Barra de Navidad

This is our 3d visit to Barra de Navidad (so-called because it was discovered by the Spanish on Christmas Day). In the background is the Grand Bay Resort, a 5 star resort, on a pennensula with the marina, across from the funky little Mexican village of Barra de Navidad. We arrived on Friday, the 28th of March, and true to cruiser superstition should not have started even a short cruise on a Friday (it's only 2 hours from Tenacatita). We had 20 to 25 knots of wind all the way, and gusts of 30 when we got to the marina. We got pushed off trying to enter a slip, and hit the stern of the large motor vessel (125 foot Feadship) Orion. Little damage to their boat (a scratch to the new paint job and the stainless rub rail) and a dent in our solar panel. We moved to this slip the next day. Carol of Tanoshii was there to cheer Linda up. We are reaquainting ourselves with Barra and planning another inland trip, leaving the boat here.

Fellow Cal owners

It's always fun to have another boat like ours pull into an anchorage. This is the vessel Sailfisher, owned by Al Briggs and his wife Yevette. They got married this month in Manzanillo. Al was President of the Cal 2-46 Association when Linda was secretary. We joined them for dinner on our last night in Tenacatita and explored all the modifications to each of our boats. As usual, we found things we liked better on each others boat.

Tenacatita

This was our 5th time in Tenacatita, and we stayed for a week. The anchorage was great, although we did have a couple of problems with the dingy landing as the surf was very large. Linda got thrown out of the dingy on one landing and we just missed dumping the whole thing. I like to kayak for exercise. We bought this one 4 years ago from Gary of Delphina, and I used it a lot. It finally gave up in Tenacatita with the last of the d rings ripping out. The schooner in the photo was one of the funkiest boats we had seen lately so Linda wanted a photo. Kind of a Chinese Junk combinded with a schooner rig. While in Tenacatita, we met new friends Peter and Lane, who have been cruising Cheerio for 23 years, John and Laura of Pacific Wind, first season cruisers and Jay and Janice of Chelidh, pronounced Kaylee, with their little Pomeranian, who is demonstrating an amazing sense of balance in the photo. We also enjoyed spending time with Don and Marie Irvin of Freezing Rain, which had just returned from Ecuador and Central America. They like Mexico better.

Spring 2008 Cruise

We finally got underway (and are actually sailing!) on March 19th. We stopped at Punta de Mita the first night and then went around the dreaded Cabo Corrientes the next morning, anchoring for the night at Ipala, which, we are pleased to report is an ok anchorage again, as the fish traps and oyster farm have disappeared. It was the first week of Semana Sante, (Holy Week) the biggest Mexican Holiday, and as usual the bands on shore played through the night.

Frustrating Season

This is how I looked for much of this season with the continual delays and revised plans. It is all part of cruising. Linda likes this picture.

Banderas Bay Regatta

These photos were taken during the Banderas Bay Regatta, from Bright Star, a Jenneau Fast 40, owned by Dorr Anderson, that I have raced on for the last 3 seasons. We won the Governors Cup Racing Class, and finished 2d in the Regatta Racing Class. You can see how close the race was in the photos showing 2 of our closest competitors. It takes all of our crew to race the boat hard. The crew is from Montana, Arizona, Canada, Washington and Puerto Vallarta.

Cruising Friends

A big part of the fun of cruising for us has been the new friends we have made along the way. Here are some from the 2004 Ha Ha Terry of Shearwater (dark hair) and Jamie of Reba are in the first one, I was surprised to learn that Terry was one year behind me at Mesa High. Her husband Bob is pouring wine at the Yacht Club fund raiser. Our fellow Cal owners and good friends Frank and Dayna are pictured next with Linda on the beach at Banderas Bay, and our friends Carol and Dick of Tanoshii are in the last photo, taken on the Malecon in downtown Puerto Vallarta

Punta Mita Stowaway

On the way back from Punta Mita, Linda discovered a stowaway on our bar. It took us 2 more days to catch him.

Carol Visit

Carol came for a week. We did not take enough photos, although we had a great time at the beach and visiting PV with her. Luckily we did not take the boat out and discover the hidden problems until after she left. This is from the Botanical Gardens up in the mountains outside of PV. There are over 200 species of orchids there.

Pirate Ship Fun

We all enjoyed the Pirate Ship, Maria Elena. Edwin discovered a friend from Mexico City, despite a small language barrier. Hamilton was featured in the show, and we thought she won but she ended up in the stocks anyway. Great fun for the kids.

Hamilton in the surf

Hamilton became an expert after 1 lesson from Grandpa

Edwin demonstrated to Carey the proper technique of boogie boarding.

Jon, Carey Hamilton and Edwin

Jon liked it too!

Jon, Carey,Hamilton and Edwin visit

Edwin loved the beach! We bought boogie boards for Hamilton and him.They had a great time playing with them.

America's Cup match race

On Wednesday March 7th, a lay day for the boats racing in Mexorc and the day before the start of the Bahia de Banderas regatta, Vallarta Adventure allowed racers from Mexico to race crew from the U.S. on their America's Cup Boats, which were used by Australia in the 2ooo cup race. We went out on Kon Tiki, a large catamaran, with the crews for each boat and a guy from Fox Sports who kept getting in my way. After the first of three races, the wind did a 180 degree shift, so our boat became the weather mark and the two racers rounded us only a few feet away. A truly awesome experience. We have watched 4 cup races on the water but never got anywhere near as close as this. We were joined by our friends Herman and Nancy of Sea Tern. They are both 80 years old and have been cruising Sea Tern for many years, having just returned from South America in her last year.

San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race

Linda and I agreed to be a host family for one of the race boats, "Bad Pak" for the San Diego to PV race. The owner, Tom Holthus is a real estate lawyer from San Diego, and is the guy on the left in front. The boat is a J-145 (48 feet long) and they went as fast as 22 knots on the outside of Baja, before getting into a hole with the rest of their class and making only 1 or 2 knots for 36 hours. They were originally projected to get in Thursday at 5 pm (we made dinner reservations for 12 (including us) for Friday. They actually arrived at 2 am on Saturday morning. We met them on the dock with two buckets of cold beer, a quart of tequilla and some sandwiches and Linda's sheet cake. We partied with them on the dock as they killed the beer and tequilla and ate the sandwiches. We joined them on Saturday night for the awards banquet. I raced on Bright Star in the Governor's Cup on Sunday (we won!).

Bees, Mice Fleas, and other problems

Linda and I returned to the boat on November 18th. We arranged last spring to have the engine and transmission overhauled, the mast and boom painted and the main and jib refurbished. We expected to head south to Ecuador in December, however that was not to be. Sometime over the summer, bees established two nests in the boat and despite every type of trap known to man, we also had an attack of mice who apparently contained fleas. We had the boat sealed up and poisoned to kill all of the critters. Unfortunately, this delayed the reinstallation of the engine by a couple of weeks Jon, Carey , Hamilton and Edwin arrived on November 25th and Tony completed the install of the engine that day. More about the kids visit later. After Jon's family left, we took the boat to Opequimar to be hauled and the bottom painted, a 2 to 3 day job. We watched them haul the boat and the bottom seemed to look OK. The next morning, we found that there were more osmosis blisters than we expected and the boat would need to have the bottom paint removed and the bottom coated with epoxy and then the new bottom paint. We flew the Bonanza home the next day (December5th) planning to fly to San Diego to pick up the epoxy and some other boat parts. The weather forced us to change our plans. It rained all day Friday in Prescott and began to snow Saturday night, and kept snowing until Monday. By then another system had moved into San Diego so we delayed the trip until Wednesday. We picked up the epoxy and more bottom paint and left on Thursday for PV. About 50 miles out of Guaymas, the tachometer went to zero (although the engine was running fine) so we turned around and landed in Tucson. A new cable was installed in the tach on Friday and we departed early Saturday for PV, arraiving in the afternoon, and concerned that we and Iron Rose would be spending Christmas in the boat yard. Thanks to hard work by Juan Gonzalez, we were launched on Sat the 22d and headed back to our slip. Our troubles continued, however, as the bilge pump alarm lit up just after we left the yard. On checking I discovered that one of the 5 freeze plugs on the exhaust manifold was spraying water onto the engine and the alternator. I could stop the flow with my finger, so I had Linda hold her finger on it and called the marina office for assistance. Dick the manager met us in the entrance in a panga and tied on so we could shut the engine down and give Linda's finger a rest. On entering the slip, the panga disconnected and we tossed a line to our neighbor to stop the boat, Sadly the line slipped off the cleat and we took out the dock box and broke the water line. I flew the Bonanza home on the 27th to fly back with my sister Carol and picked up 8 more freeze plugs. Tony installed the new plugs and after Carol went home on January a8th, we started to leave for Punta Mita to check out the systems, when Linda opened the door to the engine room and discovered one of the new freeze plugs was spraying water out of two holes. We shut down and called Tony. He had bronze plugs made for the manifold, meanwhile I discovered that he had failed to reconnect the grounding line to the grounding plate so that the electrolysis's went to the cheapest metal (the freeze plugs) instead of the zinc grounding plate. We finally made it to Punta Mita and all the systems seemed to work ok, but Linda still needed to get her confidence back in Iron Rose, so we decided on a shortened cruise this year.

Mother's Day Surprise

After our return to PV, we hung out with our friends Alan and Suzanne of Delphini, and got back into the routine of doing laps in the pool, working out at the spa and riding the bike. We went horseback riding with Alan and Suzanne at Rancho Campona. My horse was a real jug head, although Linda had a really good one. Alan helped us take the boat first to Oppequimar to remove the old gen set and drop in the new Panda, and then to a slip in Marina Vallarta, where Gerber Marine installed the Panda. What an amazing difference in noise. Before Linda's birthday, I had attempted to have Cat and Jon fly in to surprise her but they did not have current passports. They got them renewed and arranged to fly in on the 11th. We arranged to have Jon show up at the lap pool wearing goggles . Linda was in the pool doing laps when Jon touched her, startling her. At first she did not recognize him, but when she did she asked "Is Cat here?" no, Jon said, just me. Despite Linda's protest, we went to the yacht club for lunch for Jon (and the next surprise) . We hung out for a couple of hours while we waited (unbeknownst to Linda) Cat's arrival. Alejandro, the bar tender took Linda outside where Cat was waiting to surprise her. We all really enjoyed spending the next several days together. We took Iron Rose out to Punta Mita, and ripped the clew out of the sail en route. Nevertheless, we had fun walking on the beach and eating at one of the beach palapa restaurants. The local restaurant could not get the Sun's playoff game on their TV so we went back to the marina after one night. The engine overheated on the way back although it was ok after cooling off and running at lower speeds. We sailed most of the way back under the Genoa. Kim and Dave of Maluhia (our next door neighbor) and John of Scarlett O'Hara, came out to escort us in, although we ended up not needing help, it was nice to have everyone available. We took Linda to dinner at Daquiri Dicks, on the beach for Mother's day. The last day was Cat's birthday, and we celebrated with a nice brunch on the beach before the kids had to fly home. Linda will always remember this Mother's Day.

Santiago Bay, Las Haddas

A few days after returning to Barra, we left for Santiago Bay, just outside Manzanillo. Enroute we encountered our friends Pinky and Danny on Dulce Sueno . They were headed north but turned around and spent a couple of days with us in Santiago Bay. They introduced us to a restaurant at the resort overlooking the bay, which is reached by a river that flows into the bay. Pinky and Danny had visited it previously by kayak, but thought we could make it in our dingy, so the three of us carefully navigated up the river at a rising tide, with the motor on tilt to avoid the shallow bottom. We tied up in the mangroves and hiked to the top for great margaritas and a seafood dinner. We visited the big market in the small town of Santiago the next day, where I replaced my flip flops, broken the night before when tieing up the dingy. We had cocktails the next night with Rick and Darcy and their family on Tea Leaves. They joined us on board for dinner the following night. I dove the wreck of the container ship, part of which is visible above water even at high tide. We left a couple of days later to go around the corner to Las Haddas (the fairies) made famous by the movie "10". We anchored out, intending to leave for Ziuat in a couple of days, but unfortunately, the gen set overheated, so I arranged to go into the Las Haddas Marina to fix it. This was our first experience Med-Moored and we did not enjoy it. You set the anchor and then back down to the dock, tieing the stern to the dock. The surge and the close proximity of the adjacent boats made for some uncomfortable nights. We met the Hooligans (Tim and Paula), Gemini (Les and Diane) who had come into the marina the day before and they helped us tie up. We had to take the dingy off the davits for stern boarding. We hosted all the cruisers for cocktails that night. The next day, we met the famous Bob Bitchin and Jody, publisher's of Latitudes and Attitudes magazine at the pool. We introduced them to mango margaritas, and were invited to visit their boat, the Lost Soul, the next day. We really enjoyed meeting Bob and Jody. I had read a couple of Bob's books, "Emerald Cove" and "King Harbor". They had added many new items to Lost Soul and after hearing his quiet Panda gen set, I decided to dump our 25 year old gen set and get a new Panda. Bob arranged for us to get a large discount on the new Panda. The next night around 30 cruisers celebrated Bob's birthday, at a restaurant overlooking the bay. Linda surprised Bob the next day with a ceramic sea horse, both we and Bob and Jody had seen our first seahorse shortly before. Our sea horse was hanging out on the line to the flopper stopper (see photo) Because of our concerns about the gen set and the projected arrival of the new one in PV, we decided not to go further south. On the 14th we had a fabulous dinner at the restaurant on a peninsula overlooking the bay, about 40 feet above the waves crashing on the rocks and above the finishing hole on the Las Haddas golf course. Linda's 60th birthday was on the 15th and she wanted to go back to Santiago Bay. We spent her birthday using our new boogie boards. After a few days we returned to Barra for about a week before heading back up the coast to PV. We had a near miss and one mishap en route. Shortly after entering Chamela, I dove the anchor and checked the bottom of the boat where I found a plastic bag clogging the engine thru hull, although we never overheated. The wind picked up to around 20 knots apparent between Chamela and Ipala, and when we got ready to anchor in Ipala, we could not get the main to furl, so I had to drop it. The foil that holds the sail had come out of the bottom part that holds it (probably due to wind pressure). I refitted it but we decided not to fly it the next day going around Cabo Corrientes. Although the wind got up to 25 knots, we had a decent passage into the bay and saw two big manta rays right next to the boat on the way in. Their wingspan must have been close to 12 feet.

Ruins, Volcanoes, Patzcuaro and Butterflies

We decided to leave the boat in Barra and travel inland. We took the bus to Colima and enjoyed touring a recently excavated Indian village, feasting on botanas (multiple courses of Mexican dishes) on the lovely square in Comala. We visited a beautiful hacienda formerly owned by a famous Mexican artist, and hiked to North America's most active volcano, Volcan de Colima or Vocan de Fuego, which is expected to blow within the next 5 years. Both Volcan and Nevado de Colima, the higher adjacent vocano are snow capped. Smoke regularly shot out of the top while we were there. On the drive to Patzcuaro we could see the snow on the north side. Our guide in Colima was Jupiter (his parents loved Greco Roman mythology) who was fluent in English and introduced us to several museums, a lily plantation and a mask maker. He helped us decide to drive to Patzcuaro rather than take the bus, as the express bus arrived at 5 AM. We took the auto pista (toll road) and got lost in Guadalajara and Morelos. In Mexico, the freeways don't stay a freeway in the cities and you have to take a regular surface street to get on the auto pista outside of the city. Our map was woefully inadequate, but luckily we found a Pemex station with a guy who spoke enough English to get us back on track. We arrived in Patzcuaro mid afternoon. It is a well preserved 16th century Spanish Colonial town with beautiful plazas, which, unlike most Mexican cities do not feature government buildings or churches, but residences which are now small hotels, bed and breakfast and restaurants and coffee houses. Patzcuaro is at 7000 feet so it is much colder than PV. Our room was heated with a fireplace ( no other heat) so we needed to build a big enough fire to get to sleep before the cold set in. Patzcuaro is located on a large lake with five islands. We hired a guide and toured two large ruins from the pre colombian era. Next to the original church founded by Bishop Quirogga, are the oldest olive trees in North America, brought to this area in the late 1500s by Quirogga. Unlike the other Spainiards who made slaves of the Indians, Quirogga taught them use full skills, such as wood carving and guitar making, which they practice to this day. We toured downtown Patzcuaro on our own, enjoying coffee on the large square across from the plaza. The following morning we set out with our guide and a woman from Montreal to the Sanctuario Rosario, one of four national park areas where hundreds of million Monarch butterflies come each fall to breed with the new butterflies making the long migration all the way to the northern U.S. and Canada. The preserve is 10,600 feet at the top, but well worth the hike. We arrived around 1 pm and after lunch started up to the top. The butterflies had just started flying. The trees, a type of pine favored by the monarchs, were covered with what appear to be orange leaves but are in fact the butterflies. At the top, it was like being in an orange snowstorm! (the video gives you a small idea). What an incredible natural adventure. We were in the sanctuary at the ideal time, just as the new butterflies were getting ready to migrate but the older butterflies were still alive. A truly wonderful and unique experience. The next day we departed for Colima (lost again in Morelos and Guadaljara). We returned the rental car the next day after spending the night in Colima and took the bus back to Barra. These inland trips have made cruising really special for us, allowing us to explore areas less visited than the usual cruiser hangouts.

2006-2007 PV to Barra and Ziaut

Jon and I flew down for my birthday in 2006 and had 2 great dives on the Tres Mariettas. 88 degree water and 50 foot visibility, the divers in the group were all experienced so we went thru the tunnels and into the caves with good visibility. We flew the Bonanza down in around November 1st and then returned to Prescott for Thanksgiving. We hosted Jon, Carey, Hamilton and Edwin, and Carol, Jim, Matt and Jim's girlfriend Candace for the holiday. We returned to PV in early December to get the boat ready to leave in January, returning home briefly before Christmas, and then flew back to Roanoke, Va to spend Christmas with Cat, Chad, Cooper and Parker. We stayed at Cat and Chad's ski condo in Wintergreen and enjoyed skiing with the kids both of whom ski very well. Parker "got it" this time and really does well for a 4 year old. Chad and I played golf on the course at the bottom of the resort and then we all skied that night! We enjoyed spending Christmas with the grand kids and assembling the gifts the night before. Cat held an open house on New Year's Day so we got to meet all of their neighbors.
We returned to the boat on January 7th to get ready for the trip south. Larry and Sandy Arvidson arrived on the 13th to go south with us. We enjoyed showing them around Puerto Vallarta and Larry, Sandy and I took out one of the J-80s at the J World Sailing School on a really windy day on the bay. Larry got to race with us on Bright Star before we left PV. Unfortuantely, after going to Punta Mita for the night, we awoke to a rainstorm and big winds, especially around Cabo Corrientes which kept us in Punta Mita for another 2 days. On the third day the wind lay down enough to round the point, but we did not get started until noon due to a stuck solenoid on the starter motor. I replaced the motor and we departed for Chamela, expecting to sail overnight, however, the wind and seas pushed us along at nearly 8 knots so we arrived in Ipala (50 miles south) in daylight and anchored for the night. I wanted to anchor close in to the rock that provides most of the protection from the prevailing wind but Linda said it was too close to the fish trap. She was right, a boat that anchored there had to hire a diver the next morning to get their anchor unstuck. We stopped in Chamela for a couple of days and had a nice snorkel . Larry (a marine biologist) identified over 60 species of marine life. We took them on the jungle river cruise in Tenacatita and then left the next day for Barra. Dick and Carol of Tanoshii were waiting for us on the dock. It was great to hook up with them again. We had 3 knock down drag out tennis matches with Larry and Linda losing to Sandy and me. We introduced Larry and Sandy to the pleasures of Barra de Navidad including mango margarittas. We watched the Super Bowl at the Grand Bay hotel with Frank and Dayna of Snowgoose and other cruisers. Linda and Sandy added to their salt and pepper collection. Sandy really wanted to get to Zijuateno, one of her brothers favorite places, but we did not have enough time to take the boat there and allow them to return by bus to PV for their flight out. So we rented a car and drove for 9 hours (it looked like a 5 hour drive on paper) being searched 4 times by the military who was cracking down on the methamphetamine plants that are all over the state of Michoacan. We stayed at a hotel on Ziuatenjo bay (I am not sure of the spelling) and enjoyed seeing several cruising friends as it was Ziuafest. We delivered mail to fellow Cal owners Houston and Gayle on Blew Moon, and went to the cruiser beach pot luck. We had a nice dive at Los Gatos, where the water is clearer. Larry took us to a tamale specialty place with 16 types of tamales. I introduced him to tacos del pastor (slow roasted pork with pineapple) The drive back was also grueling and we got lost again and discovered that every village has at least 2 topes (speed bumps) which are not necessarily well marked. We had one more tennis match at Barra and then it was time for Larry and Sandy to leave.