Mexico 2005

08/16/06

Mexico December 2005-March 2006 

     We left San Diego after an intense 10 days of quick repairs, catching up with old friends we had met on other boats along the way south, and doing any final provisioning to reload up on anything we had eaten since San Francisco, And were now ready to sail south with our buddy boat (and my in-laws) Nereid, for Mexico.    With the wind in our sails we journeyed to Ensenada to clear customs and immigration.   The paperwork took two days. :)  We then caught a great breeze and sailed south to Turtle Bay where we toured the small fishing village there.  The bay was beautiful.  The town was a mixture of old world and new cars.  We were greeted by Manuel.  He paddled out to our boat in his kayak and asked for coffee or a beer and a chance to chat.  He also offered to take our laundry and trash for a "tip".  We gladly made him coffee and tipped him for our trash.  We then hurried down the coast to reach Puerto Vallarta quickly to catch our plane North to Alaska for Christmas with my parents.

    We arrived in Puerto Vallarta on December 7^th and anchored out at La Cruz, a small fishing village in Bandaras bay.  The town square was lovely- green and red arches with a gazebo in the center. Always active with people at night and festivities on weekends.  For my birthday, on the 9^th, we got a slip in the marina and went out to dinner.  Dining on the beach with live music- all felt so surreal.  We toured the Downtown/ Old town PV for a few days and were lucky enough to be there for the festival of the Lady of Guadeloupe.  The parades lasted for days and were full of colorful costumes and music- either singing or instruments.

    We flew home to Alaska on December 12 to white fluffy chilly lovely snow.  Quite a change from 70-80 degree weather and sunshine.  We had planned out tickets to be home to see our friend Brian's' movie tribute to Jerry Harper.   The movie made you remember just how lovely Jerry was.  Thank you Brian.  I loved being home to spend time with my family.  Sorry, that I did not get out much to see more friends.   I also was home in time to make a few dozen cookies for the Christmas Cookie Party- yum!    

Ross and I also introduced Sudoku to the family. he heee.  This game of numbers is a huge craze with the sailors we know.  Hours of fun, especially when on watch for four hours at a time! 

We spent Christmas in Girdwood with rain and ice.  We heard that it snowed the day we left. :) 

        We left Anchorage near the end of December to spend New Years with Ross' parents and his sisters family in Puerto Vallarta.  We had a great time swimming in the ocean and on the water slides at the marina/resort we had our boat docked at.  

When the family left, Puddle Jump meetings began.  The puddle jump is what they call the cruiser who plans to cross the pacific from Mexico to French Polynesia and beyond.  No one took charge of the meetings... so Ross and I did.  A website was created for the jumpers to share information and we eventually created a book of information on routes, weather, visa info, country profiles, where to anchor, provision for a crossing... the book is over 300 pages long- whew!   Needless to say, the group is full of fun people. The meetings quickly became social with a bit of seminar here and business there.  Many boats are leaving form different ports in Mexico. so we hope we meet up with them again in the future

      Ross & I spent a week or so in La Cruz again, enjoying the Huichal café- lovely art and garden with breakfast.  The café is incredible, it has a couple cats and dogs roaming in and out- it is an open court yard with a large fish sculpture fountain and trees every where.  I love the psycodelic huichel art too.  Too bad the art we like is expensive and big- no where to put it on our boat.  The T-shirts were being made at the cafe.  Robert, from Lawur, had designed a logo of a world map with all our boat names on it.  Lawur is a fun boat with a family from Austria who have been living in the US for the last ten years.  Ross and Robert have been bonding by playing on the x-box together. 

We spent a week waiting for our T-shirts to be finished for the puddle jump.  Ross will be excited they are done and I will , hopefully, not volunteer to get more things done for our fellow cruisers. J

    After Provisioning up,. we went south to Chamala for a quick shake down cruise.  Chamala is a cute beach fishing town with a few  places to eat, snorkeling in the bay.  I had caught a bug or something before we left- so I was sick as a dog.  on the second day, I left well enough to go ashore.  Fun!  landing our dingy in the surf of the beach was a lesson in quick precision of timing the waves, jumping out at the right place and pulling the boat up quick before she flips.  We met several boats there that had spent the last month in Z-town.

   We are in PV at the moment, we have cleared with customs and gotten our Zarpe.  Now we await the wind and our health.  We both got a bit under the weather but are ready to travel in a day or two. 

    We have met such wonderful people here.  We love our puddle jump group.  There are approx 27 boats crossing the pacific about the time we will be going, from different locals on the Mexican coast.  I think there is a way to log onto YOTREPS to see our boat position.  I will look into it.

The picture to the right is us just a week ago raising anchor at La Cruz.

love to you all

Laura and Ross