Mazatlan Shrimp Ladies

We have had a nice week here in Mazatlan.  Some nice sundowners on the dock, tacos  pastor in town, beach walking and some boat work and provisioning to get ready for our next 2 months up in the Sea of Cortez. 

One of the highlights of our visit was a trip down to El Centro to the street where the Shrimp ladies sell the fresh shrimp.  We had been thinking of doing this in past visits, but we were asked by our friends Orlando and Linda from Cubra Libre if we would join them, we said “you bet!”  So the deal is you buy a kilo of the type of shrimp you want, then take them across the street to the restaurant/bar that takes your shrimp and cleans and cooks them to order.  The choices are a garlic shrimp, diablo or breaded/fried.  We had both garlic and diablo and both were excellent.  I thought we would have leftovers, but we scarfed a whole kilo of them up and washed down with mini Pacifico Lights.  Fun was had by all.  Thank you Orlando and Linda!

Lots of shrimp and other seafood goodies

The bar/restaurant which looks pretty shady (entrance to the left of the blue sign), has loud banda music playing, but the shrimp is outstanding.

Chris, Orlando, Linda and Rich enjoying the shrimp

Semana Santa begins and we say goodbye to Mazatlan as the touristas arrive from all over Mexico to enjoy this special festival week that ends with Easter.  Happy bunny day to all of you!

La Cruz to Mazatlan - 2015

March

It is always sad to part ways with people we meet, but it is nice to think that we will see many again along the way.  We enjoyed doing crafts with the girls, playing music with friends and just hanging out.

A special thanks to our La Cruz friends, Hans and Denise who spent a lot of time our last week there driving us around to find a new starting battery for the boat.  Rich was checking our electrical systems and even though we had replaced our 4 house batteries, we were still having some weird charging issues.  So out comes all the stuff stacked on the bunk under which the batteries are placed, and after examining them, he discovered that we should probably have replaced the start battery too.  So the search was on, always a challenge, but even more so without transportation and a very heavy battery.  So came Hans to the rescue!  Unfortunately we could not find the right one on the day he was available to haul us around.  Later that week, he was leaving for San Diego, so when Denise was taking him to the airport, we tagged along and we found one at the first place, Yeah!

So we sadly left La Cruz early on March 23 and had a beautiful motor sail to Mantanchan Bay near San Blas.  The next morning after a calm evening and good nights sleep, we motor sailed to Mazatlán under very calm conditions. 

It is not often this Pacific

This booby came to watch the sunset and rode with us all the way to Mazatlan!

A visit from good friends

 February 2015

We were so happy that Rickie and Charlie were coming to visit us in La Cruz.  We had turned them onto this town and our friends Hans and Denise, who help rent vacation casitas in town.  Denise found them a lovely one bedroom place on the hill above town and overlooking Banderas Bay and the Marina. We took the bus to the airport to show them the way to go to get to their place.  It was so nice seeing someone from home.

View from the casitas

The living room

We spent some great times busing to Bucerias, Sayulita, Punta de Mita and enjoying beach walks, good cheap Mexican tacos and even some German food!  We introduced them to some local music and Rich took them to the Spay and Neuter fundraiser that was held at a great beach palapa restaurant when Cathy was home with a stomach bug.

Rickie and Charlie in the Bucerias church

Street  vendors in Bucerias

Lunch on the beach

Michalatas in Sayulita

Soaking up those rays in Sayulita

Many restaurants in La Cruz have live music, the following is one called The Black Forest, that is a German place with excellent food and wines.

Entertainment this evening was Lobo, and excellent guitarist

Soaking up great wine and music

One day we took a bus to Punta de Mita where Rich and Charlie rented SUPs (stand up paddleboards) and took to the surf.  Rickie and I hung out at the beach, soaking up more sun and watching the boys try to catch waves.  They had such fun, thank goodness the waves were not huge that day.

View of surf

Rich, catching a wave, he did stand up!

A quick visit home to renew our visas, do taxes and visit with family found us back in La Cruz mid-March and getting ready for our next adventure to  begin our journey north to Mazatlan.

La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

January - 2015

Catching up with all the activities happening in this small fishing village, dominated by the large Marina Riviera Nayarit, was fun.  Checking out new restaurants, the music scene and making new friends was an adventure.  We spent some time with new friends Randy and Joy on the sailing vessel Spirit of Hanalei.  They hail from Southern California and were new to La Cruz.  We spent one day touring the old town of Puerto Vallerta .

Scoping out the unusual bronze statues along the Malecon in Puerto Vallerta

Joy interacting with the Sandmen

Lunch  at Gaby's Restaurant, the best Chicken Mole around

Puerto Vallerta, where Night of the Iguana was filmed

Another time we went to dinner at a restaurant that we had previous loved.  It has changed ownership and is not quite as organized or good as it was.  We enjoyed our dinner though and laughed at the mini  bartender whom you could barely see over the bar.  He made a mean margarita though.

He is a cutie

Rich, Randy and Joy

One weather issue this year was an unusual amount of rain.  One storm brought some weather cells with over 45 knot winds in the middle of the night.  We were happy to be in the marina, those in the anchorage had a scare, but thankfully, no one had any damage.

Mazatlan to La Cruz 2015

We set out from Mazatlán on January 8^th with what we thought was a slight northerly.  It turned out to be moderate winds behind with following seas.  Not our best point of sail.  We found that our autopilot was not up to sailing us downwind in these conditions so there were more than a few hours of hand steering.  There were also some fabulous lightning flashes behind us so we were happy to be keeping ahead of those.  Once we got nearer to Bandaras Bay and our final destination, we encountered long lines. These are floating lines that Mexican fishermen place on the surface with hooks suspended.  These lines are many miles long and identified by small black flags and/or small white floats.  Very difficult to see in the daytime, impossible at night.  We caught one before dawn on our bobstay, Rich was able to break the hook off with our boat pole.  We went over 7 in total, catching 2 on our bobstay.  Nice to have a full keel boat so these do not get caught on our propeller. 

Happy to arrive in La Cruz, to our usual dock 3 spot, greeting friends we had not seen since last year.

Rich, taking a well deserved rest after dodging long lines.

Christmas in Mazatlan 2014

Christmas in Mazatlan 2014

We decided to spend some time in Mazatlan getting a few boat jobs completed.  We really enjoy the city, and the marina is quite a bit lower price than La Cruz.  We will be spending two months in La Cruz and Banderas Bay after the first of the year, so we thought we would stay put for a change of pace.

We joined Sams Club because it is only a couple of blocks away.  There are also other Sams Clubs in the La Cruz area that are much more convenient than Costco.  They have really good prices on wine and other bulk food items.

We have been eating out a lot, mainly because it is often cheaper to eat at a restaurant than to go to the store, but the food, and cook it yourself.  Our friends Orlando and Linda on Cuba Libre have their car with them, so they have been taking us to some of their favorite taco stands and restaurants.  Orlando speaks fluent Spanish, so he makes it easy to order the good stuff!  When they get back from the holidays we are planning a hot dog tasting tour of “hot dog alley”.  There is a street in the hotel zone that has 7 different hot dog stands all spaced about 10 feet apart on the same street.  They set up there every night and seem to be very popular with the locals.  Each one specializes in a different kind of hot dog.  There are grilled, bacon wrapped dogs, cheese filled, with grilled jalapenos, onions, you name it!  Most of the mayonnaise down here has lime juice in it.  Put that on a jalapeno dog, and it is yummy time.  (also antacid time!) Photos of this planned trip will be posted soon.

Martinis on the roof with John and Cyn from Alcyone

We went downtown to celebrate the holidays with our friends from Alcyone.  We went to our favorite roof top bar across from the beautifully restored theatre on Plaza Machado.  You can see the church steeples in the background also.

The plaza was all decorated for Christmas

One night we went to an al Pastor taco stand with Cuba Libre and our mutual friends Jim and Ellen on Galatea.  For those not familiar, al Pastor is typically pieces of pork stacked on a giant skewer and grilled on a vertical grill.  The meat is scraped off as it cooks, chopped up and put into homemade tortillas, then stuffed with all kinds of goodies.  They are served here with 5 different sauces to put in the tacos. 

For desert, we walked down the street where a crowd was gathered around a giant vat of boiling oil.  A woman was tossing in small dough balls that poofed up into these 8 inch dough balloons that were covered with cinnamon and sugar.  They were 4 pesos each or about 20 cents.  They tasted like the best doughnuts ever!  Great night on the town.

Thanksgiving was spent with friends at the Chill and Grill.  We met Robin and Ken from Alameda and our dock neighbors Lane and Vicki on Adesso.  The seared tuna was fantastic, and the two for one margaritas certainly added to the fun!

We received a fantastic gift from our friends Leif and Jackie on Dodger Too.  The box for boat cards was hand made by Leif and has dovetail joints and an engraving from his CNC milling machine.  It really is a work of art and something we will cherish for many years to come.

Rich had a crown fall off and needed to find a dentist to get it glued back on.  There was one office that came highly recommended by many cruisers, and they were only a couple of miles away.  So we hopped on the bus and went to see Dr. Patty.  She had another dentist working in the office with her that looked like he was 16 years old.  He assured us that he had graduated from dental school and was a full-fledged dentist even though he said he gets carded when he goes out to dinner with friends!  They took an x-ray and checked everything out before gluing the crown back on.  We were warned that this dentist was more expensive than others, but the bill was only about $62.  Best of all, this was all done the same day that we called.

Our friends Daryl and Rita on Overheated keep their very shiny boat just down the dock from us.  They decided to have a birthday party for their boat, and invited everyone from the dock for sunset food and drinks.  It was fun to get to know some of the folks on the dock that, like us, spend most of their time inside working on the boat.

We have always wanted to visit a place called Stone Island, located just south of the main harbor in Mazatlan.  There are pangas available that will take you over to the island and then back later in the day.  So we hopped on the bus and rode it all the way to the cruise ship terminal where the boat then dropped us over on a giant beach.

  There were about a dozen palapa restaurants on the beach, with nice chairs and umbrellas.  You could walk on the beach for at least 5 miles without getting to the end.  We made it about a half mile before finding a nice comfortable table in the sand at Lety’s restaurant.  The place has been around for about 30 years, and they have good food and cheap beer.  Naturally, we decided to hang here for the day and watch all beach activity.

The beer does taste better on the beach

Oysters anyone?

Back in our part of Mazatlan, we love to go to Cerritos Beach.  We took about a three mile walk after breakfast Christmas Day.  

Great spot for breakfast

Christmas sunset from our boat

La Paz to Mazatlan 2014

La Paz to Mazatlan 2014

We finally left the dock in La Paz on November 21, and headed out to Costa Baja to get some fuel.  One of the largest sailboats in the world happened to be docked there.  It is called Mirabella V and it is the largest single mast sail boat in the world.  The boat is 247 feet long, and the mast is 290 feet high.  The dinghy is a 29 foot power boat that stores in a large garage in the rear of the boat.  Needless to say, our boat looked a little small next to it.  We left the fuel dock at 8am and headed south.

Biggest sailboat in the world.

We had decent motorsailing weather, so we decided to go direct from La Paz to Mazatlan.  It was a beautiful night with only a small moon.  The stars were very bright and we only encountered the two ferries crossing the sea that night.  Because of the clouds, the sunrise and sunset were really spectacular.  

Sunrise

We arrived in Mazatlan at 9:30 pm, which was quite a bit faster than we expected.  The trip took us 37.5 hours when we were expecting more like 44 hours.  We had a favorable 1 knot current about 80% of the way across, so that really helped our time.  Having crossed the bar and entered the marina channel at night several times before, we were comfortable with our decision to enter at night.  The seas were very calm, and the entrance lights were all working, so we cruised right in and went to our assigned slip.

The next morning, the first order of business was to take a shower and head straight to Ricos coffee shop across the street.  They have great coffee and breakfast.  The last thing we feel like doing is making breakfast after a long passage.  They have a real artist that makes the coffee.

Cathy got a snowman

Rich got a reindeer

We found out on the morning radio net that our friends Bob and Deanne on Dos Leos were anchored in the Old Harbor area of Mazatlan.  We made plans to meet them downtown for some dinner.  We went to a little beach side place called Puerto Viejo in the old town area.  It was great to catch up with them before they headed further south for the winter.  We were planning to head south with them, but we really looked at the timing of our trip back to Alameda in Feb. and the dates that our friends were coming down to meet us in La Cruz, and we decided to put off a south coast trip for another year.

We love going to the beach just north of the Marina.  It has a real nice restaurant and small enough waves for us to handle.

Rich riding one all the way to the beach

We finally bought a boogie board so we can play in the waves all along the mainland coast in the winter.  We are both getting better at catching the waves, and it’s a lot of fun.

We have a lot of reasons for staying so long in Mazatlan.  One of them is the chance to get some much needed maintenance done on the boat.  Our teak has been ignored for over two years, and really needed some cleaning, sealing, and varnishing.  We also polished and waxed the stainless, hull, deck areas.  Rich has also taken on dozens of other little projects, and fixed things that have simply worn out.

The other reason for staying here is that we love the town.  There are many great and cheap restaurants, nice beaches, good public transportation, and lower marina prices.  What’s not to like?