The jungle ride

We have moved further down the coast and are now in Tenacatita Bay. This is a popular anchorage and we are sharing it with between 20-30 boats. The weather here is very nice, getting into the mid 80s during the day but cooling down at night. The water temp is up to around 77 so is good for swimming. It is no wonder that some boats spend the entire winter here. There is quite a bit of activity here as there is Bocci ball and dominos on shore each afternoon, which normally ends with beers at the palapa
restaurant.

Our friends on Hooligan (Tim & Paula) took us on the "Jungle River tour". This is a dinghy trip up the river/estuary that is about 2.5 miles long up a narrow and windy waterway. It goes through a lush mangrove jungle and starts out pretty wide but soon narrows till it is barely wider than the dinghy and closes in over head so that you need to duck in some places. There is a lot of wildlife, mainly birds, but we saw a large furry mammal that we think must have been a Coati. Others have reported seeing
boas and a small crocodile. The trip ends behind Playa Tenacatita where there are many Palapa restaurants and a tienda. We went slowly up the river, got some groceries and lunch than headed back. On the way back we went through the jungle up on a plane for a much faster and very exciting ride (photos and video available soon).
We also did a day trip by dinghy over to the town of Manzanilla. We wanted to hit the tienda and see the crocodiles. At the north end of town is an estuary and right there in the brackish water were several crocodiles. Large scary looking crocodiles! There is a fence, but the fence does not actually go all the way to the beach. In fact the one croc was sitting right by the side of the road just several yards from the palapa restaurant! You definitely want to keep an eye on small children and pets
here.

Far enough south to be warm again...

Masquerade is now anchored in Bahia Chamela, we arrived late last night after sailing almost 300 miles from Mazatlan(took us about 60 hours). We made all but the last 30 miles under sail, before the wind died and we needed to turn on the motor. Good sailing but the seas were a bit lumpy. We skipped Puerto Vallarta so and headed further south so that the air and water temps would be warmer. It was getting pretty chilly in Mazatalan! Here the water is back up to 75 and the air temperature around 80,
very pleasant. It looks a lot different here as we are now in the tropics, much more plant life ashore, lots of palm trees and much greener than what we were seeing further north. We can't wait to go ashore and explore a little. It is good to be out of the marina and back on the hook.

Happy Holidays!!

Feliz Navidad y un prospero Ano Nuevo or Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

We finally made it out of La Paz and are now in Mazatlan. We made the crossing a few days after New Years and after an overnight sail arrived at Mazatlan.  We had good winds for the first 20 hours, then it died, and we had to motor the rest of the way across. We were going to anchor but our friends on Hooligan let us use their slip while there boat was on the hard. So now we are at Marina Mazatlan for a few days. Once again it is a reunion of a sort as we met up with boats and friends we have not seen in months.

We spent the holidays in La Paz, as issues getting our batteries and bad weather kept us there longer than we intended. We had hoped to be in Mazatlan for Christmas but plans are made to be changed when cruising. It was nice to be in La Paz as there were several friends of ours there and the provisioning is very good. We were stocking up and spending far too much money. We made a total newbie cruiser mistake the other day. Cindy wanted to stock up on some Jimmy Dean sausage, as this is the only place we have seen it in Mexico. We saw some at the grocery store, but thought that we would get it later after we reorganized the fridge/freezer. Big mistake! Rule number 1 of provisioning is “if you see what you want, buy it now and as much as possible, it may not be there later”. Sure enough when we returned a few days later it was gone. We checked several times over a few days and tried to ask when it would be stocked, but had a hard time getting a good answer (I really need to work on my Spanish). Eventually after a few visits and talking to several people someone searched in back and found a box in storage. Cindy bought the entire box! 

 

We are at the start of a new year and that always seems like a good time to reflect on the past year and think about what we expect of the coming year. We realize that we have now been in Mexico for a full year, arriving just before Christmas in 2006. Looking back it seems like a long time ago, but the time has flown by so fast! A friend of ours says that time living on a boat with your spouse should be measured like dog years. We are living in small quarters, and we do most everything together with very little time spent separated. It is quite a bit different than back in our old world; it seemed we only really spent time together evenings and weekends. We have had quite a few adventures, seen interesting places, learned new skills, and met some wonderful people. We have also had bad weather, gear failures, bug infestations and our (self imposed) separation from family. Overall we think the pluses far outweigh the minuses, and plan to continue cruising in our boat.

For the upcoming year our plans are still pretty vague. We know that we will spend the winter on the mainland coast of Mexico mostly between Puerto Vallarta and Ixtapa. After that we are not sure, we will most likely spend another year in Mexico before heading further south or west. Now that we have a better feel for Mexico and getting around we hope to have more opportunities to have family and friends come down and visit us.