July 4, 2011, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Mexico
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know we know. Once again, we have neglected our blog and gotten way behind. Among being parked at the marina in La Cruz for the past 7 months, my going back to work in the states, and most of our good friends leaving for other exotic destinations, we feel like we have fallen out of the 'cruising' lifestyle. It is kinda sad really when we think about it - almost like we have gotten into a rut with nothing worthy of blogging.
Although we could probably a few things to complain about, life has been pretty good over the past few months. Andiamo and crew have decided to remain in Banderas Bay and Marina La Cruz for the summer (hurricane season) and resume active cruising this fall. With my job requiring frequent travel to and from the US, we find it convenient to be near the Puerto Vallarta airport. The weather is getting hot and wet with temperatures approaching 100 degrees in the daytime and frequent rain showers and thunderstorms. The boat cover and window unit air conditioner are pulling double duty as they try to keep the boat and family cool (cooler) and dry for the most part. The marina has quieted down and a majority of the cruising crowd has either crossed the Pacific, pressed south to El Salvador or headed north into the Sea of Cortez for the summer. We sure do miss a good many of our friends, but we look forward to seeing them again this fall.
We have not done much sailing the past 4 months as my work schedule has kinda put a damper on things. We did spend a long weekend anchored off of Punta de Mita where we had a wonderful time. We had a special dinner at the Four Seasons Resort that weekend too celebrating Mother's Day, our anniversary, and a few other overlooked holidays.
We have already survived two hurricanes this season as well. Hurricane Adrian reared its ugly head far offshore in early June and then more recently, Hurrican Beatriz (category 1) made a short run up the coast from Z-town to Banderas Bay where it fizzled down and headed back out to sea. Hopefully, these are not harbingers of worse weather yet to come. Nevertheless, we are staying vigilant and prepared in the event we have a more powerful storm hit La Cruz.
We had a trip to Tequila planned a couple weeks ago, but Hurrican Beatriz forced us to cancel and remain with the boat as they were forecasting 75 knot winds and heavy swell and rain. So, we did the responsible thing and cancelled our hotel reservations and readied the boat for heavy weather. The weather never got bad, but it was the responsible thing to do. To make up for our lost excursion, we spent the following weekend at the Paradise Village Resort enjoying the awesome pool, air-conditioned room, and time with our good friends on Albatross. It was a much needed getaway for Tami and the kids and we had a wonderful time.
So, the summer routine is upon us. I am working 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off with travel to the states in between. Tami is keeping a solid daily routine of homeschooling, coordinating marina social activities, and running the La Cruz Kid's Club (detailed blog to follow soon!). We are planning for a haul out of Andiamo in the near future as she needs a bottom job, new cutlass bearing, and a few other minor items. We are thoroughly enjoying our extended stay in La Cruz and have made some wonderful friendships over the past 7 months here. We are counting down the days until fall when the cruising season gets back into full swing and when we begin to make plans for heading further south.
Im sure I have missed some important details that I know Tami will correct me on later, but we will try to get caught up on those in future posts.
More to follow...
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February 20, 2011, Yelapa, Jalisco, Mexico
So, after a month or so of being cryogenically frozen in order to be transported into the future, the Reynolds family has finally thawed out and are back to the cruising and blogging lifestyle. What a great nap the past month has been!
Anyway, we are all very alive and well and still living on the boat in La Cruz, Mexico. After being chastised by more than one friend and blog reader, we realized we needed to get things going again. Gene's has recently returned from about 3+ weeks of training for his new job in the states and we are all getting reunited and enjoying our time together.
As fortune would have it, Tami had to fly back to Seattle on the very day that Gene flew back into Puerto Vallarta. After 3 weeks of being apart, we were able to see each other at the airport for a few minutes at least before being separated once again. We have a close family friend who is terminally ill in the hospital at Fort Lewis and Tami needed to get home to see her one last time. She was fortunate enough to spend some quality time with her before returning home just a couple days ago. It was hard to say goodbye.
Yesterday, we re-entered the cruising lifestyle and slipped away from the relative safety of our marina for an overnight cruise to Yelapa. One of the benefits of Gene's new job is the schedule. He works 2 weeks and then has 2 weeks off. So, during his time off, we can pretty much do whatever we want. It's like a mini vacation every month! Anyway, Yelapa is located on the south side of Banderas Bay - a short 15 mile day-sail from La Cruz. Yelapa is a very unique little town. The land in Yelapa is owned collectively by the indigenous people, and the families there have extensive backgrounds dating back centuries. It is also home to numerous expatriates. Yelapa sits inside a small cove and is surrounded by towering lush green mountains. There is no road access to this small town; therefore, transportation is provided by water taxi, 4-wheeler, horse, or donkey. Only recently have telephone and electrical services been brought to Yelapa. The Rio El Tuito meets the bay in Yelapa and one can hike up through the town to a beautiful waterfall set against a tropical backdrop. In the warmer months, a dip in the water at the base of the cascada is well worth the walk. We didn't get in the water, but we did take plenty of pictures.
For 200 pesos (about $20 US), we spent the night on a mooring in the bay. The water is too deep to anchor so entrepreneurial pangueros will hurry out to meet incoming cruising boats and help them with a mooring, for a fee of course. We were able to say hello to some cruising friends of ours on sv Savannah who were moored next to us as well. The anchorage was a bit bumpy, but the visit to the town was worth it. We only stayed one night, but next time, we will be sure to enjoy the popular restaurants, the Yelapa yacht club, and the delicious pies sold by the local ladies on the beach.
The overnight trip was a nice getaway. We sailed most of the way across the bay and enjoyed being back on the water. Andiamo was able to stretch her legs and fly full sail in the warm afternoon breeze. The weather was beautiful and the sun was hot. We are counting the days until Gene's next time off so we can explore further and further away from our home base here in La Cruz.
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January 11, 2011, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Nayarit Mexico
After over a month of neglecting the blog, we felt it was past time to update our readers. We are truly sorry to those of you who faithfully check our site.
We left off sailing towards Bahia de Los Muertos on the Baja Peninsula. Since then, we have covered a lot of ground, seen a lot of sights, and done some cool stuff.
We crossed the Sea of Cortez without incident and spent a little over a week anchored in Mazatlan's old harbor. The mainland side of Mexico is definitely different than the Baja.
From there we sailed down to Isla Isabela. This island is classified as the Galapagos of the North. It is inhabited by millions of frigate birds, blue footed boobies, and iguanas. We enjoyed a coupled days in the anchorage there and explored just about all there was to explore. We even got in a scuba dive with our friends from Serendipity, Zeppelin, and Lunautica.
From there, we sailed onto San Blas, where we spent a night in the anchorage at Ensanada de Matanchen. We took the jungle river panga tour and the kids loved it.
Our next stop was Chacala. This little town was great. We spent almost the entire day on the beach.
After Chacala, we continued south and rounded Punta de Mita into Banderas Bay. We arrived at the new marina in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle and stayed a full 2 weeks. Here we celebrated Christmas and New Years with about 60 other cruisers and close friends. We are now anchored out trying to save a few pennies. Later this week, we'll head over to Nuevo Vallarta and visit the marina at Paradise Village.
La Cruz is awesome. One of our most favorite stops so far.
The big news of the year is that Gene has a new job. Our goal was to sail to Mexico and spend Christmas and New Years there then we would consider employment again. Well, that's exactly what we did. Gene took a job flying for a company called Era Helicopters in the Gulf of Mexico. The work schedule is what we like best as it will allow us to continue living and sailing in Mexico and Gene can commute to and from work. More details to follow as he starts his training in a couple weeks.
So now, here we are, still in the Puerto Vallarta area with plans to be here for the near future. We were so busy in December and spotty internet service kept us from keeping a good blog. We hope to get back in the habit of updating it on a more regular basis.
More to follow...
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December 7, 2010, Bahia De Los Muertos
Well, not really a "man" overboard, more of a cooler to be exact. No kidding, there we were motoring nicely (cuz there was no wind!) along heading south towards Bahia Los Muertos. The sea was very lumpy and confused and the boat was rocking around pretty good. Just then, Tami announces "Cooler Overboard!" and I turn to see our blue and white drink cooler along with the lid and several bottles of water, coke, and beer floating away behind us. I won't go into too much detail regarding my train of thought, but we do admit that it was just too much plastic floating in the ocean to ignore. So, we turned the boat around and headed back to the scene of the crime. Since there was no wind, we were able to stop the boat next to the majority of the floatsom. Thankfully, we were towing the dinghy and I was able to hop in and row around to collect all the items that we could see. In the end, we recovered the cooler, the lid, most of the water bottles, a couple cans of cokes, and ALL the beer! We did our best to clean up our environmental disaster and continued on our way.
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Que Pasa
December 4, 2010, Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur
Our second trip to Cabo was much better than our first! Some good friends of ours from Washington own a timeshare in Cabo and came down to spend last week there. Since we were still La Paz, they invited us down to see them for a day. So, we rented a car and drove to Cabo and enjoyed a great time with them. We stayed at the beautiful Hotel Finesterra on the Pacific coast of Cabo. The kids loved the pools and Tami loved the bathtub.
It was a great visit. We enjoyed some great company and great food. We didn't want to leave, but were eager to get back to the boat even after just one night away.
On our way home, we made the required stop at Costco. Our short drive through southern Baja was an experience to remember as well. The landscape is beautiful.
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November 20, 2010, Sea of Cortez
As we sailed up from Bahia De Los Muertos towards Bahia Balandra the other day, we threw a line and lure in the water and trolled a bit as we always do. Just before lunch, we caught one small dorado and threw him back. It was nothing to write home about.
But, about an hour later....Wham! A beautiful Blue Marlin! It only took a few minutes to get the fish up to the boat. Since Blue Marlin are not good eating and we didn't have room for a trophy above the mantle, we decided to let him go. So w took a few pictures then cut him lose. It was a fun catch.
On another note, the internet has been very unreliable and slow. Therefore, our blog posts are way behind. We are currently in La Paz and making our Thanksgiving plans. Hope all is well with our friends and family back home.
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Chuck, Michelle and Morgan
