Mexico – Adagio’s Voyage

On the Border

Arriving in Chiapas is a whole different experience than any other port in Mexico we have stopped at. Because it is on the border with Guatemala, the Mexican Navy boards every boat in and out of the port to inspect it with the drug dog. That was a first for us.

As we approached Chiapas, we called the Port Captain on channel 16 to request permission to enter the port. We had been told we had to do this by another friend and that they would not respond to you if you hailed them in English. Mike did an awesome job calling in Spanish. What was funny about it was at the end of their conversation when the guy realized Mike was trying to reach for the right words in Spanish, the guy just started speaking English. Sheesh.

Anyway, we pulled into the marina and unfortunately had a bit of a rough time. We were assigned to a slip where we had to make a 180 degree turn to get in through a narrow fairway. And, just as we were starting to turn, the wind picked up. Our bow was being blown by the wind and we couldn’t make the turn. To top it all off, the engine died twice while Mike was shifting between forward and reverse. Both Mike & I (and I think everyone on the dock) about had a heart attack. Luckily we didn’t crash into anything and Mike was able to back us out safely, but the stress was a bit much.

We couldn’t get into the assigned slip and the marina staff just yelled at us to pull in anywhere we could. We were able to pull into another, larger slip facing the opposite direction. Whew! I hate docking.

We were very happy to be reunited with our friends Mike & Katie (and their dog Penny) on Kya. They invited us over for drinks that night. They also invited two French couples from a catamaran called Ivadel. We had a fun time with Kya and our new French friends. We found out that Phillipe used to own a bakery in Paris, and he invited Katie and I over the next morning to give us a lesson on how to bake French baguettes. In return, he would get an English lesson!

The next morning Katie and I gathered on Ivadel with our pens and paper, like all good students, to take notes. Phillipe showed us how to mix and knead the dough, how to let it rise, and the trick to getting that crusty outside of the baguette (hint – steam)! It was so much fun! We learned that Phillipe had a bakery in Paris for 24 years and won all kinds of awards for his pastries. He said he used to make over 4000 baguettes a day. Wow!

I wanted to repay the favor for taking hours out of his day to teach us how to make the baguettes. We still had tons of dorado that we had caught two days earlier, so I invited everyone to a sushi party. Kya was nice enough to let us use their boat since we can’t really fit 8 people on Adagio for dinner.

Now, I’ve never made sushi rolls before, just sashimi, so I’m not sure what I was thinking. But, Mike was up for the challenge and helped me make a whole platter of sushi rolls with our fresh dorado, avocado, cucumber, etc. It just took us a bit longer than anticipated. But, it turned out awesome. We had a great time with everyone and the sushi was delicious.

We made the decision to leave Chiapas on Saturday to arrive in El Salvador on Monday. But, that meant that we had to get our zarpe (exit papers) on Friday. I had NO idea that trying to get out of Mexico would be harder than coming into Mexico!

We started out first thing in the morning in the marina office to fill out the required paperwork and make copies of all of the documents. Then, the marina manager would have to drive us to immigration, the banjercito, customs and the port captain. Everyone has to stamp this same document to let you out of the country. And, everyone wants copies of our boat documents, passport, visa, etc.

So, everything seemed to be going according to plan until just when we were about to leave the marina office. One of the staff came in and told the manager that the road was blocked. Apparently there was some dispute between a company at the port and their transportation contractor, so the contractors decided to block the entire road in protest. Nice. The police were there, but they didn’t really want to get involved.

Thankfully, the marina manager had a 4×4 truck and said he knew a way around. He ended up driving us on dirt roads through a mango grove and banana plantation to get around the road block. Only in Mexico…

After five hours, we were finally back at the marina with our zarpe in hand. I have such mixed feelings about it. I’m sad to leave Mexico, but I’m excited about the next part of our adventure. El Salvador…here we come!

~katie

Tehuantepec Tale

What the heck is a Tehuantepecker, and who came up with that name??? The Gulf of Tehuantepec spans about 250 miles from Huatulco to Chiapas on the Mexico/Guatemalan border. On land is a narrow peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean. This low lying area creates a funnel effect drawing strong winds from the Atlantic to Pacific side.

When a Tehuantepecker (the name for the strong winds) is blowing, the winds can reach over 60 knots. But, the real danger is the short, steep waves that can develop. These waves can build up to 10 to 15 feet at 4 to 5 seconds. That is pretty gnarly.

All of the books and sailing blogs, etc. warn you not to become another “Tehuantepec Tale” arriving at your destination exhausted with torn sails or worse. Basically, they all try to scare the shit out of you.

So, the prudent thing to do is to closely watch the weather forecasts and go when there is no Tehuantepecker predicted. There are also lots of “strategies” for how to make the crossing. You can do the straight shot, rhumb line approach and take your chances. But, you have a greater area of exposure to the strong winds. Or, you can take the 16 degree short cut where you head northeast into the Gulf and then cut the corner when you get to 16N. And, of course, there is the “one foot on the beach” approach where you hug the coastline all the way around the bay.

Mike and I read and read all these different pieces of advice and looked at weather forecast after weather forecast. Finally, we just decided we had to go for it. We did NOT want to be stuck in Huatulco for another week waiting for a more perfect forecast.

After we returned from Oaxaca, the forecast started to show the winds dying out the next Monday afternoon, Tuesday looked calm, and then the winds started up again Wednesday afternoon. The 250 mile trip would take us approximately 48 hours. So, the weather window looked tight. But, the funnel effect of the winds means that it really is only about 60 miles or so of that 250 where we would really need to worry about the wind.

We kept looking at the forecast for days as it was changing slightly but still looked like a good window. We had to time the crossing just right. First we decided 6pm Monday would work. But, as it got closer to Monday, we realized we need to leave even earlier. Finally, Monday came and we decided 2pm was the perfect time.

We said goodbye to our friends in Huatulco. Several of them were also going to make the crossing, but they were a bit trepidatious about the window we picked. Everybody has to make their own choices as to when to sail and when not to sail. We certainly would not be pressured to go if we were uncomfortable, and we weren’t going to do that to anyone else either. We made it clear they shouldn’t go just because we were going.

We started out sailing just beautifully, 10-15 kts of wind and not too much swell. As we started to get closer to Salinas Cruz the seas were getting bigger and a bit confused, but we still only had about 10 kts of wind. That changed pretty quickly when we arrived at the “funnel” in the Tehuantepec. As the wind creeped up to 18-20 on a close reach, we put a double reef in the main and pulled in some of the jib.

I had the overnight shift as we headed past Salinas Cruz (the beginning of the funnel effect) and had to drag Mike out of bed twice to reduce sail. We ended up with a triple reef in the main, pulled in the jib completely, and just had part of the staysail out. (Just FYI, we always get the other person up if someone has to go up on deck out of the cockpit, which we have to do to reef the main. We also are clipped in with harnesses to the jacklines.)

The winds settled in at 22-23 for a while and then slowly crept up. I saw it hit 28 and stayed in the 26-28 range for less than an hour before settling back down to 20-22 for the rest of the night. With the wind in my face, I was perched pretty tightly behind the dodger for most of my shift. It wasn’t cold out, but that’s a lot of wind to take for 4 hours!

By the time Mike got up around 5am, the wind had backed down into the teens. The boat handled the wind beautifully, we were properly reefed so the boat wasn’t overpowered, and the hydrovane kept us right on course! But, I was definitely ready for a few hours of rest.

We ended up taking that 16 degree shortcut I mentioned above, but not intentionally. It was just where the wind allowed us to sail. And, we were happy to sail that first 100 miles. We do not like being a motor boat. Unfortunately, after we made it through the funnel, the wind died completely. We only sailed about 3 hours during the day Tuesday, having to motor the rest of the time.

The ONLY advantage to motoring is that it is much easier to fish! If you’ve followed this blog, you know that Mike LOVES to fish. Unless it is really rough out, the trolling lines are off the back of the boat. On Tuesday Mike was in fish heaven.

First we hooked 2 skipjack and threw them back. Next was one of those big jack crevalles. Then we hooked a marlin and saw him jump clear out of the water behind the boat! But, he shook the hook loose (fine with us). Then another jack crevalle. Mike was getting a serious workout at this point trying to drag in those big crevalles.

We had a bit of a lull in the fishing in this point until we hooked another skipjack. But, just as Mike was reeling in the skipjack, we saw a huge dorado going after the skipjack. (I don’t know if he was trying to get the dorado or the lure the skipjack had). Anyway, we tried to get another lure in the water in front of the dorado who was on the surface right next to the boat, but it took off. After throwing back the last skipjack, we were feeling a bit defeated on the fishing front. All those fish, and none that we kept to eat.

A couple hours later, right before sunset, we finally got our fish! After the line started peeling out we saw a huge splash behind the boat and Mike knew it was a dorado. We reeled this guy in and couldn’t believe the size. We measured him at 51 inches! That is the biggest dorado we have ever caught. Mahi mahi for dinner!!!

We had an uneventful last night and the next morning motoring. We arrived at Marina Chiapas around 2pm on Wednesday. We had survived the Tehuantepec and had not become another Tehuantepec Tale.

~katie

Road Trip!

We spent five days at sea sailing from Manzanillo to Huatulco, with a one day layover in Zihuatanejo. The real excitement on that trip was the sailfish that we caught. (Check out the video on our Facebook page.) But, after so many days traveling, we were happy to arrive in Huatulco and have some time off.

Our next leg of the trip would be from Huatulco to Chiapas, where we would have to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec. I’ll write more about the Gulf of Tehuantepec in a later blog, but it was really important for us to pick a good weather window to make the crossing. When we looked at the forecast upon arrival, it was clear that we were going to stay put for at least a week.

Anjuli, one of the other boats in the marina that traveled with us from Zihuatanejo, mentioned that they were interested in traveling to Oaxaca City and asked if anyone else wanted to go. Since several boats were all in the same position we were, we all decided to go on a road trip to Oaxaca!

We rented three cars and all headed out for a seven hour trip to Oaxaca. In order to get from the coast to Oaxaca, we had to pass over a mountain range that required us to travel the windiest, narrowest roads I’ve ever seen. And, there is no shoulder or guardrail on these roads, so if you screw up you are going off the cliff. I’m really glad Mike was driving and not me. It was bad enough being a passenger…

We arrived in Oaxaca and found our cute little hotel not far from downtown Oaxaca. The city has a population of about 250,000, so it is a decent size city. After dropping off our bags, we decided to walk around the city for a drink and some dinner. We passed several large cathedrals and town squares. Eventually we made our way to the Zocalo, which is the main square in town. After a couple of cervezas and margaritas, we were on a mission for some good street food which is ubiquitous in every Mexican town square. We found a great taco stand and had delicious al pastor tacos. I think we got 10 tacos for 30 pesos (about $1.50). Pretty crazy.

The next morning we got back in the cars to see Monte Alban, the Zapotec ruins which are just outside of town. It was really stunning. These structures were built over 2000 yrs ago. It is amazing that any of them are still standing! The cool thing about the ruins is that you can walk all over them and explore on your own. There aren’t rails and fences prohibiting you from getting close. There are lots of signs and plaques explaining each structure and what it was used for.

This is a pretty big tourist attraction and there were a lot of school groups there on field trip. I would guess most of the kids were probably 5th-7th grade. Several groups of kids came up to us to ask us questions. Many wanted to practice their English, and some wanted to take their picture with us.

But, the funniest interaction was when one group of giggly kids walked up to us and kept looking at each other to see who would speak first. Finally one girl spoke up and asked, “What do you think of Donald Trump?” We both smiled, gave them the thumbs down sign and said “Booooo.” The kids went nuts laughing and jumping up and down. It. Was. Hilarious. I quickly said to Mike, “You should have gotten that on camera.” So, he grabbed the GoPro and ran back over to them to get them to do it on camera again. So funny.

After seeing the ruins, we headed back into town for some lunch and then to the cultural museum. The museum is in a large building connected to the large cathedral at the Zocalo. The building used to be a monastery or convent and was as fascinating as the museum itself. The museum contained all of the artifacts that had been pulled from Monte Alban that we had seen earlier in the day. Many of them were so well preserved, because they had been found sealed in the tombs, similar to the artifacts found in the Egyptian pyramids. It took hours to get through the museum, but it was well worth it.

Oaxaca is also known for two other things: mole and mezcal. If you haven’t had mole, I’m not sure I can explain it to you. There are seven different kinds of mole in Oaxaca. I was only familiar with mole found in Mexican restaurants in the States that usually has chocolate and different spices in it. We went to a restaurant for dinner where you could a sampler off all of the different moles; it was delicious.

I think mezcal can be described as a smoky tequila. It is either made with agave (like tequila) or maguay. We drove down a highway with signs that we were in mezcal alley, with mezcal production all around and hill after hill covered with agave plants. We stopped at one small shop and got to see the maguay plant up close. It looks like an agave. The plant had been roasted (probably set in a fire) as it was charred on the outside. The woman pulled off one of the leaves and cut it into strips for all of us to taste. It was very similar to eating sugar cane. Very sweet! We bought some local mezcal which was awesome. It is funny when we mention mezcal to the locals. People look at you with a smile and say “peligroso” (dangerous). I guess we’ll have to take it easy with the mezcal.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip. And, it got us back to Huatulco just in time to prepare for the crossing of the Tehuantepec!

~Katie

All Part of the Adventure

We left Tenacatita and headed a short distance south to Barra de Navidad. There weren’t predicted to be any significant winds, but after we got out of the bay it was blowing about 30 knots. That’s a bit more than we like to sail with, but the boat can handle it. The challenge was getting into the harbor and docking the boat at the marina with that wind. After a first attempt, we determined that there was no way we were going to be able to turn the boat into the slip down the fairway, so we just pulled up the outside of the dock. Quite a few people from the marina came over to help grab our docklines, which was much appreciated.

We arrived just in time for a wonderful Valentine’s Day dinner at the Grand Isla Navidad Resort.

We enjoyed the marina and resort and made some new friends. But, my favorite thing was the French Baker who comes around to the boats each morning delivering fresh baguettes and croissants.

We left Barra de Navidad after a couple of days and continued south toward Manzanillo. We had just left the harbor at Barra and put the sails up. We were about to shut down the engine when all of the sudden a loud alarm went off. We know the common alarms, like the bilge alarm, but this was one I hadn’t heard before. Mike ran down into the cabin and then yelled at me to check the engine temperature. That was it. The engine had overheated.

I quickly killed the engine as we started to brainstorm what could have happened to overheat the engine. We discovered the culprit. Before we left Barra, Mike had gone below to open the thru-hole that lets the cooling water in for the engine. Well, the thru-hole was apparently already open, and Mike must have been distracted. He though he was opening the thru-hole and he really closed it. He said in nine years of owning the boat, he has never made this mistake.

He was pretty upset, convinced that he had destroyed the engine. I tried to calm him down a bit. We were a sailboat after all, and we could sail! Mike was able to get a call off to his diesel mechanic back in LA who didn’t seem as alarmed as Mike was. The mechanic said he probably just burned up the impeller, but other than that it was probably ok. Luckily, we carry lots of spare parts on board, including a spare impeller.

Mike got to work changing the impeller while I was behind the wheel. We had a few hours before we were to arrive at Manzanillo. It took Mike a couple of hours, but he was able to change the impeller and the engine cooled down. He was still kicking himself over a completely easy mistake to make. It was my turn to echo the words that Mike has said to me many times when when we have had some sort of difficult situation: “It is all part of the adventure!”

Safe and sound anchored in Manzanillo:

So, this got me thinking about what exactly is an “adventure.” It is what Mike and I have been calling our journey. But, I wanted to really think about what that meant.

I recently read a book called Flying South by Barbara Cushman Rowell that my dad gave me for Christmas. (Great book, by the way.) The author writes about her experience flying her single engine Cessna from California to Patagonia. She is frustrated by her life and living in the shadow of her famous husband, who is a photographer and rock climber. She feels like she is simply tagging along on his adventures and needs one of her own.

So, she becomes a pilot and is then encouraged by one of her husband’s friends to fly her plane in tandem with his down to Patagonia and back. She endures instrument failures, political coups, tropical storms and a horrible rafting accident. She is pushed beyond what she thinks her limits are, overcomes her fears and talks about how much the journey changed her.

Tragically, she and her husband were killed in a plane crash (she was not the pilot) shortly after she wrote the book. But, I think it makes her words have even more impact. She says this about flying and her adventure…

“Fear isn’t a reason not to fly. I know now that fear is my biological warning system that I can tune into to keep from blundering on into disaster. I see fear of flying as a beam of light through the fog radiating from a lighthouse: it lets me know that something on the horizon could wreak havoc if ignored. A veteran bush pilot once said to me, ‘The day you’re not afraid is the day I don’t want to fly with you.’

“I could have found plenty of reasons not of fly my single-engine airplane to Patagonia- but I would have missed the greatest adventure of my life. Even though I may have slain my fears one by one this time, I know they’ll be back. And when they return, I’ll fight them off again. Anything truly worth doing in this life comes with risk, and risk is never without fear.”

I thought about that a lot. So, here is what I think an adventure entails:

(1) It is something unexpected – not something everyone ordinarily does

(2) It presents a challenge, either mentally, physically or both

(3) It involves risk and overcoming fear

(4) It fundamentally changes you.

So, I want to know if you have had a grand adventure. If so, what was it and how did it change you? Or, do you have a grand adventure you want to undertake. What is holding you back?

I think the hardest part of our adventure was casting off the docklines. It involved preparing the boat, training, obtaining gear and overcoming obstacles of finances, our careers and our relationship. And, we had to ignore the naysayers who didn’t understand what we were doing. But, finally letting go and leaving the dock was the most freeing thing we have ever done!

~katie

Don’t Tip the Canoe!

After leaving Punta Mita, we headed over to Yelapa just across Banderas Bay. Yelapa is an absolutely beautiful bay with steep, green hillsides. The anchorage is also steep-to underwater, so some enterprising locals have set up moorings that you can tie up to. The “mooring ball” was just an empty water jug, but the mooring was solid and kept us in place. We got a visit from one of the locals in a panga to charge us a fee of about $15/night for use of the mooring.

There is no way into Yelapa other than by boat, as there are no roads (and no cars) into the town. There are winding, cobblestone streets throughout the town that are a bit of a maze. But, we did find a delicious restaurant called Tacos Y Mas the first night we arrived. We ran into a couple other boats we had met earlier in La Cruz and invited them to join us for some delicious al pastor tacos.

Our plan for the next day was to hike to one of the waterfalls that we were told were outside of town. Unfortunately, Mike & I both came down with a horrible cold/flu type thing and were laid up in bed for the next two days. Ugh. So, we missed out on the waterfall. Oh well.

We needed to keep moving south, so as soon as the weather forecast looked good, we took off on an overnight passage to Tenacatita. We had pretty consistent winds in the 15-20 kt range all night that gave us a beautiful downwind sail. On my watch I got the privilege of seeing an amazing moonrise when the moon looked like a giant orange ball of fire rising up over the mountains. Just awesome!

We arrived in Tenacatita and were a bit surprised to find about 15 boats there, but it is a pretty large anchorage. We had read that there was an estuary you can enter just off the anchorage that will take you about 2 1/2 miles through the mangroves up to a lagoon.

We decided to check out the estuary by paddle, so we blew up our inflatable canoe and took off toward the estuary entrance. We could tell that the tide was going out, so it was going to be an upstream paddle on the way in, but we thought it would be better to have the more difficult paddle first and then coast back.

What we didn’t anticipate was that at the mouth of the estuary the bar gets really shallow. That shallow water accelerated the flow of the current to the point where we were fighting about a 4 kt current. Despite our frantic paddling, we weren’t able to get through that. So, we beached the canoe and walked it across the bar to a point where the estuary was deeper and the current not quite as fast.

The upstream paddle was definitely a challenge and a serious workout for the arms, but we were able to manage it ok. Just a few blisters on the hands… But, on the return trip, we were able to float back just using the paddles to steer around the bends.

The estuary was beautiful. The mangroves lined the sides of the estuary and were home to tons of red mangrove crabs and all different types of birds – herons, egrets, etc. It really was perfect to paddle instead of using the dinghy with the motor. The silence in the estuary except the sounds of the birds, the wind blowing through the mangroves and the scratching of the crabs through the mangroves really did give us a sense of being part of nature.

We were told that there were some crocodiles in the estuary. One of the other boats we met in the anchorage told us they saw some baby crocodiles on their trip through. We were on the lookout, but unfortunately never saw any. I’m sure they were hiding somewhere in the mangroves. I figured they wouldn’t bother us, but I certainly didn’t want to take an chances of tipping the canoe and going for a swim!

Tenacatita was awesome, but we needed to keep moving. After a couple of days, we headed south again to Barra de Navidad! More on that next time…

~katie

Day by Day

I’ve been asked by several of you land lubbers what the heck we do out here each day. If you’ve read the blog and saw some of the videos, you probably have a good idea what we do when we are sailing or are at anchor in a new bay. But, what have we been doing in the marina here in La Cruz for the past two weeks???

So, I thought I would give you the run down of what we have been doing for the past few days. There really isn’t any typical day here since there isn’t much routine. But, this will give you some idea…

On Saturday, we were lucky to be invited to crew aboard Kenta Anae, our friends we met earlier this summer in the Sea, as they were about to race the final race in the Vallarta Cup Series put on by the Vallarta Yacht Club. Now, Mike & I may have done our share of sailing, but we have no race experience whatsoever! It’s a whole different ballgame! I mostly tried to stay out of the way and grind on the winch to sheet in the spinnaker whenever Merle gave the order. That, I could handle.

I was also the race photographer…

We were one of the only cruising/liveaboard boats in the race, so it we weren’t exactly pulling away from most of the raceboats. But, we did beat some boats and overall had a great time. It was so nice to be out on the water again! We even saw a whale pretty close to the boat. One crazy thing did happen though. Another boat had to pull out of the race in the middle because they discovered a dead body floating in the bay. Eek! Apparently a tourist at a nearby resort had gone missing and was presumed drowned. I’m glad his family got some closure, but I’m also glad we did not make the gruesome discovery!

After a celebratory tequila on Kenta Anae after the race, Mike & I had to get back to Adagio to do some studying. While we were in the States, we studied for and took the first Ham license exam (Technician level). But, to really do anything on the radio, you need the second level – General license. They were offering the exam at the Vallarta Yacht Club on Sunday morning, so we decided to go for it. Unfortunately, we had procrastinated a bit on the studying, and had to stay up late Saturday night trying to memorize everything. Unless you know a lot about circuits, oscillators, transceivers, how to solve for power when you have resistance and energy, etc…you have to study for this exam.

Sunday morning came early, and we took a van with a bunch of other folks from the marina over to the yacht club for our test. Thankfully, we both passed and now have our upgrade Ham license! After resting up (we stayed up way too late!), we met up with a group of about 15 people to head into Puerto Vallarta for dinner. Our friends on Kenta Anae wanted to introduce everyone to a great Cuban restaurant that they found in Puerto Vallarta Centro. We had to take two different buses to get there, and somehow we managed to all pile onto the same buses despite the large size of our group. The restaurant was great with live music and a dance floor. Unfortunately, Mike was starting not to feel so well, so we cut the evening short. But, we heard the band played until 3 am!

On Monday, Mike was down with a bug, so I took the opportunity to do some computer work and video editing. I promise there will be a new video up soon!

Tuesday was “I hate birds!” day. We realized that for the last couple of nights, one of the large frigate birds had decided that the top of the mast was an excellent place to hang out for the night. Our boat was literally covered in bird shit. The decks, the canvas, the dinghy, the lines on the mast pulpit, the scuba tanks…everything. And, on top of that, the bird broke off the wind indicator on the mast. Ugh! So, I got to work on my hands and knees scrubbing bird shit for hours in the sun. Mike was finally feeling himself by the afternoon and decided to climb to the top of the mast to replace the broken piece of the wind indicator (thank goodness we had a spare) and to put up some bird deterrent. He put up a bunch of bright colored zip ties sticking straight up that we hoped would keep the birds off.

Unfortunately, about 4 am that night, Mike & I both woke up to a noise. We both looked at each other and said “bird!” Sure enough, that damn bird was back and didn’t care about the zip ties. And what a mess he had made. Lucky for me, Mike was willing to get the hose and scrub brush out and let me stay in bed.

By Wednesday we were really getting serious about narrowing our to-do list so that we could finally depart the marina. Mike took off to run a bunch of errands and get some last minute parts as well as make a couple of returns to the marine shop in Puerto Vallarta. I stayed behind to work on polishing the stainless steel. I didn’t get the whole boat done, but there are only so many hours I can stand working in the sun and heat before I call it quits for the day.

So, that brings us to today. Mike needed to do some maintenance on the outboards, so I got tasked with finding the AutoZone to get us more refrigerant. I found the AutoZone, which was right next to the WalMart. I took the opportunity to pick up some last minute things at WalMart and was surprised to find lemons! Limes are easily available in Mexico, but this is the first time I’ve seen lemons since leaving California. This was also my first time negotiating the Puerto Vallarta bus system by myself, so I’m pretty proud of myself.

After my shopping excursion, I walked over to the fish market to pick up some shrimp for dinner. And, I decided to do a little work in the galley. My cilantro looked like it was on its last day, so I made it into some great cilantro pesto with some almonds, garlic, olive oil and salt. It should keep that way for some time. I also started a new batch of sprouts. I’m trying some different seeds this time, so I hope they turn out pretty yummy.

We made a plan to leave here on Saturday, weather permitting. We’re still debating whether to head to Punta de Mita or to Yelapa. I know Mike wants to try his hand at surfing, so I think we may end up at Punta de Mita for a couple of days.

We’ll keep you all posted of our whereabouts!

~katie

Holy Fireworks!

One of the great things about being in another country is getting to experience local culture, festivals and celebrations. While we are still in La Cruz getting the boat ready to head south, we happened to be here at the right time to experience the Bucerias Patron Saint Festival celebrating Our Lady of Peace (La Virgen de la Paz) who is the patron saint of the church in Bucerias and the protector of fishermen.

Bucerias is the next town over from La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, and lucky for us only a short bus ride away. The festival lasts for nine days and culminates with all of the fishermen decorating their pangas here in La Cruz and sailing over to Bucerias to make an offering at the church.

The fishermen’s pangas in La Cruz are reasonably right by the fish market. The fish market is seriously awesome. You can walk up to stalls each day and see the fresh fish being brought in right off the boats. The fish are sold whole or can be filleted for you. It is always fresh, delicious and cheap!

We walked down to the market to check out the pangas being decorated and all the fishermen and their friends and family getting ready to depart for Bucerias.

Most celebrations in Mexico, as well as about every part of life here, involve music. And, this was no different, as a band was set up between the stalls in the market to add to the joy and celebration as the fishermen set sail.

The celebration is not just a religious one as the entire town is set up with stalls with food, drinks, goods and fair games. It is a makeshift fair with tacos, hamburgers, beers and all kinds of games for kids and adults. We headed into Bucerias for the last night of the festivals to check out the parade, have some great street food, check out the games and most of all the fireworks. Everyone in town was out, young and old, to celebrate.

The parade…

The games were pretty hilarious. Think homemade carnival games or something you would have seen in a small town maybe fifty years ago. Mike decided to get into the action with a game to try and win a beer. The game was set up with old beer bottles sitting on various shelves. You got three rocks for 30 pesos and three throws to try and break the beer bottles. If you broke a bottle, you got a Corona. If you broke three bottles, you got a six-pack of Corona! Mike won us a beer (but not a six-pack). It was all in good fun.

Its often difficult to put in words the sights, sounds and smells of Mexico. Some good, and some a bit overwhelming. This was definitely one of those times. Bucerias is not a big town, and there are small cobblestone streets surrounding the church and main square in town. On these streets popped up tent after tent of makeshift food stalls and stores, leaving narrow paths for crowds of people to squeeze through. Lights were strung over stalls connected with long extension cords to who knows where.

The food stalls were mom and pop operations each fighting for business. Our friend Dale on Adios was very excited to find three hotdogs for 30 pesos (about $1.50)!

And, if you wanted music, it was everywhere. Bands playing less than 50 feet from each other fought to play louder than the next band to get your attention. The cacophony of sounds was unbelievable.

But, the highlight of the night was the fireworks. This was no ordinary fireworks display. A three story high structure was erected and placed right in the middle of the street in front of the church. The structure was loaded with fireworks with long fuses hanging from it. As we waited for the show to start, I chuckled at Dale affectionately calling it Mexico’s “burning man.” It certainly looked like it!

We found a spot to watch the show across the street up on the grass as the crowds began to swell and get closer to the burning man. We couldn’t help but notice that there was no barrier around the structure, there were power lines hanging nearby as well as a few pretty tall trees. There is no way this would be permitted in the States. It would be considered a serious safety hazard.

We saw the brave (or crazy) guy in charge of lighting the fuses light the first fuse that ran up the burning man and the sparks began to fly. Then, wheels on the structure starting turning, flying more sparks around in various colors. After one set of fireworks burned out, another fuse was lit. This went on about 6 times setting off more and more fireworks. At one point a stray went flying into the crowd sending people scrambling. It didn’t look like anyone got burned, but I’m not sure how.

Seriously? How is this safe?

Then, it was time for the finale as the final fuse was lit to blow the top of the burning man. The sparks went flying again, and then, unexpectedly, a ring of fireworks was blown off the top high into the air. It was amazing. Seriously, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Maybe the sacrifice of a little safety was worth it for such an incredible show.

The top of the tower flying off into the sky…

We felt very fortunate to be able to experience this amazing event in Bucerias. As we’ve said many times on this blog, we have great love for Mexico and the Mexican people who have welcomed us with open arms to their country. There is a large community of boaters and sailors in Mexico who are primarily American and Canadian with the occasional Frenchman or Aussie thrown in. All of the foreign cruisers support the local communities, who in turn are incredibly friendly and generous to us. We have been very disappointed to see that actions taken by our government in the last week are working to erode this wonderful relationship between the US and Mexico. We urge everyone to contact their elected officials to let them know that you disagree with the proposed actions of a border wall and potential tariffs on imports, and that you support a positive relationship with our wonderful neighbor to the south.

Leaving our mark on Bucerias…

~katie

Back in Mexico!

After a month visiting with friends and family in the States, we finally headed back to Adagio in Mexico. While we were stateside, we had to pick up supplies for the boat that aren’t easy to acquire in Mexico. We left Mexico with just a couple of backpacks and a duffel bag. We were returning with nine bags, including some large suitcases! Among the items we picked up were a rebuild kit for our wind generator, a new SSB radio (ours was broken) and a speargun for Mike!

Our first challenge was getting all of this gear to the airport and on the plane. We packed and repacked trying to make sure each bag was under the 50 lbs limit, but with so many bags we still ended up paying a price to get them all on the plane. Next, we had to make it through customs in Puerto Vallarta.

Mexico lets you bring personal items and other equipment into the country with some limitation, but if you are over a certain dollar figure, you have to pay a duty of 16%. While everything we brought back was for our personal use, and we have a temporary import permit for our boat and equipment, there was always a chance that some over-zealous customs official might decide that our items required the payment of duty.

So, we got in the line with all of the tourists coming to PV on holiday with our giant cart of bags. When you go through the line, you get questioned by an official. If they don’t find anything suspicious and you say you have nothing to declare, you push a button. A green light means go on through, a red light means your bags get x-rayed and scrutinized.

Most of our bags looked like ordinary suitcases and luggage. But, the speargun was in a long, odd-shaped box. The customs official started questioning us about what was in the box. She knew some English, but she didn’t understand “speargun.” We know some Spanish, but didn’t know how to say speargun in Spanish. So, in my horrible Spanish, I tried to explain it was for fishing, but not a fishing rod. It was for fishing while swimming under water. Finally, she said, “buceo?”, which means diving. Yes! we both exclaimed. That satisfied her and she told us to push the button. We got green! So, off we went through the airport to find a taxi big enough to haul all our gear to the marina.

We’re in Mexico!

Back at the marina, we have started a long list of boat maintenance projects before heading south:

(1) installing the new SSB radio

(2) rebuilding the wind generator that was off balance and creating too much vibration

(3) service the outboard engines for the dinghy

(4) change the fuel filters on the diesel engine

(5) tune the rigging

(6) seal the deck hatches (a couple were leaking)

(7) wash and wax the boat and polish the stainless steel

(8) remark our anchor chain

The great thing about Banderas Bay is that there are so many cruisers here and great resources to help you with boat projects. And, we were so excited to run into our friends on Kenta Anae that we left back at the end of the summer in the Sea of Cortez. Mike is really hoping to go surfing with Merle and the boys soon!

We retuned the rig to get ready for the next year of sailing, but there is always so much more to learn. So, Mike & I headed over to Nuevo Vallarta for a seminar on sails and rigging. We met our buddy Dale from Adios for the seminar and then went to dinner with him, Lana and Richard. After dinner we headed down to the beach for a walk and were lucky enough to get to experience the release of some baby sea turtles!

There is a local volunteer conservation organization that is trying to help the sea turtle population. All of the sea turtles are endangered, the result of various problems including illegal fishing practices and pollution. (If you didn’t know, the turtles mainly eat jellyfish. And, plastic bags floating in the ocean look like jellyfish. So think about that the next time you use a plastic bag or see litter that might make its way down to the ocean!)

These baby olive ridley turtles hatched less than 24 hours ago. The baby turtles face huge hurtles as they are a prime meal for sea birds and fish. So, the volunteers take them down to the water after dusk when there are less birds and it is harder for fish to see them. They want to give these little guys a chance!

Baby olive ridley sea turtles…

Waiting for the turtles to be released…

Go turtles go…

We’re hoping we only have about another week here in the marina in La Cruz, so we can finally head out and begin exploring again!

~Katie

Video: Sailing the Sea of Cortez Part 1

Hi all. I finally got one video uploaded from our summer in the Sea of Cortez. I’ll keep working on the next installments. Enjoy!

Coming to America

I’m not sure if the title of this post is more Eddie Murphy or Neil Diamond, but we are headed back to the States! We’ll be there a month to visit with friends and family over the holidays while Adagio sits safely tucked into the marina here in La Cruz. So, don’t expect any adventure posts from us for a while. But, I am going to try and work on editing all of our video we shot over the summer, so maybe I’ll finally get some of that posted.

In the meantime, I want to catch you all up on what we have been doing! We left San Blas on our way south toward Banderas Bay. But, we stopped at two really neat anchorages on our way down – Chacala and Jaltemba.

Chacala is a beautiful bay with white sand beaches. There are a few beachside restaurants and hotels, but the city itself is pretty sleepy. We wandered through the cobblestone roads and hung out on the beach.

Our first night anchored at Chacala, a huge lightening storm came through. We were the only boat in the anchorage, and so we crossed our fingers that the lightening would not find us. When you are the only mast sticking up out of the water, you are just asking for it. But, the storm finally passed and we got a decent night sleep.

The next day our friends on Kya arrived. We had them over for cocktails (or as cruisers call them, sundowners) as well as a single guy on another power boat that showed up in the anchorage about the same time. You can never have too many cockpit cocktail parties while cruising!

The anchorage got a bit rolly that night and we decided to follow Kya down the coast the next day to Jaltemba. Jaltemba is the opposite of Chacala. While Chacalca is calm and pleasant, Jaltemba is a cacophony of sights and sounds.

Jaltemba is a tourist destination for a lot of the Mexican cities nearby. We were there on the weekend and got to see how the Mexicans party on the beach! Families came early to the beach and set up for the day, and I don’t just mean beach chairs and picnic baskets. There were huge tents, BBQ grills, giant stereos and speakers…you name it. People literally moved to the beach for the day.

There were vendors everywhere, selling T-shirts, tourist items and lots and lots of food! There were carts with skewers of fish and shrimp. Ice cream vendors. Vendors with whole coconuts and pineapples. If you were hungry, there was someone there to sell you something.

The most fun we had was watching all of the bands play up and down the beach. These weren’t rock bands. Some were mariachi bands. But, others were simply a group of different instruments (who walks around the beach with a tuba!) that walked up and down the beach offering to play for a tip. You didn’t have to walk 100 ft before there was another band playing. So, you can imagine what that many different bands playing all at once sounded like. It was crazy.

After a couple of days at Jaltemba, we finally made it to Banderas Bay. Banderas Bay is a large bay that includes Punta Mita, La Cruz, Bucerias, Puerto Vallarta, and a few other cities and towns. It is also home to a huge cruising community, most of which show up sometime in November or December and sail around the area until about May.

We were here for a few reasons, but one of those was that Mike’s family was coming to Puerto Vallarta to visit us for Thanksgiving. We had a fabulous time with the family, and I know the kids loved the resort pools and jet skis. Mike’s mom and nephew even went parasailing!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the Vallarta Yacht Club, where they made all us wayward Americans roast turkey, dressing, cranberry, mashed potato and pumpkin pie. It was almost like home.

We can see why some cruisers get “stuck” here, because there are so many things to see and do. But, when we get back to La Cruz from visiting the States, we have big plans!

We’ve had to figure out where we are going to be next summer during the Pacific hurricane season. Basically, we either have to go back north and spend another summer in the Sea of Cortez, or we have to head south. So, we chose south! We are headed to Central America. We signed up for the Cruisers Rally to El Salvador which will take us to El Salvador by the end of March. From there, we can spend the summer in Costa Rica and Panama safely out of the zone of the hurricanes. We are really excited for this next step in our adventure!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and gets to spend the time with friends and family. Look for more adventures from us when we return in January!

~katie