Mazatlan-April 25, 2009

We have spent the past week enjoying our friends, Tom and Leslie, from Lancaster. They stayed in the El Cid Resort next to our marina, Marina Mazatlan. We spent time sight seeing, lounging around the pool and eating out at night. It was a vacation for us also.

One day we hired a tour guide to take us to the local historical colonial towns. One of our first stops was a local brick factory. The bricks are hand made. The workers make 1000 bricks in 12 hours for $300 pesos per day($22.70American).


We stopped in a small town, Melpeka, which had the best bakery items that we have tasted. The bakery was in a family home. The parents start baking at 2 a.m. and work until 12 noon. The aroma was smelled throughout the streets. Each item cost 5 pesos.

Another visit was the local tile maker. Each tile was handmade. The tile maker makes 200 tiles per day. They would be beautiful layed as flooring.

The town, Concordia, is known for its crafting in woodwork. 40% of its economy is in furniture and 60% is in agriculture. We watched as beautiful tables and chairs were made. If we did not all live on boats it would have been a great addition to a home.




Copala was founded in 1565 as a mining town. The town has narrow cobblestone streets. As usual with these small towns there is a Catholic Church and plaza. One of the interesting items we learned in visiting the old churches is that the crucifix was on the side wall of the church while the patron saint who the church was named after was above the alter.

One of our adventures was our new tatoos. Unforntunately Wally was allergic to the dye and had a huge reaction.









In an effort to expand our cultural experiences we attended a performance of the Festival Internacional de Danza. We wondered why it said for adults only, now we know. It was modern dancing in the nude!

Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico-April 14, 2009

We completed our last passage of this cruising season. We traveled 135 north from San Blas to Mazatlan. The highlight of the trip-it was our last overnight. While Wally and I do well completing night watches, one hour on and one hour off, we pay a price the following day. Wally gets wired and goes all day while I become cranky and sleep deprived.


We had perfect weather with 8-10 knots of wind and 1-2 feet seas. We had a beautiful sunset while watching the moon rise. What we had to watch out most for were the long lines that the fishermen seem to string all over the ocean. We are always concerned we may catch a line in our prop.


Wally says we have been at 20 different anchorages since we left home. We have been so fortunate this season not to have experienced any bad weather or bad sea conditions. I tell Wally that the Sea Gods watched over us.

We are back in Mazatlan and loving it. It feels like it is our second home. So many friends here to catch up with. So many stories to share. We have not slowed down socially since our return.



I am back to kayaking 3 days a week with a group of women, and line dancing 2 days a week. We have dingy raft up parties (happy hour) every Friday, brunch on Sunday, Pizza Tuesday night, Music at Cannuks on Monday, etc.,etc.,etc.
Life is good!

San Blas, Nyarit, Mexico-April 6, 2009

Lat 21 32 637, Long 105 17 583. We are 63 miles north of La Cruz. We had an easy passage from La Cruz to San Blas with winds 10-15 knots and seas 1-2 feet. We both said it sure felt good to be out to sea again. We saw many dolphins, manarays and sea turtles.

We are in San Blas Marina which was built about 1 year ago. It has about 15 slips and is built in a river estuary. There have been 3 to 8 boats each day in the marina. When we were here previously in January we anchored in Mantanchen Bay and the took a bus into San Blas. We have been able to experience the town far more this time be staying at the marina.



San Blas has a population of about 12,000 people which seems hard to believe. Seems far less. San Blas was previously a boat building center and port until the end of the 1800's. Currently the economy is geared toward tourism, although it appears to be local toursim. San Blas is also known as a favorite destination for bird watchers.






Along with Rick and Karen on Eyes of the World we enjoyed our second visit to La Tavara Jungle Cruise at Mantanchen Bay. Our guide was very good in describing all the birds we saw in addition to the turtles and crocodiles. Of interest we were told that crocodiles eat about 8 kg of food every 8 days and can go as long as 6 months without food. On the roadside of Mantanchen Bay there are many bakeries with their specialty being banana bread. It smells delicious as you walk along. Of course we sampled all the items.


We have enjoyed the town and people of San Blas. It has a very relaxed and casual lifestyle. One day we enjoyed the local flea market buying odds and ends. One of the best items were the shaved snow cones. They consisted of shaved ice, add strawberry juice and top it with condensed milk. Delicious!! The towns evenings are centered around the town plaza where everyone young and old hang out. There was all kinds of live music being played, in addition to children performing local dances. We were one of the few gringos in the plaza.


As I mentioned before on January 15, 2009 posting we visited the church and bells in which Longfellow wrote his last poem "The Bells of San Blas". Another piece of interesting trivia is that Longfellow never visited San Blas. He read about the bells in Harper's Magazine of 1882.





We did some local sight seeing with our friends Ed and Annette on Wind Song. We visited La Contaduria which was a fort built in 1529 overlooking the vicinity of San Blas. In addition there was an old church and cemetary to view. From there we sampled the local cuisine and found our favorite taco stand.

We will be leaving tomorrow for Mazatlan.