Puerto Vallarta
25 March 2011 | La Cruz de Huanacaxtle
David
March 2011: La Cruz de Huanacaxtle
The 24th day of March, 2011, was a typical one at anchor in La Cruz anchorage. Calm in the morning and the breeze picking up around noon. It's calm for the morning coffee, but it's also a good time to dinghy in, if you're going. After noon, it's going to be a wet dinghy ride back home when the wind pipes up and brings the little waves.
We didn't have much of an agenda here, and we weren't sure we knew anyone, either.
But we'd been here before and enjoyed it, and there were a couple specific restaurants we wanted to hit. Mostly the trip down had been about getting away from the dock to feel like cruisers rather than live-aboards and to check out the new gear we've been installing since last October.
Anyway, since we had just arrived the day before, we were both too tired to worry about "doing the town", so the day was spent puttering about the boat & tidying up; David on the computer and Carolyn reading without the wallowing waves. That was it. It was movie night in the marina, but rather than launch the dinghy, we just watched the same movie at home - "Avatar".
The 25th was more of the same, except that David launched the dinghy and dropped the engine on. We've been wondering how the engine would run, because it wouldn't idle and would drop from 2 to only 1 cylinder at high speed when it was first started after a 2-year sleep. One of the guys in the yard in La Paz worked on it until the idle was good, but it still ran on only 1 when 'goosed'. Rather than wait around La Paz for more engine work, we figured we could live with mid-speed for a while at anchor. As it comes out, it seems to run just fine for everything except the high end, so we're not spending any more money on it right now. So what's the point here? Oh, so David went over to speak with a big wooden boat (1968, it comes out) because he has the same wind steering vane that we do, and we wanted to know if there were any tricks we could apply to take ours steer better. Patrick (the Frenchman pronounces Patreek) of Dulcinea says "Poof, it doesn't work so good! And sometimes he forgets what he is doing. So much for tricks.
And then we went in to the new Palapa restaurant in the marina for lunch. It was really good, with a great view and a real tropical feel. (But we've lost our great photos of us there.)
Upon return to the boat there was a general call out on the VHF for help to pull a boat off the beach. A little 24' Bristol Channel Cutter (?) broke anchor, bounced over the inshore reef, and slid on down to the beach. So David got back in the dink and headed that way. He was 3rd to arrive, after a couple Mexican guys with a large PWC who were pulling it off already. The skipper of Teichel (sp?) was pushing with his dink and the boat, "Fox Fire" was already moving to sea. I tied alongside and kept my engine running while Teichel climbed aboard, found the key and battery switch, and fired up the engine. After a very short time, it was obvious that Fox Fire was under her own power, so I untied and Teichel motored her to the marina. That was the end of that excitement. If there's a story in Latitude 38, David's just a bit player, not one of the cast.
After 3 days at anchor (and revising our travel plans for weather concerns), we raised the pick and moved into the marina. This means an easy walk to town, showers, and more people to talk to. No need for improved wi-fi as long as I have this Telcel Phone modem. It worked as well at anchor as it does in the marina. David went to the swap meet by the haul-out facility. Not much there.
And then in the evening, we walked up to Philo's bar for dinner and the band. Dinner was great and Philo came on at 8:00. We sat with some landlubbers, but at Philo's it's always a good time and the lubbers always put a different spin on the "gringos in Mexico" experience.