April 7-17, 2013 Impressions of Banderas Bay; La Cruz, Bucerias, Puerto Vallarta
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle is a sleepy little village with dusty cobblestone streets, except for the one main road from the bus stop to the marina. That one has been paved with cement brick. The business of the town revolves around the cruisers. There are tiny restaurants on every corner, many so small that the tables are set in the street. A number of laundromats and small grocery stores. Ships chandlery, boat yard and sailmaker along the waterfront along with a fish market and the port captain. The longer we are here the more we like it. Although it is small, almost everything we need can be found here. One of the more delightful discoveries is YaYas restaurant. I have no idea what their food is like but they have an entire wall of books whit a sign saying “take what you want and leave what you are finished with”. I go through dozens of paperback mysteries in the two weeks that we are here. (One of the reasons that I am so far behind in my blog, when I get up at 3am, I read instead of writing.)
Philos is another cruisers hang out. Owned by an American who somehow just stayed here, it features live music and great pizza as well as internet and showers and a few rooms in case you just need to get off of the boat for a while. One night while we were here there was a birthday party for “Captain Ron” He was 97 years old and still a wonderful dancer. He was dressed in his Canadian Air Force uniform and charmed us with his war stories, including the time he and his crew rescued the crew of a russian submarine.
Alan is busy with boat projects and not interested in exploring so I take off by myself on the bus several times. One day I take the bus all the way to the end of the line in Puerto Vallarta and spend the day wandering. I order a cup of coffee and a pastry in a small shop and am given a mug of water, hot from the microwave, and a jar of Nescafe. I finally find a pair of white pants that I have been wanting. (I wore the seat out of my other ones) When lunch time comes, I ask a shopkeeper for someplace to get cheap tacos and am escorted across the street and into the back room of what looks like a beauty shop. This seems to be where the locals eat. There is one table and a tiled kitchen and a steady stream of people coming and going. I add a bowl of pizole soup to my order of tacos. Wonderful.
The other village along this side of the bay in Bucerias, about halfway between La Cruz and Puerto Vallarta. While Puerto Vallarta is the American tourist destination and La Cruz serves American and Canadian cruisers, Brucerias is a bustling Mexican village catering to Mexican and Central American tourists. Huichol indians display their handicrafts under the trees lining the median of the main street down to the beach. On the side streets are stalls with the usual tourist hats, blouses, jewlery and pottery. The beach is lined with open air restaurants and a man is offering horseback rides on the beach. There is a plaza with a small church. I am there on Sunday evening and a service is being conducted in the plaza. The slow circle dance with its singing and clapping contrasts with mariachi music and rock guitar coming from the restaurants.
La Cruz is a cruisers village. This is the jumping off place for the “Pacific Puddle Jump” to the South Pacific. Boats start gathering here in October and November each year. By February the bay is packed. There are seminars and parties. The boat yards are working around the clock. Restaurants are hopping. Then in March they start to leave one by one or in small groups. Bound for the next adventure. By the time we arrive in April it is the very end of the weather window. We meet old friends from earlier in our voyages and then say good-bye to them again. Each day more and more boats leave, either for the South Pacific or back up to the Sea of Cortez for the summer. A few will spend the summer here in one of the marinas. We are one of the last boats here that is not planning to stay for the summer.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
April, 2012 Gecko Tale
My wish list on Amazon has included a gecko from the beginning. They are small, cute, quiet and eat bugs. Sounds like the perfect pet for a boat heading for the tropics. I can’t have a cat or a dog or even a bird but a gecko would be perfect, a pair would be even better. Unfortunately, no one gave me a gecko as a good-bye gift. Audrey managed to find a hedgehog for Nick, but no gecko for me.
So off we set, geckoless. Each new place that we stopped, I would check for geckos, on the walls, on the rocks. No luck. Lots of iguanas but no geckos. Then 6 months later in La Cruz, at a little street restaurant called Twins I spotted a gecko on the wall. I am sure they thought I was crazy but I managed to convince the owners that I really wanted to have one. They said that they had lots of them in their house and would bring me several the next night if they could catch them.
The next evening back at the restaurant, they had managed to capture one, a lovely pale orange color about 6 inches long! Dinner was filled with discussions of what to name it. Was it a male or female? The restaurant owner announced that it was female, based on what I have no idea. I finally settled on Margarita Isabel, a name longer that she was. Izzy for short, or possibly Maggie. After dinner we set off back to the boat in the dingy with Izzy safely in a plastic cup with holes in the lid. Back on board, I carefully took the lid off and in a flash she was gone. Disappeared somewhere into the nooks and crannies. Boy, they are fast!
Now that I actually had a gecko on board I started to worry. Would she live? Would she find enough to eat? I wanted her to catch bugs but the truth is, we don’t have many bugs aboard except for fruit flies once in a while. An internet search was not much help. Most sites said to let them go but I could not do that since I had no idea where she was. Would she get squished by things shifting as we sailed? They say geckos chatter at night but I never heard her. Was she still there? Maybe she needed a friend to talk to. Maybe she was lonely. A week later I went home to the States for a visit with no idea whether she was alive or dead. A week later Alan also headed home to the States, leaving the boat all closed up.
I got back to Rhapsody first, several days before Alan. One quiet evening all of a sudden there was Maggie sitting on the bathroom counter. Gone with a flick of the tail but alive and apparently happy. I saw her a couple of times after that, always in the bathroom. Coming back from dinner one evening, There was a baby gecko on the dock, only an inch long. I caught it and let it loose on the boat. I have not seen it since either and I still do not head any chattering at night but I am hoping they will find each other and be friends. If one is a male and one a female we may have baby geckos some day. Meanwhile, I am always looking for another one, just in case.
My wish list on Amazon has included a gecko from the beginning. They are small, cute, quiet and eat bugs. Sounds like the perfect pet for a boat heading for the tropics. I can’t have a cat or a dog or even a bird but a gecko would be perfect, a pair would be even better. Unfortunately, no one gave me a gecko as a good-bye gift. Audrey managed to find a hedgehog for Nick, but no gecko for me.
So off we set, geckoless. Each new place that we stopped, I would check for geckos, on the walls, on the rocks. No luck. Lots of iguanas but no geckos. Then 6 months later in La Cruz, at a little street restaurant called Twins I spotted a gecko on the wall. I am sure they thought I was crazy but I managed to convince the owners that I really wanted to have one. They said that they had lots of them in their house and would bring me several the next night if they could catch them.
The next evening back at the restaurant, they had managed to capture one, a lovely pale orange color about 6 inches long! Dinner was filled with discussions of what to name it. Was it a male or female? The restaurant owner announced that it was female, based on what I have no idea. I finally settled on Margarita Isabel, a name longer that she was. Izzy for short, or possibly Maggie. After dinner we set off back to the boat in the dingy with Izzy safely in a plastic cup with holes in the lid. Back on board, I carefully took the lid off and in a flash she was gone. Disappeared somewhere into the nooks and crannies. Boy, they are fast!
Now that I actually had a gecko on board I started to worry. Would she live? Would she find enough to eat? I wanted her to catch bugs but the truth is, we don’t have many bugs aboard except for fruit flies once in a while. An internet search was not much help. Most sites said to let them go but I could not do that since I had no idea where she was. Would she get squished by things shifting as we sailed? They say geckos chatter at night but I never heard her. Was she still there? Maybe she needed a friend to talk to. Maybe she was lonely. A week later I went home to the States for a visit with no idea whether she was alive or dead. A week later Alan also headed home to the States, leaving the boat all closed up.
I got back to Rhapsody first, several days before Alan. One quiet evening all of a sudden there was Maggie sitting on the bathroom counter. Gone with a flick of the tail but alive and apparently happy. I saw her a couple of times after that, always in the bathroom. Coming back from dinner one evening, There was a baby gecko on the dock, only an inch long. I caught it and let it loose on the boat. I have not seen it since either and I still do not head any chattering at night but I am hoping they will find each other and be friends. If one is a male and one a female we may have baby geckos some day. Meanwhile, I am always looking for another one, just in case.
April 6, 2013, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Wind and stuff
Not very bright and certainly not very early the morning after our midnight arrival, we looked out to see where we were. Not too bad. We are at the edge of a large group of anchored boats, quite a long way from shore. We have slept through the morning radio cruisers check in but we think we recognize several boats that we have seen before. We can see a small town, the entrance to the marina with the masts of boats behind the breakwater, a lovely curve of beach running off into the distance toward the large hotels at the head of the bay. The bay itself is 20 miles across and 25 miles deep, an almost perfect U shape. After a leisurely breakfast we plan to head for shore to check in with the port captain and look around the town. Unfortunately, by the time we are ready to go the wind has picked up and is gusting to 20 mph. There are whitecaps everywhere and we are a long way from shore. Guess we will just stay on the boat today and try again tomorrow.
During the night the wind finally dies and in the morning it is dead calm. This proves to be the pattern the entire time we are in La Cruz. Calm in the early morning but with really strong winds in the afternoon. We learn to leave early if we want to go to shore or wait until later in the evening. Once or twice we brave the afternoon gale but it is a wild ride bouncing over the waves with spray flying at our top speed of about 2 mph. We do make one attempt to move the boat in closer but it is really shallow here and there are a lot of other boats so we end up pretty much at the same place. Every evening when we take the long ride back across the water to the boat Alan says that he is going to move in closer and every morning it seems like just too much trouble and so we stay where we are.
The solar powered motor on the dingy is performing nicely. However, one memorable afternoon we had neglected to charge it. Alan dropped me ashore and headed back to Rhapsody. About 100 years from the boat the engine stopped. He was out of power ad had forgotten to bring the oars. He tried paddling with his hands but that was not going to work. The wind was blowing, of course and he eventually drifted down onto another boat and tied on. No one was aboard but the boat was open so he let himself in and helped himself to their radio to call for help. Someone cane to his rescue and towed him back to Rhapsody. It is nice to be part of a helpful community.
Several afternoons we are entertained by wind boarders. Standing on what looks like a snowboard and harnessed to a large sail, they fly across the waves, jumping 20 feet into the air and going for yards before they come down. Rhapsody seems to be anchored right in the wind pattern and they dodge and weave back and forth across the stern for hours.
Apparently it is not uncommon for boats to come loose here with all of the wind. We hear references on the morning radio net to a couple of boats that were rescued a few days ago. One afternoon, shortly after we arrive the radio comes alive with concerns about another boat that seems to be drifting ashore. No one can locate the owner. Dingys are launched, someone takes command. More dingys called for and more tow line. Alan takes our dingy and goes to help but with only a 2 hp motor he is not much use. Despite the best efforts, it is too late. By the time the owner is located at a restaurant in town the boat is on the beach. A day later it is gone. The port captain gave the owner 24 hours to clear the beach and he decided it was not worth the money to fix it, so a crew came and cut it apart and took the pieces away. So sad. The owner pitched a tent on the beach and offered the bits and pieces that he had salvaged for sale. We took a walk up the beach a few days later to see how he was doing. There was not much left but he seemed surprisingly cheerful. He had had a rope on his anchor rather than chain and it just parted. It was his first sailboat, a small, old one. He was planning on buying another and trying again.
Once again we are glad we spent a lot of money on a state-of-the-art anchor and chain but Alan is not satisfied. One of the projects that has been on his list since we left home is to add additional rope to the anchor chain. We have 275’ of chain on the main anchor and 75’ on the back-up one. He wants to up that to 300 feet on each. When you anchor you are supposed to let out at least 4 times the depth of chain. The stronger the wind, the more extra you let out, potentially up to 10 times the depth. We typically anchor in 25-30 feet of water. Also, there should be rope on the end on the chain so that it can be fastened to the boat. The problem and been how to attach that extra rope to the end of the chain in a way that will be really strong and also able to fit through the small hole from below deck and wrap smoothly around the windlass. After hours of research he has finally come up with an answer. It will be a long splice, a foot long, weaving the chain and rope together. Off we go to town to buy hundreds of feet of very expensive rope. Back on board, all of the chain from the back-up anchor is hauled onto the deck. The new rope is spliced onto the end and the end of the rope is secured to the boat and rope and chain are fed back down into the chain locker. Then the back-up anchor is dropped overboard and the good anchor hauled up and the process repeated. When he is all done, we have 300 feet of line on each anchor. Enough to hold us in any gale. It is not going to be us drifting up onto the beach. Time for a high 5 and a beer.
Not very bright and certainly not very early the morning after our midnight arrival, we looked out to see where we were. Not too bad. We are at the edge of a large group of anchored boats, quite a long way from shore. We have slept through the morning radio cruisers check in but we think we recognize several boats that we have seen before. We can see a small town, the entrance to the marina with the masts of boats behind the breakwater, a lovely curve of beach running off into the distance toward the large hotels at the head of the bay. The bay itself is 20 miles across and 25 miles deep, an almost perfect U shape. After a leisurely breakfast we plan to head for shore to check in with the port captain and look around the town. Unfortunately, by the time we are ready to go the wind has picked up and is gusting to 20 mph. There are whitecaps everywhere and we are a long way from shore. Guess we will just stay on the boat today and try again tomorrow.
During the night the wind finally dies and in the morning it is dead calm. This proves to be the pattern the entire time we are in La Cruz. Calm in the early morning but with really strong winds in the afternoon. We learn to leave early if we want to go to shore or wait until later in the evening. Once or twice we brave the afternoon gale but it is a wild ride bouncing over the waves with spray flying at our top speed of about 2 mph. We do make one attempt to move the boat in closer but it is really shallow here and there are a lot of other boats so we end up pretty much at the same place. Every evening when we take the long ride back across the water to the boat Alan says that he is going to move in closer and every morning it seems like just too much trouble and so we stay where we are.
The solar powered motor on the dingy is performing nicely. However, one memorable afternoon we had neglected to charge it. Alan dropped me ashore and headed back to Rhapsody. About 100 years from the boat the engine stopped. He was out of power ad had forgotten to bring the oars. He tried paddling with his hands but that was not going to work. The wind was blowing, of course and he eventually drifted down onto another boat and tied on. No one was aboard but the boat was open so he let himself in and helped himself to their radio to call for help. Someone cane to his rescue and towed him back to Rhapsody. It is nice to be part of a helpful community.
Several afternoons we are entertained by wind boarders. Standing on what looks like a snowboard and harnessed to a large sail, they fly across the waves, jumping 20 feet into the air and going for yards before they come down. Rhapsody seems to be anchored right in the wind pattern and they dodge and weave back and forth across the stern for hours.
Apparently it is not uncommon for boats to come loose here with all of the wind. We hear references on the morning radio net to a couple of boats that were rescued a few days ago. One afternoon, shortly after we arrive the radio comes alive with concerns about another boat that seems to be drifting ashore. No one can locate the owner. Dingys are launched, someone takes command. More dingys called for and more tow line. Alan takes our dingy and goes to help but with only a 2 hp motor he is not much use. Despite the best efforts, it is too late. By the time the owner is located at a restaurant in town the boat is on the beach. A day later it is gone. The port captain gave the owner 24 hours to clear the beach and he decided it was not worth the money to fix it, so a crew came and cut it apart and took the pieces away. So sad. The owner pitched a tent on the beach and offered the bits and pieces that he had salvaged for sale. We took a walk up the beach a few days later to see how he was doing. There was not much left but he seemed surprisingly cheerful. He had had a rope on his anchor rather than chain and it just parted. It was his first sailboat, a small, old one. He was planning on buying another and trying again.
Once again we are glad we spent a lot of money on a state-of-the-art anchor and chain but Alan is not satisfied. One of the projects that has been on his list since we left home is to add additional rope to the anchor chain. We have 275’ of chain on the main anchor and 75’ on the back-up one. He wants to up that to 300 feet on each. When you anchor you are supposed to let out at least 4 times the depth of chain. The stronger the wind, the more extra you let out, potentially up to 10 times the depth. We typically anchor in 25-30 feet of water. Also, there should be rope on the end on the chain so that it can be fastened to the boat. The problem and been how to attach that extra rope to the end of the chain in a way that will be really strong and also able to fit through the small hole from below deck and wrap smoothly around the windlass. After hours of research he has finally come up with an answer. It will be a long splice, a foot long, weaving the chain and rope together. Off we go to town to buy hundreds of feet of very expensive rope. Back on board, all of the chain from the back-up anchor is hauled onto the deck. The new rope is spliced onto the end and the end of the rope is secured to the boat and rope and chain are fed back down into the chain locker. Then the back-up anchor is dropped overboard and the good anchor hauled up and the process repeated. When he is all done, we have 300 feet of line on each anchor. Enough to hold us in any gale. It is not going to be us drifting up onto the beach. Time for a high 5 and a beer.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
April 4-5, 2013 Chacala to Banderas Bay
We left Chacala around noon heading for Banderas Bay. This is the large bay where Puerto Vallarta is located. We had planned for it to be an overnight trip with light winds, putting us there just at dawn. I am not sure what we were thinking because it is only 30 miles. Even allowing for an offshore tack or two, we would have been there in the early evening. I think Alan was just anxious to be sailing again. Anyway, just after sunset we realized we were almost there, unfortunately. The moon would not be up until after midnight and there were reported to be a number of unmarked rocks and rocky islands. I was definitely not anxious to navigate our way through all these obstacles in he dark, but we also did not want to just sail around in circles until dawn. At least Puerto Vallarta is not a large commercial port so we did not have to worry too much about freighter traffic.
Alan decided we were going in. We lined up all of our charts and cruising guides and gps devices and studied them closely. Alan put waypoints into the Navionics system. We turned on the engine and the radar and began to feel our way around Punta de Mita. I was a nervous wreck, but in fact it all went smoothly. Quite soon we were around the point and the lights of the bay were everywhere. Now we just had to find the anchorage. We had decided to anchor at La Cruz, which is a small town on the north west curve of the bay, at least until we got our bearings. According to the charts we should be there. In the dark it was almost impossible to distinguish the boat anchor lights from the shore lights, especially since we had no idea what the anchorage looked like in the daylight. I was on the bow peering into the dark looking for the other boats which should be somewhere around here. All I could see was what looked like a long line of street lights on the coast. Suddenly my eyes did a shift, like when you can suddenly see an optical illusion, and I realized that what I thought was shore lights were actually boat anchor lights. They were all around us. Somehow we found what seemed to be an empty space and dropped the anchor. It will be interesting to see where we are in the morning.
One more adventure under our belt, “Entering a Strange Harbor in the Dark”
We left Chacala around noon heading for Banderas Bay. This is the large bay where Puerto Vallarta is located. We had planned for it to be an overnight trip with light winds, putting us there just at dawn. I am not sure what we were thinking because it is only 30 miles. Even allowing for an offshore tack or two, we would have been there in the early evening. I think Alan was just anxious to be sailing again. Anyway, just after sunset we realized we were almost there, unfortunately. The moon would not be up until after midnight and there were reported to be a number of unmarked rocks and rocky islands. I was definitely not anxious to navigate our way through all these obstacles in he dark, but we also did not want to just sail around in circles until dawn. At least Puerto Vallarta is not a large commercial port so we did not have to worry too much about freighter traffic.
Alan decided we were going in. We lined up all of our charts and cruising guides and gps devices and studied them closely. Alan put waypoints into the Navionics system. We turned on the engine and the radar and began to feel our way around Punta de Mita. I was a nervous wreck, but in fact it all went smoothly. Quite soon we were around the point and the lights of the bay were everywhere. Now we just had to find the anchorage. We had decided to anchor at La Cruz, which is a small town on the north west curve of the bay, at least until we got our bearings. According to the charts we should be there. In the dark it was almost impossible to distinguish the boat anchor lights from the shore lights, especially since we had no idea what the anchorage looked like in the daylight. I was on the bow peering into the dark looking for the other boats which should be somewhere around here. All I could see was what looked like a long line of street lights on the coast. Suddenly my eyes did a shift, like when you can suddenly see an optical illusion, and I realized that what I thought was shore lights were actually boat anchor lights. They were all around us. Somehow we found what seemed to be an empty space and dropped the anchor. It will be interesting to see where we are in the morning.
One more adventure under our belt, “Entering a Strange Harbor in the Dark”
April 2, 2013 Matanchen Bay to Chacala
Great drama on the radio. There is a boat missing. Last heard from taking on water. of of Isla Isabel. Mexican navy alerted. Coast guard contacted. Everyone is calling, trying to make contact. After 48+ hours he showed up safe and sound. His water intake on his engine had stopped working and he had turned off his radio to save power. He had no idea he was “missiing”. It was nice to see the community spring into action and a lesson there. If you have promised to communicate every 4 hours, make sure you do so.
We left Matachen Bay while all this was going on, without even going ashore and headed south to Chacala. An easy 5 hour sail put us in the bay in the late afternoon. There is no harbor or marina here, just a lovely bay with a sandy beach and a line of palapa restaurants lining the beach. A number of other boats were anchored just outside the surf line so we found an empty spot and dropped anchor next to them. This turned out to be a mistake. We were too close to shore and and the waves and winds had us rocking and rolling all night long. However, the anchor did not drag and we were safe and sound the next morning.
After breakfast we launched the dingy and headed to shore. The dingy dock was a steep rough cement wall with dozens of pangas tied to it. We managed to squeeze under the mooring lines and between the boats and into a space next to the wall where a crumbling set of steps came down to the water and tie up. We have been so glad that we decided to get this folding boat and leave the beautiful sabot at home. It is made of a tough, flexible plastic and seems to be impervious to getting banged into cement walls and hauled up rocky beaches. The sabot would have been destroyed by now. As usual, Alan took the power tiller off of the motor and stowed it in his backpack. Who is going to steal an engine that is only half there?
Our first job was to find the port captain and check in. While there is no fee, Mexico still expects cruisers to check in and out every time they stop. I am not sure what they do with the information and I am sure a lot of boats don’t bother but we always do. According to the cruising guide, the office was just up the road from the dingy dock. Sure enough, there it was, but it was locked up tight. It is not a weekend. It is only 11am. Where is he? A group of men sitting under a tree thought he was probably down by the dock so we headed back that way. There were several people in the shade, eating and talking. One of them was dressed in a starched white shirt and dark blue pants. That had to be him. Sure enough. He escorted us back up to the office and unlocked several gates and doors. Once in his office, he examined our paperwork at length and made several photocopies. Papers were stamped and handed back to us. We were done and free to go. As we headed to the beach we saw the port captain re-lock the building and head back down the road back to his friends. We were never actually able to find him to check out when it was time to leave.
Chacala turned out to be an absolutely lovely little town. We followed a dirt road along the rocky shoreline, past brightly colored vacation homes and small hotels to the main beach. First thing we saw was a man selling oysters, right there on the beach. Alan could not resist. 10 minutes later, we were seated on plastic chairs in the sand, under a tree with a dozen oysters, salt, lime and a large bottle of Pacifico in front of us. Perfect. We spent the rest of the day wandering through the town or sitting on the beach. In the afternoon we found a table at the last restaurant down the beach and settled in for a feast.
The restaurant was completely full with many families looking like they had settled in for the day. The palapa roof extended out onto the sand almost to water’s edge. Kids ran from the water to the tables and back again. A few dogs joined the fun. Vendors hawked their wares from table to table. There were no walls but the rear of the restaurant where we found a seat had a brick floor raised several feet off of the level of the sand to the level of the street behind it. There was a brightly painted outdoor shower under flowering trees with a continuous stream of children rinsing off the sand. A small kitchen and a large barbecue pit where the fish was grilled. to one side of the grill was a pile of fresh fish. Alan had grilled lobster and I had shrimp tacos. Plenty of beer and an order of ceviche to share made the perfect dinner.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
March 31, 2013, Easter Sunday, Isla Isabel to San Blas
It is only 40 miles from Isla Isabel to San Blas so we had planned to leave early in the morning and do it as a day sail. Because of the sudden south wind we ended up leaving at 3pm so it will be an overnight sail. If we have a brisk wind we will get there at midnight so this is one case where less wind is better, and that is a good thing because no sooner do we clear the island than the wind drops to 3 knots. Then it keeps dropping until by sunset it is down to 1. Eventually it creeps back up to about 2 and we settle in for another long quiet overnight sail. There is a high overcast so not many stars. The moon comes up about midnight. The auto tiller holds the course so there is not much to do on my watch but sit and read.
April 1, Monday
The next day dawns clear and calm and we are still coasting along at about 1 knot. The coastline along here is really flat and the shallow water extends way offshore so we have set a course to keep us well off shore. Every once in a while I turn on the plotter to check the depth. At one point it reads 2 fathoms which seems impossible this far from land. Luckily it sorted itself out before I panicked and woke up Alan.
The entrance to San Blas harbor is supposed to be very treacherous, with a sand bar across a very narrow channel. First time visitors are advised to get a pilot to lead them in. The town is also known for having hundred of no-see-ums which eat you alive at dusk and dawn. Because of both of these factors, our plan was to anchor in the bay south of town and take the bus into town for the day. However, it is high tide and so calm that we decide to go ahead into the harbor and anchor there. I do my radio negotiation in Spanish with the port captain. There is no pilot and he seems surprised that we are planning to anchor but gives us the OK to enter. The channel is indeed very narrow and the depth drops to less than 2 fathoms over the bar, but once we are in, it holds steady between 2 and 3. We pass 2 very new looking dredging machines. According to the charts, we are to follow a long narrow channel past the shrimp fleet and anchor just opposite the marina. In order to really see where he is going in close quarters, Alan needs to stand up to steer. However, when he is standing he cannot see the depth gage. So I sit by the plotter and call off the numbers to him when it is shallow. because the boom is between us, we cannot see each other and I can not hear him but he can hear me. And so we glide along until we are just at the fuel dock and opposite where we are supposed to anchor. Suddenly the depth starts to drop from 2.2 to 2.1, 2.0, 1.9, 1.8, 1.5, 1.2. (I get real nervous whenever it gets below 2 but I trust that Alan knows what he is doing.) 1.1, 1.0, he still does not stop. .9, .8, .7, and there is a shudder and jerk and we are aground!
For some reason, it takes him several minutes to realize what has happened. It is not possible that it is that shallow right by the fuel dock and opposite the marina full of other sailboats. Apparently the channel is VERY narrow here and runs right along the shore. So here we are, stuck, really stuck, crosswise in the channel, at high tide, which means there is no chance of just waiting for the tide to lift us off. He tries going forward, reverse, turning, nothing. People are gathering on shore to watch the excitement but don’t seem to have any bright ideas. I can’t get the marina office on the radio. Eventually I put out a call for “anyone who speaks English is San Blas harbor” That raises one boat who is watching us from the marina and can’t understand why we got stuck. Finally two guys show up in a ponga and offer to tow us. Ropes are tossed and ties, engines rev’ed, nothing. The rudder is now jammed in the mud. Meanwhile, we seem to have become the tourist attraction of the day. People are gathering on the shore and several small boats load up with passengers and cruise around. The panga guy eventually gets out his radio and soon another boat shows up. With the two of them pulling together, they finally get us free. They seem to think we want go into the marina but I have had enough of San Blas harbor and we head back down the channel and out across the bar again.
Three miles south of town, we anchor is a wide, shallow bay lined with palaba restaurants and watch a glorious sunset while drinking the last of the warm beer. As a final end to this crazy day, we get a radio enquiry from another boat wanting to know if we have seen the boat, Magic Places. Apparently it was taking on water on it’s way down from Mazatlan and has not been heard from since yesterday.
It is only 40 miles from Isla Isabel to San Blas so we had planned to leave early in the morning and do it as a day sail. Because of the sudden south wind we ended up leaving at 3pm so it will be an overnight sail. If we have a brisk wind we will get there at midnight so this is one case where less wind is better, and that is a good thing because no sooner do we clear the island than the wind drops to 3 knots. Then it keeps dropping until by sunset it is down to 1. Eventually it creeps back up to about 2 and we settle in for another long quiet overnight sail. There is a high overcast so not many stars. The moon comes up about midnight. The auto tiller holds the course so there is not much to do on my watch but sit and read.
April 1, Monday
The next day dawns clear and calm and we are still coasting along at about 1 knot. The coastline along here is really flat and the shallow water extends way offshore so we have set a course to keep us well off shore. Every once in a while I turn on the plotter to check the depth. At one point it reads 2 fathoms which seems impossible this far from land. Luckily it sorted itself out before I panicked and woke up Alan.
The entrance to San Blas harbor is supposed to be very treacherous, with a sand bar across a very narrow channel. First time visitors are advised to get a pilot to lead them in. The town is also known for having hundred of no-see-ums which eat you alive at dusk and dawn. Because of both of these factors, our plan was to anchor in the bay south of town and take the bus into town for the day. However, it is high tide and so calm that we decide to go ahead into the harbor and anchor there. I do my radio negotiation in Spanish with the port captain. There is no pilot and he seems surprised that we are planning to anchor but gives us the OK to enter. The channel is indeed very narrow and the depth drops to less than 2 fathoms over the bar, but once we are in, it holds steady between 2 and 3. We pass 2 very new looking dredging machines. According to the charts, we are to follow a long narrow channel past the shrimp fleet and anchor just opposite the marina. In order to really see where he is going in close quarters, Alan needs to stand up to steer. However, when he is standing he cannot see the depth gage. So I sit by the plotter and call off the numbers to him when it is shallow. because the boom is between us, we cannot see each other and I can not hear him but he can hear me. And so we glide along until we are just at the fuel dock and opposite where we are supposed to anchor. Suddenly the depth starts to drop from 2.2 to 2.1, 2.0, 1.9, 1.8, 1.5, 1.2. (I get real nervous whenever it gets below 2 but I trust that Alan knows what he is doing.) 1.1, 1.0, he still does not stop. .9, .8, .7, and there is a shudder and jerk and we are aground!
For some reason, it takes him several minutes to realize what has happened. It is not possible that it is that shallow right by the fuel dock and opposite the marina full of other sailboats. Apparently the channel is VERY narrow here and runs right along the shore. So here we are, stuck, really stuck, crosswise in the channel, at high tide, which means there is no chance of just waiting for the tide to lift us off. He tries going forward, reverse, turning, nothing. People are gathering on shore to watch the excitement but don’t seem to have any bright ideas. I can’t get the marina office on the radio. Eventually I put out a call for “anyone who speaks English is San Blas harbor” That raises one boat who is watching us from the marina and can’t understand why we got stuck. Finally two guys show up in a ponga and offer to tow us. Ropes are tossed and ties, engines rev’ed, nothing. The rudder is now jammed in the mud. Meanwhile, we seem to have become the tourist attraction of the day. People are gathering on the shore and several small boats load up with passengers and cruise around. The panga guy eventually gets out his radio and soon another boat shows up. With the two of them pulling together, they finally get us free. They seem to think we want go into the marina but I have had enough of San Blas harbor and we head back down the channel and out across the bar again.
Three miles south of town, we anchor is a wide, shallow bay lined with palaba restaurants and watch a glorious sunset while drinking the last of the warm beer. As a final end to this crazy day, we get a radio enquiry from another boat wanting to know if we have seen the boat, Magic Places. Apparently it was taking on water on it’s way down from Mazatlan and has not been heard from since yesterday.
March 27, 2013, Wednesday, Mazatlan to Isla Isabel
We are finally battened down and ready to go by noon. It is about 100 miles out to Isla Isabel. With a good wind we should make it it 24 hours. Finally goodbye to Mazatlan, after all this time. We certainly never expected to stay here this long and it is good to be on the road, the sea road that is, again. After the island we will work our way down the coast to Puerto Vallarto where Alan has a reservation to fly home on 4/25. We had expected to be out of Mexico by the time his visa expired in May but the way things are going we are not going to make it so he will fly home for a week or so while I stay with the boat.
Just as we are about to raise the main sail, a pelican alights on it. It rides along with us for about 10 minutes before taking off. Apparently it had it’s eye on a fishing boat we had passed and rather than hover with it’s buddies, decided to rest until the nets were pulled in. As the catch came aboard, it was off. So all the sails were finally raised. It is a beautiful day with a south east wind of about 10 knots, temperature in the low 80s. Alan sets the wind vane and we can relax and settle in for the watch on, watch off routine. I throw the fishing line out and forget about it. I haven’t caught anything for ages. I think it must be “broken”. In the late afternoon I notice little fins in the water beside the boat. It is manta rays floating with the tips of their wings up. Suddenly they start jumping, straight up in the air, landing with a loud splash. The wind drops at sunset and we ghost along with about one knot of wind. It is calm and beautiful with an almost full moon, cool but not cold, mellow music playing. About 2 am Alan finally gives up and starts the engine, otherwise, we will end up trying to anchor at the island in the dark. The wind comes up again at dawn and we can turn the engine off finally. And so we sail on through another lovely day. The only sea life is a turtle swimming by.
4 pm and there is the island, just where it should be! We are finally figuring out this navigation business. We have been using both a handheld GPS and the Navionics program on the iPad and also plotting our position on a paper chart. The person coming on watch collects the log book and plots the last 3 positions on the chart. That way he knows where we are and what happened while he was asleep. Sometime during the night-with-no-wind, I discovered that I was getting very different reading on the 2 devices. Thank heavens for redundancy and lucky it happened when there was such light wind or I would have had us somewhere off in the middle of nowhere. Turned out I had misunderstood the iPad instructions. I think I have it now, but I still prefer the GPS.
I finally caught a fish just as we came up to the island. A beautiful mackerel, I think, about 20” long. It was hauled aboard and quickly sedated with a splash of Southern Comfort. Head cut off and hung by the tail to drain. gutted and put into the sink full of salt water to wait for dinner
According to both of our cruising guides, this is a difficult anchorage with a lot of underwater rocks and not much sand to hold the anchor. Alan has added an extra trip line and float to the anchor chain which is supposed to make it easier to get it back up if it get wrapped around the rocks. There is still a fairly brisk wind, although it drops a little in the lea of the island. There are 2 other boats already anchored here so we en up further off shore than we planned. When Alan set up the new trip line he put on 7 fathoms of line. That is 42 feet and most of the time we anchor in about 4 fathoms. This time we are in 10 fathoms and the new float immediately disappears. But the anchor finally grabs and we are set. Time to eat that fish. Tomorrow we go ashore to see the blue footed boobies.
Unfortunately during the night Alan get stomach flu so I spend the next day on the boat reading Collleen McCullough’s Morgan’s Run, a wonderful book about the settling of Australia while Alan sleeps. The following day, Good Friday, Alan is feeling better and we finally launch the dingy and go ashore. A narrow trail leads behind the fishing shacks and through the trees up to the cliffs. There are iguanas everywhere. As we reach the top we spot our first boobies just standing along the edge of the cliff. Turns out there are 3 kinds, blue footed, yellow footed and also red footed. All 3 kinds are there along the cliff along with larger frigate birds. There are so tame we get to within a few feet of them. There are babies, so soft and fuzzy white, and a couple nesting in depressions on the ground. We are on the very edge of the cliff and birds are constantly coming and going around us, launching straight down to be caught by and updraft and soar out over the ocean. For the first time I understand the lure of hang gliding.
LOTS OF PHOTOS OF BIRDS ON FACE BOOK
Back down, we head in the other direction along the beach and come to a large cement structure that should be a visitors center. Like so many projects in Mexico, it seems to have been started with a grand vision and plenty of money. There is a large roofed pavilion, a kitchen area and dining room, an AV room, offices and bathrooms. Once there were mosaics and tile counters. But apparently the money ran out and the rebar is rusting, the concrete falling off and the rooms full of debris. Now it is just a cool shady place to sit and watch the frigate birds. The trees are covered with them, males, females, nests and babies. Male frigate birds are known for red sack on their throat which can be inflated. Eventually we spot the bright red among the leaves and then see several more. The sacks are huge when inflated. They cover the entire front of the bird from beak to toes. After about an hour of watching and taking photos we head back to the beach again. Although it is interesting, I find Isla Isabel a sad place. So many of the trees are leafless and seem to be dying and there are also an awful lot of dead birds, including babies. Birds fly in the skies by the hundreds but we can’t tell what is anything they are eating. Only occasionally does one dive towards the water for a fish. One more night here. Tomorrow we will go snorkling and then take off.
Since the other 2 boats anchored here have left, we decide to move in closer to shore where the water is not quite so deep. The wind is still fairly strong but we get the anchor up successfully and anchor again, still in rocks but this time in 30 feet of water. Now that it is not submerged, our anchor float works just fine. Unfortunately this is my night to be sick. Nonetheless, we take the dingy ashore to go snorkling the next morning. We had been told that it was wonderful diving but we found the water cloudy and the fish uninteresting. We have been spoiled by Southern California diving, and Catalina and Hawaii. So we head back to the boat after about and hour and I go back to bed.
Suddenly Alan announces that the wind is strengthening and coming from the south. Captain Holly’s cruising guide, aka. Charlie’s Charts, says to get the heck out of there if there is a south wind. This is a nasty lee shore with all the rocks. In half an hour we have folded the dingy, stowed the solar panels, put away the dive stuff and cleaned up the galley and are ready to raise the anchor. It comes up smoothly, even though Alan tells me later that it was wrapped around lots of rocks. Off we go to the mainland. Next stop San Blas.
We are finally battened down and ready to go by noon. It is about 100 miles out to Isla Isabel. With a good wind we should make it it 24 hours. Finally goodbye to Mazatlan, after all this time. We certainly never expected to stay here this long and it is good to be on the road, the sea road that is, again. After the island we will work our way down the coast to Puerto Vallarto where Alan has a reservation to fly home on 4/25. We had expected to be out of Mexico by the time his visa expired in May but the way things are going we are not going to make it so he will fly home for a week or so while I stay with the boat.
Just as we are about to raise the main sail, a pelican alights on it. It rides along with us for about 10 minutes before taking off. Apparently it had it’s eye on a fishing boat we had passed and rather than hover with it’s buddies, decided to rest until the nets were pulled in. As the catch came aboard, it was off. So all the sails were finally raised. It is a beautiful day with a south east wind of about 10 knots, temperature in the low 80s. Alan sets the wind vane and we can relax and settle in for the watch on, watch off routine. I throw the fishing line out and forget about it. I haven’t caught anything for ages. I think it must be “broken”. In the late afternoon I notice little fins in the water beside the boat. It is manta rays floating with the tips of their wings up. Suddenly they start jumping, straight up in the air, landing with a loud splash. The wind drops at sunset and we ghost along with about one knot of wind. It is calm and beautiful with an almost full moon, cool but not cold, mellow music playing. About 2 am Alan finally gives up and starts the engine, otherwise, we will end up trying to anchor at the island in the dark. The wind comes up again at dawn and we can turn the engine off finally. And so we sail on through another lovely day. The only sea life is a turtle swimming by.
4 pm and there is the island, just where it should be! We are finally figuring out this navigation business. We have been using both a handheld GPS and the Navionics program on the iPad and also plotting our position on a paper chart. The person coming on watch collects the log book and plots the last 3 positions on the chart. That way he knows where we are and what happened while he was asleep. Sometime during the night-with-no-wind, I discovered that I was getting very different reading on the 2 devices. Thank heavens for redundancy and lucky it happened when there was such light wind or I would have had us somewhere off in the middle of nowhere. Turned out I had misunderstood the iPad instructions. I think I have it now, but I still prefer the GPS.
I finally caught a fish just as we came up to the island. A beautiful mackerel, I think, about 20” long. It was hauled aboard and quickly sedated with a splash of Southern Comfort. Head cut off and hung by the tail to drain. gutted and put into the sink full of salt water to wait for dinner
According to both of our cruising guides, this is a difficult anchorage with a lot of underwater rocks and not much sand to hold the anchor. Alan has added an extra trip line and float to the anchor chain which is supposed to make it easier to get it back up if it get wrapped around the rocks. There is still a fairly brisk wind, although it drops a little in the lea of the island. There are 2 other boats already anchored here so we en up further off shore than we planned. When Alan set up the new trip line he put on 7 fathoms of line. That is 42 feet and most of the time we anchor in about 4 fathoms. This time we are in 10 fathoms and the new float immediately disappears. But the anchor finally grabs and we are set. Time to eat that fish. Tomorrow we go ashore to see the blue footed boobies.
Unfortunately during the night Alan get stomach flu so I spend the next day on the boat reading Collleen McCullough’s Morgan’s Run, a wonderful book about the settling of Australia while Alan sleeps. The following day, Good Friday, Alan is feeling better and we finally launch the dingy and go ashore. A narrow trail leads behind the fishing shacks and through the trees up to the cliffs. There are iguanas everywhere. As we reach the top we spot our first boobies just standing along the edge of the cliff. Turns out there are 3 kinds, blue footed, yellow footed and also red footed. All 3 kinds are there along the cliff along with larger frigate birds. There are so tame we get to within a few feet of them. There are babies, so soft and fuzzy white, and a couple nesting in depressions on the ground. We are on the very edge of the cliff and birds are constantly coming and going around us, launching straight down to be caught by and updraft and soar out over the ocean. For the first time I understand the lure of hang gliding.
LOTS OF PHOTOS OF BIRDS ON FACE BOOK
Back down, we head in the other direction along the beach and come to a large cement structure that should be a visitors center. Like so many projects in Mexico, it seems to have been started with a grand vision and plenty of money. There is a large roofed pavilion, a kitchen area and dining room, an AV room, offices and bathrooms. Once there were mosaics and tile counters. But apparently the money ran out and the rebar is rusting, the concrete falling off and the rooms full of debris. Now it is just a cool shady place to sit and watch the frigate birds. The trees are covered with them, males, females, nests and babies. Male frigate birds are known for red sack on their throat which can be inflated. Eventually we spot the bright red among the leaves and then see several more. The sacks are huge when inflated. They cover the entire front of the bird from beak to toes. After about an hour of watching and taking photos we head back to the beach again. Although it is interesting, I find Isla Isabel a sad place. So many of the trees are leafless and seem to be dying and there are also an awful lot of dead birds, including babies. Birds fly in the skies by the hundreds but we can’t tell what is anything they are eating. Only occasionally does one dive towards the water for a fish. One more night here. Tomorrow we will go snorkling and then take off.
Since the other 2 boats anchored here have left, we decide to move in closer to shore where the water is not quite so deep. The wind is still fairly strong but we get the anchor up successfully and anchor again, still in rocks but this time in 30 feet of water. Now that it is not submerged, our anchor float works just fine. Unfortunately this is my night to be sick. Nonetheless, we take the dingy ashore to go snorkling the next morning. We had been told that it was wonderful diving but we found the water cloudy and the fish uninteresting. We have been spoiled by Southern California diving, and Catalina and Hawaii. So we head back to the boat after about and hour and I go back to bed.
Suddenly Alan announces that the wind is strengthening and coming from the south. Captain Holly’s cruising guide, aka. Charlie’s Charts, says to get the heck out of there if there is a south wind. This is a nasty lee shore with all the rocks. In half an hour we have folded the dingy, stowed the solar panels, put away the dive stuff and cleaned up the galley and are ready to raise the anchor. It comes up smoothly, even though Alan tells me later that it was wrapped around lots of rocks. Off we go to the mainland. Next stop San Blas.
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