Puerto Vallarta to Mazatlan
February 17, 2007
We left Paradise Village Marina in PV yesterday after four glorious days filled with fun and accomplishment. The hotel there is first class, and we went to the pool every afternoon.
We also:
1. Got a glitch in the SSB radio fixed.
2. Had a complete engine service that was over due.
3. Pumped the holding tank, stinky but nice.
4. Cleaned the boat inside and out.
5. Got the bottom cleaned.
6. Unplugged our stopped up shower drain.
7. Picked up the mid links that Matt sent.
8. Took the Marlows to dinner.
9. Went to a Valentine's dinner party at the Vallarta Yacht Club.
10. Matamos saudades com um jantar a um Rodizio brasileiro comendo frango, peru, filet mignon, e muito mais.
11. Attended the opening of an art show.
12. Re-provisioned.
13. Filled our propane tank
13. Sailed from Nuevo Vallarta to Puerto Vallarta to visit our "favorite" fuel dock and got totally gassed up, including dinghy fuel.
14. Sailed from Puerto Vallarta to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle during a weird, cloudy and hazy afternoon that was so cool I wore a jacket. It was so hazy that we could not see La Cruz when we left Puerto Vallarta, a distance of only about nine miles. Yet, the wind was perfect from the northeast which allowed us to sail all the way right into the anchorage.
After four rock solid nights at Paradise we rocked and rolled in the La Cruz anchorage.
Today, Saturday the 17th, Matt’s 44thj birthday which he is celebrating in Hawaii with Geetha and the boys, Raj, who is celebrating his 70th birthday, Anu and Shyamala. This morning we motored out to Punta de Mita and are now at anchor there. Tomorrow we will continue on to Chacala.
February 18, 2007. We left Punta de Mita about 7AM this morning and motor sailed up the coast until 11AM when, to our delight, we suddenly got an eight knot wind from the southwest which allowed us to sail the rest of the distance to Chacala. We had a couple of entertaining hump back whales sightings this morning.
We got here about 2PM and, for the first time on this trip, deployed two anchors, one off the bow and a second one off the stern.
Chacala is a pretty small bay with many palapas along a sandy beach. a panga dock, a large palm plantation, some condos and hotels, and a small island to the south. We will stay on the boat the rest of today and explore Chacala tomorrow.
We had great fun walking the beach in Chacala, and having lunch at a palapa with Bob & Bev of the good ship Yemaya. Bob and Bev are from Salt Lake City. Yemaya is the Cuban word for Yemanja. How about that? as our first boat was named Yemanja. Bob is Sunday night net control for the Southbound Net (we are net control on Tuesdays), and we had met him on the radio the night before.
That night we had Bob and Bev over to the boat for wine and goodies along with Simon and Sunny from the motor cruiser, Seascape. Simon and Sunny hail from Victoria BC
It was an amazingly entertaining evening with Simon as the leading and incredibly funny man. He also gave us some good ideas of sailing north of Desolation Sound which may be a program for Alex’s enviro-trip. So far our informal wine get-togethers have been amazing fun. Cruisers are an entertaining lot without a mopey person in the group.
After Chacala we sailed 25 miles up the coast to the historic town of San Blas and anchored up the Rio Pozo near town. It was quite a challenge anchoring in the river as the spaces were tight and there was a current of a knot or two running out to sea. We set the hook three times before we were happy with the position of the boat.
San Blas is untouched by five-star tourism, maintaining the flavor of a traditional coastal Mexican village. Longfellow’s last poem was an ode to the Bells of San Blas. Here is a fragment:
But to me, a dreamer of dreams,
To whom what is and what seems
Are often one and the same,
The bells of San Blas to me
Have a strange wild melody,
And are something more than a name.
We climbed up to the old fort and the church of the “Bells,” enjoyed marvelous views of the town and descended to a “tipica” fish restaurant for grilled “marlin.”
A scary thing about San Blas are the fiercely biting no see’ems, called locally jejenes. For the first time on the trip we put up our screens on the boat. The jejenes are worse at dusk and dawn. We also loaded up on repellent. Fortunately, it was windy while we were there and the wind partially keeps the jejenes under wraps.
In the evening we went to the square where many of the cruisers meet in the town square near the fountain to get to know one another and share stories. Norm and Jan Goldie, who have lived in San Blas for years, hold court and patiently answer questions about the town. Norm acts as an unofficial port captain and Jan dedicates herself to painting, specializing in the birds of Mexico.
We went to Ash Wednesday mass at 7PM and then had an excellent fish dinner at Chef Tony’s. It is amazing how one can get truly excellent food in a tiny place like San Blas. Chef Tony’s is decorated with hanging seashells fashioned into an astounding variety of sculptures – birds, fishes, houses, abstracts, hanging from the ceiling and many more on the walls.
Masses in Mexico have been a fascinating look at the ethnic makeup of the country. Mexico is a predominantly mestizo country with the indigenous, Indian blood dominant. The congregation in San Blas was heavily mestizo with few if any members of predominantly European descent. In Puerto Vallarta we went to mass in an upscale neighborhood and in Manzanillo at the Las Hadas hotel. At both of those masses the parishioners were an upper class mob looking like any congregation that one might see in Europe.
On the morning of 22 Feb. we departed San Blas for Mazatlan, about a 120 mile, upwind trip. We left San Blas an hour or two behind Slacker, Glitter and Velita. We had a short weather window for this trip as the next afternoon a five-day blow was supposed to begin. By mid afternoon we had caught the other boats. At the start we were motor sailing with our normal set-up, double reefed main and no jib. Athena is an awesome up wind boat, and with this sail configuration is able to motor sail very close to the wind.
During the day we had two great sails, from 11:50 Am to 2:10pm and from 3:50 to 5:15pm. At sundown we were just ahead of Slacker and a bit behind Glitter. Velita was far back. Nellie took the helm after dinner – delicious beef (arrachera) sandwiches., and I relieved her at 8PM and stood the 8-12 watch. Nellie took over from 12 to 3AM, and then I was back on duty from 3 to dawn.
During the night we passed picket lines of shrimp boats, dozens of them fishing with bright lights just like the calamari fishermen in Monterey Bay. It was sort of fun and kept the helmsman awake. During my first shift I had a sliver of a moon for company, and had the pleasure of witnessing a soft and misty moonset at about 11:30pm.
When dawn broke we were close to Mazatlan’s main harbor and were running side by side with a large, beautiful cruise ship. The ship pulled ahead and crossed our bow on the way into the harbor. Our destination was Marina El Cid, almost two hours farther up the coast just north of Mazatlan’s Hotel Zone. We passed the Mazatlan light, perched on a high bluff and apparently the highest lighthouse in the world.
We made radio contact with Glitter and Slacker and discovered they were about 12 miles behind us. Athena had strutted her stuff overnight!
Cid Marina at about 9AM, refueled and docked at B17, which will be our home for at least a week as we wait for a weather window to sail to La Paz, about a 260 mile trip.
Comments