Our Tigger

In April we were part of Bay Fest in La Paz. I finally have some picture of that. You can see all the pictures at www.clubcruceros.org. At the top you will find squares with links. Go to the one that says photos/parties and click on that then go to Bay Fest 2010. Under the overview section you will find several of Rick having a great time! We both did. We were volunteers and really enjoyed working there. Here are a couple of pictures I liked.  

At the awards banquet

Rick's new Family?!

All dressed up and no where to go Cheering for the team.

 

So much for dignity! But we had a great time.

Now for some pictures of the haul out.  I am only posting a couple, we took a ton but I really don’t think anyone wants to see every little detail.

up she goes, nice and easy

Ugly Ugly bottom

Go Slow!

Well, thats it for now.  We will finish up what needs to be done today and head up north tomorrow on the bus. It is a 14 hour ride to Tijuana, then a short city bus to the border. We walk across the border then catch the trolly and another bus to Rick’s mom’s house! I am tired just thinking about it!!

Take care

Sheri

 

   

Today is Wednesday May 19th, 2010 – We are now in San Carlos on the mainland side of Mexico. We left Bahia Conception on Saturday May 15th. We had intended to stay on the Baja side until it was time to haul out June 9^th but a friend of ours is going back to the states and we needed to meet up with him before he left so we came over here early.

One thing I wanted to do was get those pictures in that I couldn’t get uploaded last time. The first two are of the anchor I told you about. When leaving La Paz our chain had gone around and around the anchor so when we finally pulled it up we had a ball of chain around the anchor and Rick got pictures of it.



The other pictures was of Loreto Fest. We had a good time there. I don’t know if we will go back or not, there is no town close by so all you have is the cruisers and Loreto Fest. Which is fun but I like being either out in the middle of no where or in a local town meeting people and practicing my Spanish, which I haven’t done much lately as we have not been to a town or village since La Paz. Anyway here are a few pictures of Loreto Fest.

They also had the local high school doing traditional dances which I love. I don’t want to put all those pictures here though so I will add them to the photo page (if I can find it again it’s been so long!)

After Loreto Fest we went down to San Juanico and hung out for a few days. We anchored in the south anchorage for the first time as the weather guys were calling for SW winds. We did get the winds, not really bad but we were glad to be in the South end. The boats in the North end were rolling a lot from what one of them told us. We didn’t really do anything there as the water was to cold and there was only a small beach close by. We had wanted to snorkel as we anchored near some reefs that are supposed to be good snorkeling. No joy, the water was still to cold. From there we headed out to Bahia Conception. We were going to stop in Santo Domingo which is right at the entrance to the bay but we made such good time that we kept going and made it all the way to El Burro cove in the same amount of time we had estimated it would take us to get to Santo Domingo which is eight miles from El Burro.

About 8-10 miles before we rounded point Conception we caught a black skipjack, also known as a Mexican little Tunney. It was about 7-8 pounds and really a strong fighter. I gave the pole (he hit on my pole) to Rick as I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to bring him in. I think I was just so excited that I could concentrate! Rick brought him in and I put on my special fishing gloves (don’t want to handle the fishy little things bare handed!) and we brought him aboard! It was very exciting. Rick took pictures then I fillet him. The meat is the reddest meat I have ever seen on a fish. Not that I have seen that many. When I cooked it up it looked like roast beef! It was a lot more chewy then any other fish I have eaten also. It was not bad chewy just more then any other fish I know. I asked some of the other ladies how they cook them but the ones I asked hadn’t had caught and cooked any yet. There was enough fish for two meals. The first time I just put butter and garlic on it and grilled it and it came out pretty good. Like I said it was different then any other fish I’ve had. The second time I looked up a marinade for dark meat fish and tried that but didn’t like it as well. I finally talked to one lady that said that another friend of hers soaked them in milk before cooking them because the meat is so dark. I don’t know what that does but if we get another I may try it. So, overall it was ok fish but not my favorite.

(can’t find the fish pictures. next time!)

When we got to El Burro it was around 1700 and the water was 80 degrees!!! Yea!!! Finally water warm enough to swim and snorkel. The first thing we did was jump in the water! It was great. Later I cooked the fish and all in all it was an awesome day.

We stayed in El Burro a week. We had three days that the water was warm enough to swim then 3-4 days that the wind blew to hard to swim with any fun. We went to shore and talked to Geary who lives there year round and provides weather for all cruisers on a Ham net each morning. He also lets us use his wifi but only for email, no down loads or skype as it uses to much of his alloted time. Again we didn’t do a whole lot. Each place we have gone since Loreto Fest we have been to before and we seem to just be waiting for the time when we go back to the states. Our minds are already making all the plans to put the boat up and the work we need to do on it and then the plans we have for when we are in the states! It’s kind of an odd limbo feeling.

We left El Burro cove in Bahia Conception at 0730. We had thought to go to Santo Domingo which is just 8 miles out then wait until late afternoon to take off but decided that the day was great and the weather was perfect so we would just keep going and go slow. At our regular speed it should have taken us 18 hours. We putted along real slow and took 24 to get here. The main thing being that we did not want to arrive in the dark. As it was we arrived 0730 (by our clock) only to find out they are one hour behind where we were. Going East you think that they would be one hour ahead but it’s daylight savings time and San Carlos/Guaymas does not do daylight savings. So when we arrived we had to wait a couple hours before the local cruisers net was on and we could get a hold of our friends on Serenity. They arranged for a mooring ball for us. We didn’t know how early they got up so we were just waiting. They called us about an hour after we got here and were surprised that we were already here and anchored waiting to talk to them. They really helped us a lot. They arranged for one mooring ball and when it ended up being to close for our size boat (to close to the other boats) they found us another one! It is so nice to have friends familiar with the area to help us out. All the mooring balls here are privately owned so we wouldn’t know who to contact to get one. We have decided that after our week here we are going to go to a couple of places we have not been to on this side. Instead of just marking time we want to enjoy every minute we can and seeing new places is top on our list of fun things to do!!

So, we are here for now. I don’t know when I will do the next update, Probably in a couple weeks when we haul out. I will have new stuff to report and should have good internet at that time also.

Take care and have fun!!!

Today is Tuesday April 20, 2010. I am trying something new. We are currently making passage from La Paz to Puerto Escondido. I thought I would do my journaling each stop along the way. We left La Paz on Sunday and went to El Cardonal. We were headed to Calita Partida but when we got near we could see that there were a lot of boats already there. El Cardonal is just a mile further north so we decided to try it out. We had never been there before which was added incentive. We like to hit new places whenever we can. We pulled in and dropped anchor about 1500. It is a very nice anchorage and only had 7 other boats. It was pretty good size so we didn’t feel crowded at all. On the way we had a fairly strong SSW wind but when we got into the anchorage it was much lighter and very comfortable. We didn’t do much that evening as we were kind of tired from the trip. To much sunshine and beautiful sailing! That night the typical evening winds came up and it was a little bouncy but we pointed right into the wind and swells and it wasn’t really too bad once I decided that we were hooked up good and would not drag! That is my biggest fear in any anchorage and yet we have never drug anchor yet.

I suppose here would be a good place to tell about the anchor though. When we pulled anchor in La Paz Rick got it almost all the way up when he called me to come up to the bow and look at something. He came back to steer while I went forward. WOW! what a mess! Below is the picture Rick took of the anchor. We had been anchored in La Paz for 5-6 weeks and there is a very strong tidal flow there. So, every day, twice a day, we swung from one direction to the other with the tide. What we ended up doing was going around and around the shaft of the anchor that was sticking out of the sand. Then when we started pulling it up the loops of chain wrapped tighter and tighter around the fluke until we had a ball of chain wrapped around our anchor when it came up. We never drug as far as we could tell. We always seemed in the same place relative to the other boats around us but it could have been a big problem had there been a really big blow that caused the chain to tighten around the anchor. It could have caused the anchor to trip out and the boat to drag. As usual, God watched over us and all was good.

(sorry wordpress won’t take this picture! go figure. I will try again later)

Ok, so we hung out at El Cardonal for one more day then today motor sailed from there to San Everisto. On the trip here, just 3 miles from the entrance Rick saw something just ahead of us and called me. There was a mother and baby hunch back whale! The baby was maybe 25 feet long and passed us going the other way just 25 feet from our side! We didn’t see the mother until after they were past us. I didn’t even have time to grab the camera. I love seeing the whales and other sea life here, it is so cool. There is a little (very little) village here in San Everisto but we did not go ashore. We are only staying one night as tomorrow is a weather window to get to the next stop. After that there is going to be a couple of days with North winds so we won’t be able to go North. We want to hang out at Agua Verde anyway, it is a neat place and they make goat cheese there that is awesome! We will hang there for 2-3 days then on to the next stop. Don’t know what that will be yet, haven’t decided! That is half the fun of the cruising life, deciding day to day where we will go next! That’s all for now. I will !continue this at the next stop. p.s. made lasagna on the BBQ tonight! It was good.

April 29, 2010 – Well, so much for updating at each anchorage! It seems no matter what I decide to do life interferes and I end up doing something else. OK ! I was lazy, I admit it. But it sounded like a good idea at the time!

We are now in Puerto Escondido. We are here for Loreto Fest. Loreto is the next town up from here but, as there is no town here, just the marina, they call it Loreto Fest. This is a Singlar marina but different then the others we have stayed at. This is a large bay surrounded on all sides with land and a narrow opening and they have 117 mooring balls and only 4-5 actually slips. They charge the same for the mooring ball as for the slip which amazes me but it is what it is. In addition to the mooring balls you can anchor out. It is so large you could anchor a lot of boats. The catch is that you pay the same price for all. The slip (if you can get one) the mooring balls and anchoring out are all the same price. We have never come here before because of that and because they used to charge a huge amount. Now they have reasonable prices and we wanted to attend the Loreto Fest so we decided to spurge and go for it.

Before coming in to Puerto Escondido we hung out at Agua Verde for several days then went to another new to us spot, Punt Colorado on Isla Carmen. It is a good spot for any North winds but not for anything from the South. We hung out there for a couple days then heard that South winds were coming so we came in here. We didn’t really see or do anything special so nothing to report on Punt Colorado. The water was so cold we couldn’t even swim or snorkel. Of course Rick jumped in anyway but not this kid!!

Saturday May 1, 2010 – Yesterday was the first day of Loreto Fest. We had a good time. We went to a few seminars and hung out with friends we hadn’t seen in a while. I even got my hair cut! In the evening they had a spaghetti feed and some local kids from the high school doing traditional dances. It was a lot of fun. We sat with Ron and Karen from Aegean Odyssey who are from Coos Bay and have been cruising down here sin 1999. Today there is a seminar on fishing that I want to go to. I want to learn more about fishing in the Sea of Cortez. There is also a chili cook off that I am looking forward to. I love chili. Although it is a little hot to be eating chili. Yesterday was actually not that hot as there was a nice breeze blowing most of the day. Tomorrow is the swap meet and pancake breakfast. I will finish this off tomorrow night and add pictures. The internet has been so overwhelmed that they took the big antenna off the air so you can’t get the internet from your boat so I will wait until Monday when most people have left. Tuesday we head out also.

(ok, so the internet is so bad I can’t get pictures on. I will put them on in a couple weeks when I get a better connection. Hang in there with me!)

Today is Saturday April 17, 2010. It’s been almost a month since my last update but there really hasn’t been anything going on. Last weekend we did Bay Fest and that was a lot of fun. I don’t have any pictures but there will be a lot posted on the local club’s web site. You can see them on
www.clubcruseros.org. Look for the link that says Bay Fest (2010). Rick and I helped out with some of the activities so who knows you may even see us in a shot or two.

Wednesday Rick and I stumbled into a great deal. We bought two Portrunner fold able bicycles. We got a great deal, less then half the new price, and they are in great shape. We spent most of yesterday riding around town doing last minutes errands. It was so fun I don’t know why we didn’t buy bikes sooner. Once we leave here we won’t be able to make a lot of use of them until we hit another fair size town but in Guaymas we will really be able to use them a lot. It was just so much fun!

We are almost ready to take off. We will top off our water and tomorrow morning head out. We will be taking a real slow trip north up the peninsular. No overnighters!! It should be a great relaxing trip. What am I talking about…..our life is just one big relaxing trip!!!! OK, sorry! Moving right along, we plan on taking 2 weeks to get from La Paz to Puerto Escondido our next stopping place. Loreto Fest is going on April 30 to May 2 and we want to participate in that. We have not been to a Loreto Fest yet so it should be fun. I will try and remember to take pictures this time. Or have Rick do it. He takes great pictures.

Speaking of pictures, a long time ago, last summer I think, we saw and took a picture of a star fish that I had never seen before. I just found out the name for it. Here is the picture again.

The name………..Chocolate Chip star fish!!!! No kidding! I thought that was so cool I had to share it again. No wonder I was so enamored of it!!

Well there really isn’t any more going on. It will be couple weeks before I can update again but I should have more to share at that time.

By the way, we will be hauling the boat out in Guaymas in June and be in San Diego mid June to the first part of September then plan on being in Oregon the beginning of September so we hope to see everyone then.

Hope everyone is doing good. Looking forward to seeing people this summer.

God Bless,

Sheri

Today is Saturday March 20, 2010. It has been a while since I updated. Not since we left Mazatlan. It’s one of those things I kept meaning to do! Good intentions and all that! Anyway, here goes.

We left Mazatlan on Thursday March 4th. We had not planned on leaving until that Saturday but the weather report that morning seemed ideal and we saw no reason to wait. So we spent the morning getting the last things we needed and headed out about 1430. The weather report that morning said maybe light north, northwest dieing out at night. We figured we could motor against some light winds for a few hours until they died, no big deal. No big deal except that they weren’t light they were 10-15 not 5-10. It may not seem like a lot but it just made it a little harder and a little more uncomfortable. We knew it would die out though so we kept going. I had gone to bed early as usual for my midnight to 0400 watch when about 2100 I woke up to the sound of retching! Rick was throwing up! I got up and talked to him but he seemed ok, I mean not needing my help and not really that sick, so I went back to bed. I got up at midnight to find him laying on the settee barely able to get up. It had progressed from throwing up to sitting on the toilet while both ends let loose. He was so dehydrated that the last time he was up he ended up on the floor and just laid there. I was so mad that he didn’t call me but he was so sick I couldn’t even ream him for it. I got some electro-lights down him and after a few hours of being sure he wasn’t going to have to race to the head I sent him to bed. He had stayed on the settee as it was closer to the head. So around 0600 I sent him to bed and he pretty much stayed there the rest of the day, only getting up now and then. He was better by that night so I was able to get some sleep for my watch. I got up at midnight and let him sleep 5 hours instead of 4. He really needed it. Saturday he was basically over it just weak. The thing is, that just the Tuesday before I had gotten a milder case of the same thing. We had thought that I had gotten some bad shrimp but now I’m not so sure. Maybe we just had a 24 hour bug. Whichever it was we were glad to be over it.

Now we are up to Saturday morning. We can see Isla Cerralvo on the Baja side. We are maybe 20 miles or so off but the end is in sight! Yea, right. The wind started to come up……from the west!! Yep, the exact direction we are trying to go. Now, back to the weather report Thursday morning. It said that by Saturday it would be flat calm on the Baja side. So much for weather!! By 9 or 10 that morning we had 27 knots on the nose…..again!! It took us from 0900 to 2200 that night just to get to Isla Partita’s southeast corner where there was an anchorage. We had to tack back and forth all day long. Not fun. I just hate it when you can see your destination and just can’t get there. It really would not have been that bad if Rick had not been sick the first half. I was so tired that I was really grumpy about being able to see land and not get there.

Well, as usual, I got over it with a good night’s sleep, and it was a great nights sleep. It was calm and quiet and beautiful. Of course I didn’t see the beauty until the next morning as I was out like a light but when we got up it was great. We had to share it a short while with a mini cruise ship but they stayed on their side and didn’t bother us so we allowed it!!

It was a great place and we would have stayed another night but it was totally open to the south, east and northeast and of course with our luck this year about 1600 that afternoon a east/northeast started to come up. It wasn’t bad, just 10 knots, and if it stayed low like that it would be no problem. But, (big but) if it built the swells would be coming basically all the way across the sea and therefore be huge and we would be on a lee shore. No thanks! So, we took off for Calita Lobo, one of our favorite places near La Paz. For some reason the winds this year are out to get us. We got half way there and again got 25 knots on the nose! It was not fun but we decided to bash our way through as going back would be much worse should the east/northeast continue. Once we got into Lobo it was ok and we spent the night with no problems. The next day we made our way to La Paz and have been here since. We are having a good time and have even gotten involved in the local Bay Fest that is coming up in April. We are going to help out with that then start looking for some southerlies to go north up the Baja side.

Charlie and Sharon arrived here today from Mazatlan. They have had a worse season then we have. They went through more bad weather then we did as we came back north to Mazatlan earlier and then Sharon ended up with Dengue fever like I did! She is still recovering and feeling weak. We are both thinking that this was not a stellar year. We are not discouraged however and are looking forward to the rest of this year and this coming fall. We will be in San Diego for the summer helping out with Rick’s mom so we won’t be on the boat for 3-4 months beginning in June. The rest of this spring is going to be great though, I can feel it in my bones!! (no it’s not the dengue fever!) It feels good.

I will try and add to this while we are here in La Paz but there is not much going on until the Bay fest in three weeks.

Hope you enjoyed this little tirade and the few pictures we have. Be back soon.

Sheri

Today is Sunday Feb. 22, 2010. Last week was Carnival so it was a busy week. The only thing we went to was the fireworks on Saturday night. We went with Nancy and Greg from Festime Lente. We have spent the last three Carnivals with them and really enjoy being with them. They are now dear dear friends.

We haven’t been doing a lot except for the Salvation Army kids show. They put on a dance show twice a year to raise money for their programs. This Salvation Army has a orphanage. The kids they take care of are not technically orphans but they live there most if not all the time and they feed and cloth them and make sure they get to school. They even pay for their secondary schooling. Mexico only has public school through the 6th grade. Any further then that and the parents have to pay. It is a great program and a lot of cruisers have adopted it as their charity. One guy provides all the dental work for any kid that comes to live there. It is awesome.

Here are a couple pictures of them dancing. This show was a little different in that they did modern childhood type dances as well as the traditional dances. It was so cool to see the little ones doing local dances equivalent to our “ring around the Rosie” or London bridges.

The girl in pink is the "Tia"

This is a dance where the “bad” little boys steal “Tia’s” broom and she chases them around to get it back.

The youngest girls doing their dance

I don’t remember what the girls dance was about but they had a lot of fun!

Here are a couple of the older kids doing the traditional dances.

some of the older kids doing a traditional dance

They seem to have so much fun! They are not strong armed into doing this, they all volunteer and beg to be allowed to learn the dances. It is amazing!

two of the best dancers

lining up!

I have one more. These are the middle age group and they haven’t been dancing long but they too really love it.

the middle age group

OK, really, one last one!! This is a group shot.

group shot but not the older kids, just the younger ones

OK, for real that’s it. Not much else going on. We both had little colds but nothing major and no bad weather!!!! Cool!!!!

We will be here another couple weeks then plan on heading up to La Paz. If anything neat comes up I will let you all know.  Thanks for the comments, I feel more connected when I know that people are enjoying this blog.

Take care and God Bless

Sheri

Today is Saturday February 13, 2010. Another quick post. We are in Mazatlan. We got here almost two weeks ago. The trip up was a little rough but once we got here we were really glad that we were back.

We left La Cruz on Tuesday February 2 around 1300. It had rained most of the night and all day and part of me wanted to just hunker down and stay put and stay dry. Rick said no, we made our plans and since we don’t have to go outside for the most part as we have an autopilot and a remote control for it we should just stick to the plan and go. We have windows all the way around and can see well from inside. We do step outside and double check regularly though. So, we took off in the rain but no wind and no swells to speak of. La Cruz is at the very end of the bay, about 8 miles from the point. We rounded Punta Mita and headed North. There was a little chop but nothing major. About 2100 that night I was sleeping for my mid-watch when I woke up to Rick telling me that we had water coming inside the boat and 47 knots of wind!! Whoa!!! We have never had water inside the boat! The good news was that it was fresh water. The bad news was that it was pooring down rain and the wind was blowing the rain through the closed doors! We had 5-6 towels all over and still had water in puddles! The fact that it was fresh water made it better in that the inside of the boat got cleaned but no salt crystals that needed cleaning up. Rick ended up outside in it for an hour or so as the wind was coming from the stern and the autopilot could not handle it. By the time he came inside, after the wind had gone down to 25-30 verses 45 plus, he was so cold that I sent him to bed in sweats and a watch cap and I took the rest of his watch an mine. It wasn’t that much longer anyway. It took several hours for him to get warmed up but by 0400 he was up and standing his next watch. It took until noon the next day for the swell to go down but after that one hour or so it really wasn’t too bad. During that time we were both wishing that we had stayed put in La Cruz. When we got to Mazatlan we found out that at that same time the same  storm hit La Cruz with 80+ knots of wind and half the boats drug anchor and several boats hit other boats! There were no boats or lives lost but lot’s of damage from what we hear. There is no way we could have motored against 80 knots of wind if our anchor had drug. We were so thankful at that point that we had left!! Forty-seven knots is a lot but nothing like 80+ knots. Again God was watching over us.

So, we are here for Carnival then will head over to La Paz for a couple months. Mazatlan is still one of our favorite places to hang out. La Cruz was so so but I think a lot of it was the weather so we will give it another shot next year. This is an El Nino year and the weather down here has been weird all over.

That’s about it for now. I hope to have some pictures of Carnival next week. Hope everyone is doing good.

Take care and God bless!!

Sheri

Today is Sunday Jan. 31, 2010. This will be another short one, no pictures this time.

Some days I just can’t win. Here I am living a dream in paradise and you wonder what could she possible have to complain about. Well guys, paradise has bugs! Not that I would change places for anything but get this: Those of you who have followed our adventures from the beginning remember the first year we were here I got Bell’s Palsy. That was in Mazatlan and it was March. The next spring, March & April, we were in La Paz and I had multiple ear infections with one ruptured eardrum then caught strep throat on the plane coming back from the states. So, the end of last year I wrote in my journal “I wonder what the new year will bring me” Big mistake!! Never never write such things!! Those bugs I was telling you about, mosquitoes. So what you say. Some of those mosquitoes bite during the daytime hours. So? So, mosquitoes that bite during the daytime hours can carry Denge (Denghy) fever! Yep! I was nailed with Denge fever. Last Saturday the 23^rd I was minding my own business, talking to my brother and doing email when I felt like I was body slammed. It came out of the blue. We had just came into the marina for a couple days so we could hose off the boat and I could do some sewing projects. We had gone up to do email when it hit me. I left the computer and everything with Rick and went back to the boat. I crawled into bed with our big comforter and was shivering and aching all over when Rick got back. I ended up with a 102 fever for two days. Then for two days I seemed ok, just weak and recovering from what I thought was a touch of flu. Day four I woke up hurting from head to toe like I had been beat up. Days five and six I couldn’t hardly stand up I was so tired. All I did was lay around for two more days. All during this time I was nauseous, had zero appetite and had the worst pain behind my eyes. Also on day five the rash showed up. From my ankles to just above my knees and some on my arms. I spent one whole night going insane with the itching. Nothing helped. Now I’m down to being nauseous all the time and only a little lethargic with occasionally my bones/joints hurting. That’s one of the main things about this fever, they sometimes refer to it as breakbone fever because your bones and joints hurt so bad and you have terrible muscle pain. The rash is almost gone and only itches a little. I looked up denge fever on the internet and it sounds like I have a mild case but it sure doesn’t feel like it. Also, I am not the only one who has gotten it. This year is really bad for mosquitoes and several people have reported getting denge fever. So far all have been the mild kind. What I also found interesting is there are 3-4 ways of spelling it too. Anyway, the internet said it takes 10 days to get over the symptoms but can take a month to really get better. Never again will I wonder what the new year will bring me!!!

Otherwise we have mostly had a pretty good time here. (I know, hard to believe) La Cruz is a very nice town and I really like wandering around and meeting people. P.V. and the rest of the places on Banderas Bay really don’t have much to offer as far as I’m concerned. Other then big stores to do you shopping at. Bucerias was pretty nice though. Charlie and Sharon arrived a couple weeks ago and left this morning for points south. They wanted us to go farther south with them but we want to go back to Mazatlan and up to La Paz earlier this year. There are less mosquitoes further north!

I know that this all sounds like the pits but……heck….it is the pits!!! But overall really this was one small bump in the road so to speak. We are still having a great time and I still wouldn’t trade for anything. OK, may a little extra hydrocortisone cream for the itching!!

Hope everyone is doing well. Take care and keep in touch and God bless.

Sheri

p.s.  yes! I do put on bug repellent! faithfully!!

Today is Saturday Jan. 16, 2010. This might be a short post I just wanted to tell you all about the rough night we had night before last.

We are anchored out near La Cruz and it is a fairly open anchorage. We knew that there would be some big swells coming, they had been predicted, but they have been so round that other then our boat going up and down it was no big deal. What we hadn’t expected was the wind and rain that also came along. The two were from different weather events. Night before last neither Rick nor I slept more then a few minutes at a time. In addition to the boat going up and down the wind caused a great deal of wind chop which caused us to really rock and roll. We would go up on the big swell then jerk basically in all four directions as we went back down. It was the most miserable night we have ever had at anchor, bar none. Even the 50 knots of wind in Bahia de los Angeles was nothing compared to Thursday night. So, we lived through that and had planned on meeting our good friends Jim & Dana Friday morning. They were coming in on a cruise ship. We go up early but realized that the weather was not letting up. The rain had started sometime in the middle of the night and it only got worse. Then around 0800 this thing started to form:

Not much to see yet but just wait

A little better formed here

Now we are rockin' n rollin'

pretty wicked stuff

Pretty wicked stuff considering that these normally only happen in the summer. They say that this is a very odd year for weather down here. We have had rain several times since being here and this is the dry season! I would hate to be here in the wet season.

So, we didn’t get to see our friends and we stayed on the boat the whole day. Most, or maybe half, the other boats upped anchor and went into the marina. We had started our motor when we thought the wind spout was headed our way but ended up staying when it went east and died out. It calmed down pretty good that day, yesterday, and it’s not bad right now but a little windy. The weather guy said this morning that we may get more and even worse swells this next week so we will play it by ear. If it starts to get as bad as Thursday night we may go in to a slip. We’ll see. It was never dangerous just really really uncomfortable.

Hope you all are enjoying the pictures. Fair winds and following seas!!!

Sheri

Today is Wednesday Jan. 6, 2010. We decided to up anchor and putt around the bay a little today. We were going to go out and anchor at the island at the mouth of the bay but we heard that a lot of tour boats go there and it is hard to anchor at times. We were feeling lazy so decided not to today. We will still go there eventually but not today. Today we putted around looking for whales. We only saw one and not much of him. It was kind of odd though. He was just floating on top of the water for several minutes. Then he moved a little but came right back up and floated along. Rick took a video and I got a couple of good stills off it but not much to see.

The back of the whale floating along in the bar

whale fluke

As we motored around (no wind) we saw a lot of what we call fish boils. They were tuna jumping at the surface trying to get littler fish. We contemplated throwing out the lines but we were still feeling so lazy and laid back we didn’t even do that! We just needed to get away from the anchorage for a while. I really am happiest when underway. I like being some place I can go ashore and investigate. I like seeing new places and meeting new people but being underway just has it’s own magic. It’s like giving me a happy pill! I hope I never get tired of traveling. And sometimes I think it’s odd how I really don’t have any desire to own a home back in the States, or anywhere for that matter. I really do look at Tigger as my home. All the cruisers I know say “we’re going back to the boat” but I think in my mind “I’m going home”. I even said it once to Rick, “let’s go home” and he said isn’t that a long way to go? I had to tell him I meant the boat. Maybe I just feel at home where ever I am as long as I am with Rick.

Tomorrow we plan on going to Old Town and checking it out. It will be a full day. It takes the better part of an hour to get to down town P.V. on the bus then we will have to transfer to another bus to get further down to the old part of town. P.V. is very big and most of it seems to be more modern, a lot of hotels and condos and U.S. style stores and malls. That’s ok, but I really like the small villages and the old part of the big towns. The cathedrals are really impressive. Most were build no less then the 1800’s and some back as far as the 1500’s like Copala and Concordia.

I will add more to this after our trip tomorrow and before I post it.

Today is Friday Jan. 8, 2010. Yesterday we took the bus into Puerto Vallarta then transferred to a local bus to go on down to the old part of town and the Malecon. We walked along the Malecon and found a bunch of artists doing sand sculpting. I was amazed at how good they were. We got a few pictures that I will include here. We also saw other artists doing oil and watercolor etc. There were also the typical bronze statues all along the way. These were a little different then the ones we have seen in Mazatlan and La Paz. They are more modern so to speak. (I call them a little weird!) They are pretty but just odd. Some were really nice though. At one of the statues there was a guy that was doing the living statue thing. He was totally covered with what looked like sand, his hair, skin, clothes, everything. Then he would stand perfectly still until someone put a few coins in his box (which also looked carved from sand) then he would move around robot like and you could take his picture. You could take a picture with someone from your party next to him also. I don’t know how they do it. With your skin completely covered it must be really hot and your skin can’t breath. It’s wonderful to watch but no way would I want to do that.

Guy working on a sand buddah

Posiden I think

Guy sculpting faces

Live statue Sandman

Some weird bronze statues/chairs in P.V.

Our friends are coming in on a cruise ship next week and we wanted to find some places to take them and the Malecon will be one place at least. I am not sure how much time they will have or what other places we may go to. I need to do more investigating into places to see. So far P.V. is more big city then I care for and more “americanized”. It has tons of hotels, condos, the Hard Rock Cafe, KFC, Burger King, Costco etc. I still like Mazatlan better but maybe that’s because that was the first place we really stopped and spent any time. Mazatlan has Sams Club and McDonald’s and stuff but there is the old part of town that still seems like real Mexico. We will be here 3-4 more weeks so maybe P.V. will grow on me as I do more exploring.

I am going to try and put a few more pictures in the photo page. I am still trying to figure that out better.

take care all,

Sheri