Stingrays and Transit Troubadours

All right, already! Barring some unforeseen disaster, we're outta here tomorrow morning around 10. We've hauled the dinghy aboard, topped off the diesel, loaded more jugs of drinking water, washed down the deck and I've been tucking away every loose object in sight.

According to our weather oracle Don Anderson, conditions are calm around Cabo Corrientes (the point of land at the southern end of Banderas Bay), which is usually the hairiest part of the trip south. We'll try to land in Ipala tomorrow night. We'll have to be careful of the fishnets at that particular anchorage, so if it's after dark when we arrive, we'll probably just keep going overnight and land in Chamela. Get some rest, go on to Careyes. Then Tenacatita. Then Barra de Navidad and Melaque!

The Capt caught a video of dozens of stingrays traveling past our boat -- They look like reflections on the water, or fallen leaves

No whales yet, but then we have only been outside the marina with the boat once in the last three weeks. But we've been spotting the occasional lone stingray, and here's the shot I promised of the whole herd (flock? school?) we saw a few days ago.

Transit troubadour expertly balanced himself on the lurching bus and entertained us. Curious-looking guitar he was playing... the neck looks like a bass but the sound was a normal guitar

And here's a transit troubadour we met on the bus to Puerto Vallarta yesterday, when four of us first mates jumped ship for the day. He was actually pretty good, and I liked that he talked about his songs. The Mexicans on the bus resolutely ignored him and refused to make eye contact, but I dug up a good tip for him.

I felt like telling him "I know what it's like, amigo, to play your best and be regarded as a pest."

A Bad Case of Dockitis

Valentine's Day dinner at La Cava Martinez with Wendy and Mark of Sol Mate

I'm sitting in the yacht club lounge at Marina Nayarit in La Cruz, enjoying the first reliable Internet service I've had in over a week. We have now been here almost three weeks, and the plan (written in sand at low tide, remember) is to head south late next week. The Capt is first going to drive the VW Westfalia down to Barra de Navidad where he'll park it at our friend Fred's house, then he's going to try to get us a slip at our secret marina, catch a bus back here and we'll set sail. If all goes well, we'll buddy-boat with two other vessels, Far Country and Sol Mate. Although they'll probably leave us far behind, being bigger and faster boats.

I'm hoping the first night to stop at Yelapa, the last anchorage to the south in Banderas Bay, so we can spend a few hours in that unique village that can only be accessed by boat, even though it's not on an island. Imagine, no auto traffic. Maybe I'll even meet Maria, whose Yelapa blog has provided me with so much information about that interesting place.

I have photos, but not on the laptop, so I'll have to plug them in later after I've transferred them from my other 'puter. Yes, we are traveling with four computers, three of which actually work. Don't ask why.

So far I've seen the back of one whale and a whole flock (pod? flock? school?) of stingrays about the size of an 8x11" sheet of paper, which we were able to capture on video. My friend Juliet, who's now in Santiago, says that's where the whales are.

I still love La Cruz, but we're finding ourselves doing a lot of repairs, provisioning and socializing, and no cruising. In fact, we've only been out in Banderas Bay once. And the marina, as the Capt remarked this morning, is starting to feel like a trailer park.

Dodging Pitchmen in PV

Last year when I blogged about Banderas Bay, I said I didn't care if I ever saw Puerto Vallarta again. The gigantic cruise ships, the mega supermarkets, the crowds of tourists, the enormous hotels and condos of the Hotel Zone made me feel more like I was in Miami than Mexico.

But I take it all back. Beyond the Hotel Zone and over the river lies another Puerto Vallarta that I can still appreciate, and that's where I went yesterday with my friend Wendy of Sol Mate. The bus from La Cruz takes a sweaty hour to get to Old Town, so we hit the beach as soon as we arrived at the end of the line.

Right away we spotted some young men working on large-scale sand sculptures. Part of their job is to periodically spray their creations to keep them from drying out and disintegrating. Next we saw a man on the beach valiantly trying to balance large rocks on top of each other, making his own sculptures. I wondered if he'd ever dropped one on his foot.

Further on were a number of whimsical statues on the Malecon, including a grouping of bronze "chairs" where you could sit and look out to sea. Better choose a cool evening to do the sitting, though, because the bronze soaks up the sun and gets hot. Wendy gamely perched on one so I could get a shot.

Around the corner and up a block stands a church with a unique steeple. Unlike most churches I've seen in Mexico, it seemed hemmed in by stores and offices surrounding it.
Unquestionably, Old Town PV is almost frantically commercial in spots, with street vendors trying to entice los gringos ricos, and it takes an effort to tune them out. But, after all, everyone has to make a living, and everyone was good-natured about our refusals, with one exception: a woman in the Mercadito who bitterly mocked our "No, gracias."

An older gringa remarked to me, standing in front of a beautiful display of Huichol beadwork, that she felt guilty because she couldn't buy more. Occasionally we'd see an Indian artisan quietly at work on his beading or weaving rather than trying to hawk his wares, and a discreet box for tips was set out for those who wanted to photograph him.

After a couple of hours of sales pitches, and some shopping for Huichol jewelry and Tarahumara baskets, we were ready for some serenity. We found a suspension bridge over the river, leading into the downtown park, which was like another world. We passed a statue of director John Huston in his stage chair, pondering his next scene. Next to the Cultural Center, there was a peaceful place to enjoy lunch, and chat for a while with friends from Black Dog who passed by, while listening to student musicians practicing nearby.
Our expedition took all day, since we weren't in a hurry and knew our way home: catch a bus to Walmart, get off and catch another one to La Cruz. We must have walked miles, and talked for hours, yet it seemed only a little stroll and a brief conversation. True, Puerto Vallarta isn't a place I'd want to visit frequently, but there were treats for the eyes everywhere, as you can see from these photos. I have lots more but the upload time here at the marina is agonizingly slow, when it works at all, so I'll have to pop them in as I get time.

Getting Shipshape

La Cruz, Nayarit, marina

As soon as I boarded the boat Monday, I began to see the need for organizational skills. The first day I put a couple of hours into the head (that's bathroom for my lubber friends) and got most of that space sorted out. At least now you don't have to leave the room to grab a towel.

I freely admit, I'm a basket case. I think most domestic chaos of the material kind can be contained if you have enough baskets. Yesterday we went in search of plastic organizing baskets with holes for air circulation. Caramba! Walmart had a couple of dinky ones and Home Depot had none! I ended up getting a storage box I prayed would fit on my wardrobe shelf, to stow my clothes. It did!

The next coup was finding a store a few blocks from the marina that sells block ice, which we had to schlep to Bucerias for last year. Imagine taking a block of ice on a half-hour bus ride, followed by a half-hour's walk...impossible! Without a fridge, we're getting along with two cooler boxes, and would like to reduce it down to one. All the more reason to eat veggies, TVP and grains; they need no refrigeration. Can't give up dairy, though: a big chunk of cheese, some yogurt, cottage cheese, milk...all need reliable cooling. Block ice lasts three or four days, while bagged ice has to be replaced daily. In the van, it's a quick trip, and spoilage should be minimal.

The van also made it a lot easier for the Capt to go pick up jerry jugs of diesel, without having to pay a surcharge at the fuel dock. We're trying to be frugal this year. There's lots more to do: the switch for the water pump is squirrely, battery cables need work, the Capt wants to install a backstay insulator so we can finally transmit on our ham radio. The cockpit remains a mess. But it's beginning to look like we could actually take this boat somewhere.

The Best-Laid Plans

"If you want to give God a good laugh, tell him your plans..."

Did I say we were leaving for the boat on Sunday at "0-dark-30?" Silly me. It was more like 10am. The first leg of the journey, San Carlos to Mazatlan, was somewhat uneventful for me, mainly because I snuggled in the back of the van with the dogs and read most of the way while the Capt drove. The book held my interest -- Disappearing Acts by Jody Picoult.

With our late start, we'd almost reached Culiacan, when we took a break in a truck stop restaurant parking lot where we were lulled to sleep by the sound of semis entering and leaving. Our alarm was set for 3am so we could be on the road and into Maz by 8-- we had an important appointment, a blogger breakfast meetup, in fact, with Countdown to Mexico Nancy.

The Capt, buzzing nicely on a cup of Nancy's gourmet java

Nancy with Lucy (foreground) and Henry in their new back patio

Nancy had fresh-squeezed orange juice ready for us when we arrived at her place in Old Town Maz at 8 on the dot, just in time to see Paul off for his first printmaking class. Next she brewed up some excellent coffee with her high-tech machine and served us stacks of yummy French toast. A real comfort food breakfast. We got to meet her rescue birds and see the transformation she and Paul have made to their "back yard" -- last year a stark slab of cement baking in the sun, now a little outdoor oasis with grass, cool tile, lots of shade and flowers...

The Sofia/Chica dogpile

Back on the road, we took the toll road toward Tepic, which we're not sure was worth the tolls (a couple of them over 110 pesos), considering it was two lanes the whole way. It followed high ground so we looked down on jungles and farmland, agave fields and villages. Nancy had mentioned we'd see wetlands, and they were a birdwatcher's treat, with white pelicans, herons and egrets nesting and flocking all along the road. Traffic would slow down to a crawl, I'd switch on the camera, get a shot in focus, then traffic would speed up and I'd get a blur. Oh, well...

Nesting white pelican

Suddenly we realized we were going into a long empty stretch of road and running low on gas, so we had to double back and reroute to Rosario, which turned out to be one of the high points of the day. Rosario was established in 1655 and a few of the oldest buildings are still standing, including one structure that seems to be the remains of the front of a grand government palace...behind its elaborate facade I could see little open-air markets.

Historic building in Rosario...the blur in the middle was windshield reflection

We were filling up at the Pemex when a truck towing two wagons full of circus animals. A sorrowful young elephant, two Shetland ponies, a couple of llamas, burros.

Before Tepic (capital city of Nayarit state), we found the turnoff to San Blas and left the toll road, winding west into the jungle. Much cooler, we escaped the city driving and we had the prospect of seeing the ocean again.

We pulled into La Cruz well before sunset and began the unloading process, which took us two days. Who knew we'd packed so much stuff into that little Westfalia van? Now we're in the settling-in process and in a few more days we'll be ready to sail south.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying meeting our neighbors in the La Cruz marina: Escapade, Castaway, Lotus, and our former fellow travelers on Sol Mate. When we're not busy on the boat we can escape to ad hoc dock parties, provisioning expeditions to Walmart and Home Depot (ugh!) and group outings for dinner and live music. As always, we're behind schedule and wondering why we thought we had to have a schedule to begin with.