Hi Everyone!

We have nearly travelled the length of Mexico now… just a few hundred more miles to El Salvador. Here’s what we’ve been up to….

Chacala

We left Mazatlan at daybreak for an overnight run to Chacala, a small village in a small but beautiful bay. For the first time, things are starting to look more tropical. Until now, we have only seen the dry deserty hills of Baja and the Sea of Cortez, so the lush jungle, palm trees and flowers is a new treat. We dinghied to shore and explored the town on foot. Although its a small village, because it was still Semana Santa, the beaches were quite crowded.

We stayed one night and when we tried to pull up our anchor the next morning, we realized it had become tangled in a fisherman’s net. Elan had seen the young boy (he was maybe ten years old) dropping what we assumed was just a crab pot near our bow the night before. Elan figured that even if a crab pot got wound around the anchor chain it could be unwound in the morning, but a net is a little tricker.With the tide changes, current, etc during the night, the two became quite a tangled mess. I managed to carefully untangle it with no damage to anchor or net, and we were off on an uneventful motorsail to La Cruz.

 

La Cruz

We anchored outside of the small town of La Cruz, which has quite a large sailor/cruiser population. Its a slow-paced, community in Banderas Bay, a short drive/sail from the hustle and bustle of Puerto Vallarta. We met up with a lady named “Zee” who Elan had chatted with on Cruisers Forum, who has been docked at the marina for about a month. She gave us a quick walking tour of town, and then parked us all down at Ana Banana’s Restaurant/Bar for dinner, margaritas, and a great live band. We spent the whole evening hanging out, chatting with other cruisers, dancing and we even wrote our boat names on the wall above the bar- the owner was the one who gave us the sharpie, so why not!!.

 

Nueva Vallarta

The next morning we zipped across the bay to a marina in Nueva Vallarta. This is only the second time we have stayed at a marina on our whole trip down, so we decided to treat ourselves to hot showers, shore power, and fresh water to wash the boat down (it needed a bath badly, everything including ourselves and the dog are pretty well salt encrusted by now 🙂 ). We stayed at Paradise Village, which gave us access to the pools, hottubs, restaurants, and tigers. Yes, there are tigers in a pen by the lobby – what marina would be complete without them?

We rented a couple of scooters for 24hrs, and had a blast riding all over the area. We rode out to the surf town of Sayulita, out to Punta Mita, through some jungly areas and into the city of Puerto Vallarta. Had I known that Punta Mita has a great little surf beach perfect for beginners like me, I would have camped out there for a few more days.

Driving in traffic was interesting to say the least, but we made it though unscathed, with the exception of Elan’s helmet which went flying off his head as we drove down the road, and found its way under a bus and into a ditch.  I scooped up the pieces, we tied it back on to Elan’s head with his sunglasses string and went merrily on our way (better than nothing, right?!) We took advantage of having transportation to buy some 8 foot stainless steel tubing for some boat projects, and strapped those on to the scooter too. Im sure we were a sight to see.

Later on, we took Solent’s dinghy up the estuary looking for crocodiles, but didn’t find any. As I hopped out of the dinghy to go to dinner at Fajita Republic (yummy fajita place) I accidentally dropped my camera into the bilge of the dinghy…. its been soaking in rice to dry out for over a week now, but its not looking good. I think we will soon be in the market for a new WATERPROOF camera. Bummer.

We also took advantage of dock space and fresh water at the marina to work on a few boat projects: Elan fixed our boom/mainsail which had stripped out of the mast, and I added our new vinyl graphics to the bow (Thanks Jake & Deja!).

 

Tenacatita

We motored overnight to a pretty bay called Tenacatita, and for the first time since leaving San Diego, the sun rose on a hazy day, and we have had a few more since then too. I think its mostly just the moisture in the air. We have been wearing full foul weather gear at night- not because its cold- but because everything gets positively drenched with the nighttime dew.

Just after dawn, as I was finishing up my night shift, I tossed a handline and fish lure out, just to help break up the boredom and was thrilled to catch our first non-bonito fish (we are tired of eating bonito!). I originally thought it was a yellow fin tuna because of its bright yellow tail and fins, but after a little research, I think it was actually a Crevelle Jack… a relative of the bonito. Ugh. I made fresh sushi with him, but the meat is tough and a very dark red. But he was pretty, and it was a nice change of pace anyway.

At Tenacatita, we took the dinghy up yet another estuary in search of crocs, and still didn’t find any. 🙁 However it was a pretty drive.

 

Barra de Navidad

The next day, we made the short day hop to Barra de Navidad, a shallow inland bay with a fun beach town. On our way into the anchorage, we had to cross a sand bar (hence the name BARRA de Navidad), and, for the first time ever on our boat, we ran aground. Thankfully, it was just soft silty muck bottom, and we were going very slow, but we were wedged in pretty well. A nice teenage kid from another boat zipped over in his dinghy and helped push us off. He reminded me of my cousin Greg when he was that age, running around with any boat he could get his hands on…. and by the way…. HAPPY ENGAGEMENT Greg and Heather! Couldn’t be happier for you two!!!

Isla Grande by Ixtapa

On our way south, we saw SO many sea turtles lazily floating on the surface of the water. They seemed just as undisturbed by us motoring by as they were by the birds sitting on their backs. There are 5 or 6 different types of turtles in this area, and we are sure we saw at least two.

Just before arriving at Isla Grande, right outside of Ixtapa, we drove through hoards and hoards of glowing pink jellyfish. Not as charming as the turtles, especially after our stinging jellyfish experience at Ensenada Grande. These were small, about 3 inches each and if I had to guess, Id say there was at least one jellyfish per cube foot of water as deep, and as far as we could see for about 45 minutes. Swim anyone?

We had a rocky rolly night at Isla Grande, and decided to move on with out making the long dinghy ride to shore to explore the city of Ixtapa.

Zihuatenejo

Our overnight trip to Zihuatenejo was eventful to say the least. Off and on since Cabo, we have had engine overheating problems, and have tried everything we can think of to fix them; we removed the thermostat, we cleaned and flushed the raw water heat exchanger, installed a new temp gauge, and installed a new temp sender, but low and behold, we were still overheating. Suspicious that maybe the temp gauge and sender we had previously installed weren’t communicating properly, (we bought them separately) we bought a matched set gauge and sender in La Paz. Midway through our passage, Elan decided to kill the engine and make the swap right out in the middle of the ocean. Wouldn’t you know, as soon as we had the engine compartment open and torn apart, that a freighter would come bearing down on us. Im sure my panicked announcements of “6mi away!…. 4mi away!…. 2mi away!” weren’t helping Elan’s stress level, but after putting up a sail to luff in the non-existent breeze, it was the only thing I could think to do. 🙂 Elan expertly installed the new sender and gauge in a matter of minutes, but when I went to turn the key in the ignition to fire up and get out of dodge, the entire key assembly pulled out of the wall and crumbled in my hand. I couldn’t believe our luck. The freighter ended up passing about .5 miles off our bow, which is plenty of room (but at the same time, not nearly enough!!) and Elan casually showed me how to start the motor with a screwdriver. What a stud.

Just moments after getting back underway, we found ourselves being hailed by the Mexican Navy for a routine inspection. Great! They were friendly enough and surprisingly non-invasive in their search, but having 10 dudes in masks with machine guns stomping around the boat was unnerving. Thankfully Apollo, our fierce guard dog, didn’t bite a single one, and we passed our inspection with flying colors.

Needless to say, we were very excited to get to Zihuatenejo, its a good sized town that cruisers consistently love. We agreed that it was a cute town, very clean, orderly, good variety of shops, etc…. however, we were devastated to return to our dinghy after breakfast the next day and find that someone had slashed a big hole in it with a knife. We are totally crushed. We both have traveled extensively abroad with the attitude that if you treat other people with respect and kindness, you can stay out of trouble even in less than perfect security situations. We have no idea what provoked this malicious act. From the looks of it, they cut a slice about 1 foot long and then ripped the hole to a total of about 4 feet. Its a three chambered boat, meant to float even if one tube is popped, but they managed to pop two of the three chambers. We did our best to patch it up on the beach, but its a frankenstein…. we are giving it a day or two to dry before testing it with air. At best, it will be a temporary fix. We informed the Port Captain and FONATUR, Mexico’s tourism dept, of the vandalism, and they all insisted that nothing like that could have ever happened in their town, and I generally got the impression that they wanted the whole thing swept under the rug as soon as possible. Tourism in Mexico has suffered a lot in the past few years due to bad PR about the drug wars, and Im sure they don’t want stories like ours making the record.

However, our boat’s name is Silver Lining, and this story has one too. We contacted Walker Bay, the company that makes our dinghy, told them the sob story, and asked if there was any way (pretty, pretty please) that we could buy a cosmetically blemished dinghy for less than retail price, and have Elan’s sister Deja hand carry it to us when she visits us next month. To our astonishment and relief Walker Bay responded immediately and said that not only do they have a factory in Mexico, but they will sell us a replacement set of tubes at cost!! They are quick-shipping the tubes to us in Acapulco, and we should have them on Tuesday. What an amazing company (based in Yakima WA – huh, close to home!) and fabulous customer service – its the best possible outcome to this sad situation. Their response is a good reminder there are lots of good people out there in the world to offset the occasional jerk. This will still be an expensive hang-up, but its better than it could have been, and Deja- you are off the hook. 🙂

For as much as we looked forward to Zihuatenejo, we couldn’t shake that “I’ve just been violated” feeling and couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Acapulco

We made the overnight passage to Acapulco, and on the moonless night we had the most amazing phosphorescence I have ever seen. Every wave, bow splash, and turn of the prop left a glowing blue streak. While alone on night watch, looking out at the glowing streaks reaching as far as the eye can see, it was easy to imagine that each flash was a fish, or dolphin, or sea monster… hey, night watch goes by slowly without something to occupy your thoughts. 🙂 I had to laugh a little when I pumped the toilet and even saw the glow there in the salt water flush. I think that phosphorescence is caused by the same organism as red tide, and the water has certainly been reddish lately. The color of the water here at anchor in the bay at Acapulco is the most disturbing shade of dark red. In the last few days we have also seen a lot of coagulated oil floating on the surface of the ocean, and what could possibly be a bubbly white dispersant. I think large oil spills sometimes show up as a reddish color. We haven’t seen anything in the news indicating a spill near by, but Mexico’s fuel company, PEMEX, is a federal corporation, so if there was a spill, it may not make the news. Either way, I don’t think we’ll be swimming here.

On a happy note, our new temp gauge and sender fix, seems to have done the trick! The two previous ones, although new, weren’t purchased together, so they just weren’t communicating correctly. We haven’t actually been overheating at all- it was just sending an incorrect message. PHEW! We met a sailor in La Cruz who said she was the only one she’d ever met who’s boat didn’t overheat on the trip down Baja….. and thats because her temp gauge was broken. Haha. Well, either way, we are in good company.

Well, thats it for now, we’ll be here in Acapulco until our dinghy shows up, and then head to Huatalco, our last stop in Mexico before crossing the Tehuanepec and entering El Salvador.

I’m off to see how well I can butcher Apollo’s sweet curls in an attempt to cool him off- he needs it!

Hope you are all well, lots of love,

A&E

P.S. We need to add yet another great engagement notice and congratulations for this week! Congrats Bean and Trevor!!

Hey Everyone!

Wow, we have been busy since our last big post. I’ll need to backtrack a little past our last few quick updates to fill you in on what we have been up to for the last few weeks.

La Paz

We spent a little over a week in La Paz, re-fueling, re-stocking and enjoying the convenience of restaurants and good marine supply stores. Ashley’s parents few in for a few days to celebrate her 29th Birthday cruiser-style. Their trip was cut a little shorter than originally planned, which didn’t allow us enough of a weather window to leave the anchorage while they were here, but it was warm and sunny, and we still had a lot of fun. We explored the beaches and mangroves near the anchorage and loved having mom and dad as visitors aboard.

We had a pod of dolphins visit us most days in the La Paz anchorage, the just lazily mozied on by. Click link for a video: Dolphins swimming past Silver Lining at anchor in La Paz

Ensenada de la Raza

We left La Paz a few days before Solent did, and headed north in the Sea of Cortez towards Ensenada de la Raza on the NW side of Isla Espiritu Santo, which is one of three smallish coves making up Puerto Ballena. We had sheer rock cliffs on both sides of the long narrow cove and crystal clear water in the shallows. The cliffs are striped red and back, and the rocks seemed to wash up on the beach in perfect stripes too, red rock, black volcanic rock, then white shells and coral. Its pretty neat how it all separates out as it washes to shore.

We saw dead lobster and conch shells on the beach, and Elan was determined to catch us one or the other for dinner. We spent hours during the day drifting the dink through the clear shallow water searching, to no avail… well not totally. Elan dove for some gigantic clams which we put on the BBQ. We waited and waited for them to open up letting us know they were ready, but they never did. Eventually Elan pried one open only to find that they were way overcooked- guess these guys are different than the small ones we are used to back home. But more surprisingly, we found a baby lobster inside one of them!

We had the cove to ourselves for two nights, and took advantage of the solitude to run our generator and not bother anyone. We dinghied to shore with a drill and the generator to install landing wheels on the dinghy. Seems funny to be using power tools on an uninhabited beach.

We bought the landing wheels in La Paz, because we have encountered more and more beaches that require surf landings, so being able to flip the wheels down right before landing allows us to use the motor to push us quickly through the surf and on to the beach without ruining the motor and prop or getting swamped by waves that move faster than we can. We weren’t able to complete the project before dark (and still haven’t as I write now), and had quite a rough and wet ride back to the boat. The wind does tend to come up in the evenings and often blows from the south, even though it almost always blows from the north all day this time of year. We had a rocky rolly night that night since the wind waves came straight into our protected little anchorage.

The second night was glassy and calm, and Elan was still convinced we needed a lobster, so we took the dinghy for a moonlight float over the reefs and shallows with a flashlight. We were amazed at how much more we saw at night from the dinghy than what Elan had seen snorkeling during the day. We saw tons of sea snakes, which are apparently very poisonous although not very aggressive, anemones, big long tube-like fish, and long skinny pencil sized fish that are iridescent and blue and jump out of the water to skip across the surface in front of the dinghy. We have been seeing them jump and skip around our dinghy at night for a few weeks, but didn’t realize what they were until we had the flashlight to draw them in. They kept swarming and jumping around us, and one accidentally jumped in the boat with us. We scooped him out and set him free. Elan bought a speargun in LaPaz and shot it at what we thought was a lobster, but turned out to be an icky spongy thing that bled purple goo. Oops, sorry little guy! We decided to turn off the flashlight so the jumpers would leave us alone and realized that the phosphorescence was amazingly bright in our outboard wake. We played around spinning doughnuts and enjoying the way the fish scattering in front of the bow looked like fireworks underwater as the phosphorescence lit up their trails.

Caleta Partida

We motored just a few miles north to an anchorage called Caleta Partida, which is actually the gap between Isla Partida and Isla Espiritu Santo, barely separated by a shallow cut. The cove between the two islands was the crater of a volcano at one time, although the east and west edges have eroded away, leaving a large, almost perfectly round cove.

Solent met us here, and we took the dinghies through the cut to the E side of the islands to explore two sea caves. Inside the jaggy cliff openings, we found calm clear water and a bright red pebble beach. Elan hopped in for a quick swim. Both caves had peek-a-boo “windows” which were neat.

The geography here is amazing, the striped craggy mountains are amazing reds, blacks, and whites, rising and falling with big cliffs and rock slides.

We also did some snorkeling around the reef at the west entrance of the cove.

The beach was covered in little “fiddler crabs”. They’re tiny crabs with one big claw, that run in hoards across the beach and pop in and out of tiny holes. Sometimes the beach looked like it was absolutely crawling. Neat little guys.

 

Los Islotes and Isla San Francisco

On our way to Isla San Francisco, we anchored for a few hours so we could dinghy out to Los Islotes, which is a sea lion rookery on two small islands N of Isla Partida. Divers have visited this spot often enough that the sea lions are not afraid of humans, so we donned our snorkel gear and jumped in to swim with them. What an exhilarating experience! These wild animals, out weighing us by several hundred pounds, were amazingly curious and playful. They swam out to meet us, circling us, checking us out and occasionally playfully nipping on our flippers. One youngster, carefully watched by two older sea lions, insisted on swimming much closer to me than I was comfortable with. I didn’t want his mama to come put me in my place, but she seemed content with the fact that her baby was seeking us out and that we were harmless enough. It was an amazing experience to watch them so closely underwater and see their graceful and powerful movements.

Click here to see the Underwater Video: Swimming with Sealions

 

After we all hopped back into the dinghy that same youngster actually jumped onto the back of the dinghy and just hung out there barking and bobbing around. We were so thrilled that he wanted to be that close to us. The video isn’t very good quality, because I wasn’t expecting him, and clearly I was a little nervous about the whole thing, haha! He continued to splash around our dinghy, playing with the mooring ball (like a circus seal!) and playfully biting at our ropes. Precocious little guy!! This place is now up at the top of our “favorites list”.

Click the link to watch the Video: sealion on dinghy

As we moved towards Isla San Francisco, we put up the jib and mainsail and killed the engine. This is the first time we have actually had full sails up and no motor on our entire trip. Our weather has been amazingly light since leaving San Diego, which means lots of motoring or motor-sailing (using both motor and sails at the same time) just so we can get places…. I cant believe it looks us over a month to be able to do so, but I wont complain about the charmed weather we have had! Not one day of rain since leaving San Diego- not bad even if we haven’t sailed much!

The crescent shaped anchorage on Isla San Francisco is a popular day-trip stop from La Paz. We only spent one night in the crowded anchorage, but did do the amazing hike up to the crest of the island to peer down over both steep sides to the E and W.

 

Towards the end of the hike, we found some natural (I think) salt ponds, and stopped to pick up a few pieces. Its slightly pink in color and after a taste test, we decided it was clean enough to eat. 🙂 Solent has already been using theirs in their salt grinder, and I suppose we will too once our store-bought supply runs out.

Amortajada and Mangle Solo on Isla San Jose 

On our way to Mangle Solo on Isla San Jose, we made a day stop at Amortajada, a lagoon with mangroves. We dinghied in through the shallow channel, and explored around. We didn’t see much wildlife, but we did see a ton of floating dead fish, all the same kind, and weren’t sure what to make of them. The boys drug the dinghy with us girls inside it toward a tempting, lush beach, which actually turned out to be swampy, buggy, and a little stinky. We stuck around long enough to explore on foot and drink a beer, then set out again.

On our way N, we saw what we think were a few pilot whales- smaller, darker whales with rounded faces and a small dorsal fin.

We were also thrilled to see several blue whales- their massive size is hard to comprehend even after seeing them with my own eyes. They are the largest animal on the planet, 100+ feet long and weight about 200 tons. From our vantage point it was more like seeing the top of a big silver bus, float up, break the surface, blow their spout and then dip down again. The photos just don’t do it any justice!! We were very grateful that these majestic, endangered creatures decided to show themselves to us, even if it was just from afar. Our friends on Solent took an amazing pic of a blue whale tale with our boat in the background, which helps give their size a little perspective.

The anchorage at Mangle Solo, was basically just a little spit of land with a swampy lagoon on the North side and a Cardon Cactus forrest in the middle. The Cardon is one of the biggest cactus species, reaching up to 70 feet tall.

Unfortunately, because we need to make it south to Panama before hurricane season hits in June, this has to be our last day moving north in the Sea of Cortez, although there is still much more to see. We wish we had more time here, but we’ve got to keep on moving!

 

Isla San Jose South to Ensenada Granda

We made our way south again to Isla Espiritu Santo and anchored in the N part of Ensenada Grande. The hot sun and inviting turquoise water lured us for a swim just after we set anchor. Elan and I swam about halfway to Solent, before realizing that we were being bitten by something and turned back. A couple of Benedryl seemed to make our red rashy spots disappear after about 24 hrs, so no real harm done, but it was a little scary to feel the stings, and not be able to identify the source. The next morning we could see that there were actually thousands of teeny tiny jellyfish (maybe 1/2inch wide) floating all around our boats.

 

Ensenada Grande to Bonanza to Ensenada de los Muertos

On our way to Bonanza, we made a pit stop in a small cove called Las Cuevitas, which supposedly has lots of Blue Footed Boobies (a bird with bright blue feet), but none wanted to show themselves.

We returned to Bonanza for a night, one of our favorite stops on the way North, and then continued south to Ensenada de los Muertos where we rested for two nights before making the crossing to Mazatlan. Muertos had a beautiful resort that let us relax in their posh restaurant and pool.

 

Sea of Cortez crossing to Mazatlan

We left Muertos at about 4am to make the 30ish hour overnight crossing to Mazatlan. The crossing started off swelly and rolly, but eventually smoothed out and we made great time across a glassy sea with a full moon to keep us company overnight. There was quite a bit of traffic since the big freighters and ferries use this same course between Mazatlan and La Paz, so it kept us on our toes through the night. Nothing like watching a blob on the radar materialize into a massive container ship looming over you in the darkness to remind you that you how important it is to keep a good watch. To them, we are the size of a fly, and thats about how much attention they pay to us too. We arrived at Stone Island Anchorage, outside Mazatlan, around noon the next day, took a quick nap and ran into town to try to track down groceries and the diesel jerry cans we will be needing soon for some of the longer stretches of Central America where you cant buy diesel. Every time we go out looking for groceries or – heaven forbid – boat parts, I realize how much we had taken for granted back home. Being able to hop in a car, know where you are going, and find exactly what you need is quite a luxury. However, exploring each new town on foot and having to find things for ourselves is also very rewarding and its all part of the adventure of travel. After searching all over town for diesel cans in LaPaz and Mazatlan, we came up empty handed. Most large towns in “cruising” areas have a cruiser’s net on the VHF radio in the morning where cruisers all tune in to check in, chat about events, ask questions, buy, sell, trade, etc.  Elan asked if anyone knew where to find the jerry cans, and the general consensus was that there was only one lady in town who could order them, but that she would be gone for several days for the Semana Santa holiday. Thankfully, two other boaters offered to sell us some of their’s used. We spent the next day taxi-ing all over town tracking them down. We eventually bought 4 really nice cans and two very ugly old ones, but we gladly paid the asking prices.  We hailed a “collectivo”; a pickup truck taxi with benches in the bed and a canopy over top to haul us and our now full jerry cans across town to our dinghy. We also had the excitement of riding in a few “pulmonias” (which are basically just souped-up golf cart taxis) as we sped through town with our maniacal driver darting through the extra busy holiday traffic.

After the jerry can excursion, we met Lee and Serena near Olas Altas which is a seaside boardwalk in the older part of Mazatlan. It was jam-packed with vendors and mexican families vacationing. There were also several small vista platforms built into the rocky shoreline, which we climbed.

Thats it for now. We hope you are all doing well! Please keep in touch, we’ve been loving your comments, texts and emails.

Lots of love,

A & E