La Cruz de Huanacaxtle - January 25, 2009

The literal meaning of La Cruz is "The Cross of the Huanacaxtle Tree". La Cruz is a small older fishing village. It has long been a popular place for cruisers to hang out. There are very few tourists in this village so one gets some of the true flavor of Mexico. From the marina we walk into town about a 1/2 mile. We have found many wonderful restaurants to eat in. Many of the restaurants are in front of the locals home or in the street. There are also many small little tiendas where one can find groceries and produce. One finds small little stores just for meats, one for bakery goods another for tortillas. While I do cook (some) it has been enjoyable to try the local restaurants.

We are meeting new friends in La Cruz as well as catching up with old friends from the Baja Ha Ha and Mazatlan. Talk about a small world. We have 3 boats on our dock who are from Ventura and who we did not previously know.

The beaches go for miles. Some rocky and some sandy. Angel and I can spend hours walking the beaches. She runs and play in the water while I collect sea shells. The temperature here has been between 80-90 degrees with the water temperature around 74 degrees. The wind comes up every afternoon-about 15 knots.

We continue to work on boat maintenance. We have replaced the wind vane, repaired the wind machine, repaired the anchor light, and repaired the lazy jacks. The windless is still being repaired. The result was we broke the shaft in the motor. David suggested that we send him 2 airline tickets to La Cruz instead of repairing the windless and he would pull up the anchor at the various anchorages.......maybe.

We have found another usage for limes. In Mexico many products are made with limes. There is lime in the mayonaise, lime in nuts, lime in chips, etc., etc. So when we had the worker up on the mast he asked for a lime. Fortunately I had some. (In San Blas with the no-see-ums they were used for our bites.) The worker used the lime on the mast as an anti-corrosive. He said it works better than any commercial product. Guess we will continue to keep limes on board.

We attended our first and last Bull Fight in Puerto Vallarta. While we were looking forward to seeing the local tradition we found it difficult to watch the bulls be killed.

Puerto Vallarta is about 10 miles from La Cruz. We have taken the bus into town a couple of times. It is populated with tourists. We walked the Old Town and The Romantic Zone which was quaint.

Transportation continues to be easy to access. While we do have to walk about a mile to get the local bus, once getting the bus we can get anywhere. It costs about 15 pesos one way. We have learned that you allow at least an hour leeway time to get anywhere.

This week we will begin planning for our next leg of the trip to Barra de Navidad.

La Cruz, Nyarit, Mexico - January 15, 2009

La Cruz- 20 44.874N, 105 22.680W, approximately 203 miles south of Mazatlan.

We left Mazatlan January 10 on another beautiful day in Mexico. The seas were 2-3 feet and the wind was 12-15 knots. We were buddy boating with our friends Doug and Marcy on "Charm". We motor sailed all the way to Matanchen Bay. We watched the sun set and the moon rise. We had a full moon for our travels which made night visibility very good. We both said the best thing about overnights is when you are off shift sleeping in the cockpit.

We arrived in Mantanchen Bay approximately 24 hours later. Mantanchen Bay is east of San Blas. The Bay is very large with a depth of about 12 feet. Palapa restaurants surrounded the north shore. One of the biggest problems at this Bay is the no-see-ums. While we did have mosquito netting on our port holes we ended up with bites all over our bodies. It looks like we have the chicken pox, and we are still itching.

We visited La Tavara Lagoon traveling by panga through jungle and mangrove swamps. We saw many crocodiles, turtles and birds of all types. The mangroves were thicker than a forest.
After our jungle adventure we went into San Blas, about 6 miles from Mantanchen Bay. While we were waiting for a bus a truck stopped by and offered us a ride into town. So we all piled in the back of the pick up. That would definitely be against the law in the states, however, common practice here.

San Blas is a tiny fishing village of about 12,000 people surrounded by rain forest and mangrove swamps. The city is also known for the poem The Bells of San Blas written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1882. The streets are all cobble stone and dirt. The city square was surrounded by little restaurants, vendors, and the church of which the Bells of San Blas was written. San Blas also has a new marina in which we may visit in the future.

On January 14 we headed south to Punta Mita which is 57 miles south of Matanchen Bay. It was a great day for observing sea life. We saw whales breaching, dolphins swimming by the boat, and sea turtles floating by. It almost became common to see the whales, there were so many. Punta Mita is at the north west end of Banderas Bay. It is a common anchorage for overnight into or out of Banderas Bay. The wind was about 15-20 knots coming into the anchorage. Banderas Bay will be great for sailing.

We are currently in La Cruz at Marina Rivera Nyarita, 10 miles east of Punta Mita. This is fairly new marina which has about 400 slips, however, it appears only a third full. The marina is surrounded by green hills. The beaches appear to go for miles. We know many cruisers at the marina who we have met in the past.

We plan to be here for awhile. While it appears that we are having fun (which we are) it is hard work to be cruising. There seems to be always something to do on the boat. On our passage down we broke the lazy jack fittings and when we pulled up anchor in Punta Mita the windless went out. Both of these items need to be repaired before we leave this marina. We also plan to relax and enjoy ourselves at our new location.

Good-By Mazatlan-January 9, 2009

After 2 months of being in Mazatlan we are ready to head south! Wally is recovering daily from his back surgery. We will be heading for San Blas and then La Cruz. We are buddy boating with our friends on "Charm."

We have enjoyed out time in Mazatlan and look forward to returning to this city. We have met so many new friends and have become so oriented to the city. One knows when they are part of the city is when you are in a taxi discussing the Mazatlan Baseball team with the driver and you know the baseball players names. (Or I should say Wally does!)

We have been busy this past week preparing the boat to leave. We also continue to be busy with our dock friends. Pictures show our Pizza Tuesday Night which I have organized for the past month. We usually have between 20-25 people every Tuesday night.

Our friends on "Meerkat" Jim and Heather showed up in Mazatlan a few days ago. They happen to be friends from Ventura who were on our dock at Ventura West. It's great to see old friends. We will likely see allot of each other as we all sail south.