Cruz de Huanacaxtle to the marina at Nuevo Vallarta so we could join them for a few days. Staying at the marina we were only a half mile from their time share, and we got all of the amenities of the Grand Mayan Resort (including golf, pools, water slides, swim up bars, and restaurants) as our reward. The marina was located next to a dolphin exhibit so each day we also got to watch the dolphins being trained to do their incredible acrobatics. We also got our first experience taking true landlubbers to sea when we invited everyone for a sail on the Bay. We headed out on a true Gilligan’s Island type adventure aboard Mañana. The 3 hour tour to Mismaloya and back was calm and sunny, but both David and Jay quickly jumped ship when we got back to the dock, and I don’t think either of them are going sailing again any time soon. Mal de mer the French call it and green is the color. No one actually got sick but there was certainly a lot of whining about the slow pace and the rolling seas.

 

Andrea’s daughter (Michal Ann) and her husband (Mohammed) also joined us for a week’s vacation aboard, and we set out to explore some of the other destinations around the Bay as well as to visit Viejo Vallarta, the older tourist sections of the city. We sometimes complain that places like PV are a little to “touristy”, but that is what provides the entertainment. There was plenty of shopping, pleasant walks along the malecon, quick beer stops, and some great restaurants. Although PV is considered a little expensive by Mexican standards we were still paying a fraction of the costs we would have paid at home and getting some wonderful meals.  

 

We took a bus trip (actually 3 buses) to Boca de Tomatlan along the southern coast of Banderas Bay. The road ends at Tomatlan so from there we took a panga (Mexican Boston Whaler) to the remote town of Yelapa. Yelapa is a small cove on the southern coast that is only accessible by boat, but is home to a few hundred people. This is a beautiful beach with a steep shoreline and rolling breakers so we were happy to be on the small water taxi rather than trying to bring our own boat close to the beach.

  I was particularly struck by the town water system and I have attached a picture of the water system at the Bar Manguitas in Yelapa where we had lunch. In fact all of the water to the village came from similar hoses and pumps with the hoses winding through the tree tops.

Our return to Tomatlan via panga was on a crowded water taxi with about 20 people which I thought might be a few too many bodies for this small boat. I happened to turn around to see the boat driver bless himself with the sign of the cross just before he hit the throttle. Gracias de Dios for the safe trip. A bit later the bus driver on the city route did him one better.  When the bus stalled at one stop he left the bus, crawled under the rear wheel somewhere, and magically started the bus from under there. Must have been a hidden key. Mexican travel has been filled with “ordinary, but out of the ordinary” incidents like these.

 

Michal Ann and Mohammed have sailed with us before, and they were quite happy to sail the Bay and to spend a few nights at anchor when we revisited La Cruz.  We also took another side trip by bus to Sayulita where we enjoyed the beaches, bars, and shops. Sayulita is a very attractive surf town with a beautiful, wide sand beach for strolling. 

   

Days have turned lazy and our only sailing is day trips on the bay. We did sail out to the Tres Marietas islands (20 miles) and had an incredible day of sailing and whale watching. We spotted at least 20 whales and many of them were within a few hundred feet of the boat. At one point we had four fast moving whales headed directly towards the boat, but about 150 feet away they dove and reappeared on the other side of us. Andrea spends a lot of time telling me which way to turn the boat to get closer to these behemoths , but sometimes the whales swim to windward and I can’t get closer, and sometimes I am quite close enough, thank you. The humpbacks are just now returning to the bay for their winter stay.

 

Did you know: The whales mate in the early winter months, migrate north in the spring and summer, and then return south the following year to give birth in the warmer waters. The locals say that since they are born here all of the whales are Mexican.

Christmas is just 5 days away and we are still in shorts, dining outdoors at night, and swimming during the day. We hear it’s a little cooler in Santa Cruz and new England, but we do feel the chill now that the temps are in the low 70’s some days.  Christmas dinner with other cruisers will be a pot luck at a local bar that supplies the turkey for free if we bring a plate to pass. We’ll be there with bells on.

Merry Christmas to all…

San Blas to La Cruz

Yes, I have been bad, but not at sailing (at which I am getting a lot of experience). Bad at writing and keeping in touch with those who think we are in danger out here (which we are not). Last e-mail was Mazatlan on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and we’ve covered some ground (water) since then. We are currently in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. This is a small town on Banderas Bay. Banderas is the 2nd largest bay on the Pacific coast and is better known as the home to Puerto Vallarta. La Cruz is about 10 miles north of PV. At this point we have covered close to 1600 miles at an average speed (I use that term loosely) of 5 miles per hour.

We got a good weather report so we sailed from Mazatlan on December 4 in good winds and flat seas. This was a welcome change from the choppy, rolling seas we had been experiencing for several weeks along the Baja, in the Sea of Cortez, and on the crossing to Mazatlan. The first leg was an overnight sail leaving Mazatlan at daybreak and we arriving at Isla Isabella dawn the next day. Isla Isabella is a small island about 40 miles off shore and a quick survey of the island (this is a bird sanctuary, think white rocks, think what caused the white rocks) and the exposed anchorage led us to believe we could find a better spot by continuing on to San Blas as long as we had several hours of daylight left. We found a great anchorage in a broad, palm tree lined Mantanchen Bay near San Blas that was both scenic and calm, and we congratulated ourselves on a job well done. The scenery here is decidedly tropical and very pretty. The next morning we motored into the estuary at San Blas  and headed ashore for check in with the Port Captain and to do some well deserved bar hopping.

San Blas is a sleepy little town that never got past the hippie, surfer, remote vacation themes. Dirt and cobblestone streets crisscross the town, but there are also many small tiendas, taco stands, 4 table restaurants, and watering holes.  The town square is a lovely, landscaped flagstone square dominated by the church on one side and a variety of shops and restaurants around the remaining perimeter. 

I particularly liked the San Blas Social Club. This small bar had old jazz and country record albums on the walls, and the bartender would play any of them you requested. Music was “eclectic” and entertaining all afternoon and the beers were cheap. We even met two guys from Santa Cruz sitting at the bar who had “retired” to San Blas several years ago. I didn’t remember them, but they had frequented McCarthy’s and were very familiar with the Aptos Club. I always wondered where the Aptos Club clientele had disappeared. We also met a young Russian woman at the Social Club who had jumped ship a few days earlier when the sail boat she was crewing on was struck by lightning. San Blas was to be her new home if she could stand the no-see-ums. Fortunately we had still been in Mazatlan during that same lightning storm, and we again thanked whatever forces have been watching over us on this trip.

December 12 is a huge celebration here for the Virgin of Guadalupe and San Blas was our first exposure to the religious processions that run for several days preceding the feast. (We later saw the large procession to the cathedral on the 12th when we were in Puerto Vallarta). The church on the square was the destination for hordes of small children carrying candles in the procession and apparently recess occurs shortly after reaching the church.  It was a crowded and festive evening. We also spent a pleasant hour on the square with a fellow who was the unofficial harbor master of San Blas having moved there 40 years ago to go fishing. Several cruisers also stopped by and we ended up in a nearby taco bar for dinner.

Puerto Vallarta beckoned so we again hauled anchor and headed for another interim stop in Chacala. Nothing there except a very picturesque anchorage and a half dozen palapa restaurants on the beach. This is a Mexican vacation destination, and it was very quiet on this night. Very, very pretty and very pleasant.
The trip from Chacala to Banderas Bay started in flat seas and no wind, but our reward was whales and dolphins. We came upon 3 humpbacks basking on the surface, and we got to within 50 feet of them floating with sails down and motors off. We just sat there for about an hour as they spouted, rolled, and lolled about in the sun. Beautiful.

A bit later we were startled to see the seas frothing ahead of us. We had come upon a large group of dolphins herding fish. Many hundreds of dolphins jumping and circling the fish who were also jumping and circling (for much different reasons). The winds picked up substantially around noon and we found 20 knots and sunny sailing for the last 4 hours of the trip. We rounded Punta Mita at the north end of the bay with huge rollers breaking across the reefs. We had originally planned to anchor at the first available place in Banderas Bay (Punta Mita) but the winds were so good that we sailed on another 15 miles to La Cruz.  La Cruz is another cobblestone street town that is just about to bust loose with development (new marina scheduled for completion in 2008) so we were very happy to get here in time to see the still decidedly Mexican town before the tourists discover it. Dinner at Ana Bananas Sunday BBQ with open mike night was a great introduction to La Cruz. At least 6 different groups/single artists performed while we were there for dinner.

Did you know: San Blas, Mexico was the subject of Henry Longfellow's last poem "The Bells of San Blas"? You could look it up.

Next stop Puerto Vallarta where friends and family will meet us and keep us occupied pretty much through Christmas.

La Paz and Mazatlan

We have spent the past few days in La Paz, Baja California Sur. This is a very nice city on the Sea of Cortez that features a 3.5 mile malecon (walkway, 30 foot wide tiled sidewalk) along the beach. Many cruisers make it just this far and settle in for months because the city is so friendly and pleasant. Last night we had burgers gilled on the engine of a ’56 Chevy (propane grill installed) and listened to oldies while dining in a pretty outdoor patio setting. Very nice. Today lunch was fish tacos and cokes for $2. The Coca Cola is “Hecho en Mexico” (made in Mexico) and is the stuff that was in the bottles in the US when we were kids. Original recipe before the sugar substitutes took over. And don’t tell me about your Classic Coke. Not the same.

We were fortunate enough to be in La Paz for the celebration of “Revolution Day” November 20. Do not confuse this with Cinco de Mayo which is the anniversary of the 1862 victory over the French or September 16 which is Independence Day and celebrates the beginning of the 1821 War of Independence from Spain. This is “Revolution Day” and celebrates the anniversary of the 1910 Mexican Revolution of Pancho Villa and Emilio Zapata, and it involves a very large parade. At the beginning of the parade I called it the Parade of 10,000 Students because one after another we saw legions of Jr High and Sr High School marching cheerleading squads. Schools from all over Baja Sur were on hand all dressed in Red, White and Green. Hundreds of cheerleaders, gymnasts, soccer players (with balls), basketball players (in uniform), boxing teams, etc. The best part was that each school was preceded by a pickup truck with a very large generator and a speaker system that would have made the Rolling Stones envious. Big speakers filling the entire truck bed. Loud Mexican music was the theme. My thought was that we had finally found the source of all those boom box, low riders in the US. Following the schools were the youth league sports teams, wrestlers, boxers, tae kwon do kids, and even military wannabes. Then we got the full military treatment. Army, Navy, Marines (walking navy actually), and, finally, the caballeros who looked like the groups from the Rose Parade. Parade took over two hours to pass the reviewing stands. Very impressive and lots of fun. Make you proud to be Mexican.

  

 

Tomorrow we’re off to Espirtu Santo for several days of anchoring out, snorkeling, relaxing, and sun. No more internet for at least a week as we wander around the Sea of Cortez and get ready for out trip across the Sea to mainland Mexico. After a few days in a marina to clean up and re-provision we are happy to move along to some of the picturesque anchorages we had heard about in the Sea of Cortez. We will not actually venture very far from La Paz (60 miles) on this trip because our plans call for us to return here next spring to explore much further north in the Sea. Right now the weather is cooling and the winter winds are picking up daily.

 

We spent Thanksgiving week in three different, peaceful bays on the islands of Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida that had acres of turquoise blue water, white sand beaches and few other boats. Very much like the Virgin Islands except we had to supply our own rum bar. We did. Thanksgiving day was kielbasa and beans but the setting made it worthwhile. Rough seas from the wrong direction forced us out of that bay the next morning and required a 30 mile sail in heavy winds to a safer spot, Punta Evarista. We dropped anchor again in a much more protected bay. Evarista is listed as a town in the Cortez side of Baja, but when we went ashore for a walk we found only one dog and no people. There were a number of shacks and homes along the dirt streets but the absence of people made it feel a lot like a Clint Eastwood movie.

 

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Weather reports were beginning to show some strong winds ahead so we decided to jump quickly towards Mazatlan. Mazatlan is on the Mexican mainland so we would be leaving behind the desert landscape of the Baja (picture attached, a little like sailing in the Grand Canyon) for the more tropical and humid landscape to the east. The crossing was a 48 hour sail, and our foresight in moving out quickly was rewarded. We got a terrific sail (although a little tiring) while boats just two days behind us were pretty well battered by high winds and large, short, mixed swells for their crossing. We arrived off the beaches of Mazatlan at about 7 AM in very calm seas.  As the sun rose over the city we were surprised by a humpback whale that surfaced and then sounded, tail in the air, within 100 feet of the boat.

Mazatlan is a lovely stopover and much nicer than we had been led to expect. We have really enjoyed exploring this city (pop. 380,000) for the past 4 days. Goofy advertising seems to be the rule so we got a quick picture of Andrea with Senor Frog. The marketplace is huge (butchers, vegetables, bakeries, clothing, souvenirs), the beach walk (malecon) is beautiful and the city has some historic buildings and squares to explore. We have hiked to the top of the second tallest lighthouse in the world (#1 is Gibraltar), participated in the release of 1500 turtles on the beach (the eggs were collected and incubated at the aquarium to protect the species), watched the fireworks that signal the beginning of the Christmas Season, and dined in one of the prettiest outdoor café areas you can imagine (sort of a smaller, rural version of dinner in St Mark’s Square). The square was well lit for Christmas and the 70 degree temperatures at 10PM were ideal. Today we even got to watch the Mazatlan marathon (for which Andrea got me up at 6 AM). We are enjoying Mazatlan very much.

 

 

 

 
I have attached a picture of Andrea in the monument to the “pulmonia”. These are the golf cart like taxicabs that run all around Mazatlan. They are the signature item of the tourist business and were invented by an enterprising Mazatlan businessman almost 40 years ago.

Next stops: San Blas (anchorage), Chacala (anchorage) and Puerto Vallarta

Hasta mañana

No Whining

Yes, this is fun. I realize that the last e-mail might have been a little too much whining. Yes, we broke some boat, had some mishaps and learned some things we might not have wanted, but the trip has been a great experience overall.   We were less than 45 minutes into the voyage when the first pod of dolphins found us and entertained us for 30 minutes or so. Another school of dolphins found us on a calm evening about 500 miles later, 50 miles off shore, and we estimated there were well over 1000 dolphins around us. Lots of leaping and diving.

   
We fished off the back of the boat and ate what we caught. We have only a short drag line for trolling, but we managed to catch Wahoo, Bonita and Yellowtail.  I filleted the tuna, and we had a sushi lunch that was still swimming 30 minutes before we ate him. That’s fresh. The picture below is a Dorado we caught on this trip.

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The stars on this voyage were so bright and distinct that we marveled at the constellations we could identify. With absolutely no ambient light from shore we were able to see the Milky Way almost every night. I hadn’t seen the Milky Way in many years. Glad to know it’s still there. I’ve attached a picture of sunrise approaching Bahia Santa Maria. Spectacular. But the moonrise the night before was even more dramatic. We got a bright orange crescent, low in the sky that exactly resembled the grin on Alice’s Cheshire Cat (not pictured).

Light? I should have mentioned the cruise ship that passed less than ½ mile behind us at 2 AM. This small city looked like the Las Vegas Strip come to meet us in the middle of the ocean. We saw her coming from 15 miles back (a glow on the horizon) and we could have read a book by her lights when she passed.

And finally, Cabo. Everyone warned us that this tourist/cruise ship city would be best left in the rearview mirror. On the contrary, we thoroughly enjoyed the bars, restaurants and night life and while it is supposed to be very expensive for Mexico we thought $2 beers were perfectly reasonable. The cruise ships loaded up and headed off each evening at 5PM so they were not much of a problem. We spent 4 nights in Cabo much to our delight. We took a night in a marina and shared a slip with Nicholas Cage on his yacht Weston (Lisa Marie once threw a $65,000 engagement ring off of Weston).

I’m putting this e-mail together as we sail on calm seas under sunny skies. The crew has headed home, and our next two anchorages promise to be small, remote, warm and peaceful. We just had to get past the excitement to get here.

Life is good.

Puerto Salina to Cabo

Buenas dias de Los Cabos. We arrived safely in Cabo San Lucas on Thursday afternoon after an exciting 10 day trip from Puerto Salinas, Mexico.

Some details: We (Tom, Andrea, Steve, Connie) left Puerto Salinas mid afternoon on Monday the 29th. We were joining the Baja Ha Ha group for the sail to Cabo, but we were some 40 miles down course from the rest of the boats so we spent the afternoon sailing slowly, getting used to the boat, cruising around the Island of Todos Santos off Ensenada, and generally relaxing. We headed west around 6 PM and eventually reached a point about 70 nautical miles off shore on this leg of the trip. Day 2 brought high winds (18 - 25 kts) and following seas and we quickly found out about old/damaged equipment on the boat that had not become apparent during our summer sailing in light winds. On this first leg of the trip to Turtle Bay (360 miles south of San Diego) we managed to explode a block, break two shackles, and shred two reefing lines (lines used to shorten sail in large winds). We were never in trouble, but we spent a lot of time running around the decks in the middle of the night. Turtle Bay was a very welcome sight when we motored into the anchorage on Wednesday evening some 12 hours ahead of schedule thanks to the strong, favorable winds.

Turtle Bay is a dusty little town that boasts two beach side bars, narrow dirt streets, and lots of concrete block construction. We later discovered that this is indeed a "typical Mexican village". Our visit began inauspiciously when our premier crew member slipped on the forward deck while anchoring and separated his shoulder. Fortunately we were able to take advantage of one of the great assets of the Ha Ha rally.. the presence of multiple retired doctors, nurses and physical trainers. Steve had both immediate attention and strong pharmaceuticals to ease the pain. We soon discovered that an arm sling is probably one of the best ways to meet people on this trip. Everyone wanted to know how Steve was doing. Drugs, alcohol, sympathy? He was doing fine.

 

We were in the Bay for three nights (one bonus night because of the early arrival) and the third night was a huge pot luck beach party for about 150 boats with about 600 people. Access to Turtle Bay by road involves more than 70 miles of unpaved Mexican desert. The town has a population of about 1000 for whom the arrival of 600 visitors at La Dia de Los Muertes (Halloween) is a really big deal.

We left Turtle Bay at 7 AM on Sunday for a 240 mile second leg to Bahia Santa Maria. On this leg the winds were lighter, we sailed downwind, and the passage was much more benign (although we did arrive in a 20 knot breeze). Night sailing downwind is difficult and we experienced a few accidental jibes which did not break, but did stress several more equipment items. If Turtle Bay was remote, Bahia Santa Maria was way, way in the middle of nowhere. No, not even in the middle. Way out. The huge bay has no town, but it did have a few crude fish huts on a bluff that the fishermen use for a few months each year. The Ha Ha had arranged for another beach party with a band and food. The band came from La Paz (150 miles?) and the food came from the town of San Carlos. To get the food, beer and music to the beach the caterer? had trucked everything 20 miles out of San Carlos, barged across a river, and then driven 30 miles along the beach on the back side of the sand spit to reach Bahia Santa Maria.

The surf was pretty large on this bay and we got to experience the rolling swells of the Pacific throughout the night and into the next morning. Because of the large surf between us and the beach the fisherman had brought 4 pangas (20 foot boats with large, 150 hp motors) to get everyone ashore. The surf was a just little too big for the dinghys although several people managed to get ashore in the larger dinghys (and several people also dumped their inflatable dinghys trying).
Adventure Moment: As the party was winding down about 4 PM people started heading back to the boats. Our whole crew got back safely with a flying jump in a panga as we crossed the surf from a small lagoon. Unfortunately about 70 people were still on shore when darkness fell and the pangas could no longer operate because the drivers could not see the surf to time the waves for the crossing. All of those people ended staying ashore for the night. They had plenty of beer, but sleeping in wet bathing suits and tee shirts on the ground was not the highlight of their trip.

All of the stragglers got off the beach the following morning and the fleet left for Cabo San Lucas around 8 AM. This was a great sail with the spinnaker flying, and we were making great time when the winds began to fall in the early evening. That was when Tom really screwed up. I elected to fly our light air spinnaker in what was not quite light air. We wrapped the spinnaker and then shredded it completely (all while listening to Andrea tell me repeatedly "I told you so!".). In the process of shredding a perfectly good sail we had to resort to starting the engines to control the boat and that was when we hit something submerged in the water. Since we were almost 100 miles off shore in about 4000 feet of water we are pretty sure it wasn't the bottom, but that's all we are sure of. Ripped up a new propeller (just installed, 15 days of use) and ripped the lock down mount out of the boat. Think hole. Think panic. Think oh-oh. And remember this all started with an "I told you so!"

Winds were down, we were not taking on water and we managed to sail through the night until the winds died completely the following AM. So we motored. We put about 6 hours on the one remaining engine as the temperatures climbed radically. 95 degrees for the first time on this trip. We had no wind approaching Cabo on Thursday afternoon when we blew out our last (up 'til now) piece of equipment. We had either purchased a boat with a defective traveler or we had stressed it a little too much, but the traveler on our mainsail exploded. A real attention getter, and a part that will prevent us from sailing very much until we can fix it or jury rig a substitute

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Cabo has been fun. Very much a loud, tourist oriented, cruise ship port of call type of town. We land partied at the infamous Squid Roe, beach partied on the sands, snorkled the nearby reefs and finally, after 2 nights on anchor and 13 days from our last marina, we put the lines ashore in the Cabo Marina to wash the boat, drop off crew, fix things as best we could and get a little internet time. I'm sitting in a beautiful little bar, with satellite TV getting ready for NFL Sunday (unless Andrea finds me).

  

Next stops: Anchorages at Los Frailes and Los Muertes on the southern tip of Baja and then upwind to the cruiser friendly town of La Paz (as opposed to the fishing boat friendly town of Cabo).
P.S. I see where our California gas dollars went. There are two boats here named Mr Terrible. Huge boats. Mr Terrible (the little one) is 110 feet. Mr Terrible (the big one) is 150 feet. Monster boats both owned by Terrible Herbst. This could be you, David.

Adios

 

With months to prepare and lots of time to write e-mails I, of course, waited until the last minute to contact all of you. Andrea and I are in Mexico (Ensenada) ready to begin a two month long sail down the Mexican Baja and across to the mainland. We would like to let all of you know where we are and what we are doing during the course of this trip, and we will be trying to drop an e-mail at least once every two weeks along the way. First item: If you DON'T want to hear about our adventures, raucous good times, picturesque anchorages, beautiful sunsets, new friends, etc. you should just click the reply button on your e-mail and say NO WAY, JOSE!! Otherwise you are on our e-mail list for this adventure. Second item: If you are unfamiliar with Mexican geography get down to Triple A and get a Mexican map. We are going to be in some small places, but we would like you to be able to keep up with the trip. If you are really good with the computer Google Earth can supplant those old road maps.

Of course I like to brag about the good parts of the trip but I have to start this one with the minor setbacks. First, we showed up on the boat last week to find sand everywhere on the boat, and I mean "everywhere". The Santa Ana winds that fueled the San Diego fires filled the boat with sand and we spent the first three days of this trip just cleaning. On top of that our totally reliable refrigeration system decided to stop working (coincidence or cause?). Yes, warm beer. Emergencia. Still working on that.

Today (Sunday, October 28) we attended the skippers meeting and crew party in San Diego. We leave tomorrow AM on the 800 mile, 10 day sail to Cabo San Lucas with the Baja Ha Ha group. 150 boats, 600 sailors, free rum at Turtle Bay and Bahia Santa Maria and, hopefully, lots of warm weather and downwind sailing. We have crew on board: Steve Shugart and Conni Butler, friends from Aptos, who will sail with us on this first leg of the trip. Steve and Conni will fly home from Cabo in early November while we continue on.

We expect our next e-mail stop will be Cabo. Until then... no one in the office, Tony is trying to run the fantasy football team, we don't get phone calls, and WE ARE ON VACATION!!! :)