After a good night's sleep, we got up at 6:30 this morning at Matenchen Bay, and raised the anchor by using the primary winches again. From there we sailed to the entrance of the San Blas channel, where Captain Norm, a.k.a. "Jama", agreed to meet us to escort us into the channel. The cruising guides say that San Blas channel is very tricky and not to enter it without such an escort.

Norm stood on the shore with a portable VHF and guided us in. After that we were invited to meet at Norm's place. Norm is a very amiable guy to acts as the de facto cruiser's ambassador in San Blas. He lives in a house in town with his wife, and has been there for over 40 years. While he regaled us with stories about San Blas and Mexico, his wife served us pineapple pastries and drinks in their lush garden.

First order of business, Norm promised to help us get our anchor windlass repaired. He arranged to have a taxi pick me up at 9 the next morning, and take me into Tepic, the capital of Nayarit State. There, he says, we could find a metal shop capable of repairing our windlass.

San Blas is a small, poor fishing village. There's very little tourism, and no modern hotels or condos, primarily because of the jejenes (pronounced "heheh-ness"), or Mexican so see-ums, that come around at sunset. Norm says San Blas is blessed by the jejenes, because this way it gets to remain a real Mexican town.

We did a little walking tour of the town, stopping to buy a Christmas tree and decorations, some groceries, and lunch at a restaurant called Mc Donald's. This one doesn't have golden arches, it's a regular Mexican restaurant, and I think they don't have to worry about the hamburger chain bothering them since the sign says "since - desde - 1952". I don't think the hamburger chain was even around then.

On the way back, we bought a kilo of giant prawns for 140 pesos (10 bucks), and had them for dinner sauteed with garlic butter. Delicious!