La Cruz de Huanacaxtle - March 31, 2009

Banderas Bay is one of our favorite bays. The weather is fairly consistent in the high 80's with light to strong winds everyday. The ocean life is abundant. November through March is home to the migratory humpback whales. We have seen a decline in the whale watching the past few weeks.



We left Paradise Village in Puerto Vallarta 2 weeks ago to return to La Cruz. We enjoy the small town Mexican flavor of La Cruz, which is primarily a rustic fishing village. La Cruz has a population of 1,621 people. La Cruz is surrounded by many beaches and little towns which we have been visiting.


We walk to La Manzanilla beach with Angel on a daily basis. Distiladeras Beach is a short bus ride away which has long white beaches and is good for swimming. Sayulita is a small town about 20 minutes from La Cruz known for it's surfing.

In addition to exploring our surrounding areas, my friend Linda on Samantha and I have spent many days shopping at our leisure. We have found that shopping is done better without men.


Linda and I have spent time exploring the indigenous art of the Huichol people, who have lived in the Sierra Madre mountains since pre-Columbian times. Their art is very bright in colors using tiny beads and yarn. The art is a display of human shapes interspersed with animal forms and linked to the spiritual world.

We have enjoyed spending the last few days with our friends Rick and Karen on Eyes of the World (from Ventura). We have tried new restuarants, shared our cruising adventures and played a great game of Mexican dominos, which is a favorite game among cruisers. In the marina and anchorage at La Cruz we have 7 boats from the Ventura area. Most of them we did not know previously, however, we look forward to continuing our friendships in Ventura.

We leave later in the week for Mazatlan. We will spend the rest of the season in the Mazatlan area. While we had originally planned to do the Sea or Cortez during April and May we changed our plans based on Wally's back. His back is healing well but still needs more time for recovery.

The highlight of this past week is the birth of my new grandaughter, Samantha Emily, born March 26, to my daughter Carrie and her husband Mike in Colorado Springs.