04/29/2012, yep
Well we were in Zee Wat for 10 days so alot happened, too much for one blog. Jane (Leiann's long time friend and mine too) came to visit us in Zee Wat. So this is why we wanted to find a nice but authentic place for her and us to stay. Elvira's was all that. The oldest resturant/hotel/casa in Zee town. Our room for the first couple day's had no hot water, cost us $12.50 a night was clean, comfortable, and right on the beach. Add to that we included by the family in daily life most of whom spoke little english. Our stay there will stay in our minds for a long time. The third night we moved up to the suite (with hot water) two queens size bed's (although a little hard, most Mexican bed's are) all for an amazing $18.00 a night! We had a geat time with Jane, wanting to show a blend of nice clean, up town restuarants and the gritty "real Mexico". At one point we took her to the Crocodile (Coco-Dril-lee-o) refuge. You can check out the croc's in a semi contained area (although scary). I found that on the other side of the bridge were also croc's in true natural state unrestrained in the river! So I had to go check it out. I found a trail that lead right down to the river through real jungle. I went back over and got the girls away from the "Tourista" exibit. I eagerly led them down this off the travel brochure find. As we made it down the trail Leiann yells out O My God I stepped in shit! We all looked at our feet and all of us had shit on our shoe's (make that sandal's). Ahhhhhh the girls were out of there. We had to go back over to the beach to wash our feet. The girls felt that they had had enough ethnic experiences for the day. Jane hung at the local coffee shop on the beach in the mornings as we tend to get up late and go to bed late also. We tried to show Jane a good time again blending the new (neuvo) Ixapa and the old authentic Mexico the barrio (where the worker bee's live). We had her on the beach under palapa's one day and in the street on plastic chairs another. We think she had a good time and we were happy to have her come vist us. After Jane left we moved back on Chrysalis, provisioned and headed out for our next port only 30 miles south which is "Petalan".
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04/28/2012, Zee town
We got into Zee wat at 6pm but Leiann wanted to go into shore after our nearly two hundred miles and two nights at sea. We got the anchor down and dinghy in the water. We went over to another boat at anchor and got the skinny on landing the dink and where to eat. As told we were met at the beach by a boy who ran out into the water to help us get our dinghy to shore without getting wet. We gave him 10 pescos, the standard fee to watch our dinghy. We then began our typical walk around town to get our bearings (standard routine). We found somewhere to eat (Ta Ta's on the beach). We put our feet in the sand and watched the sun go down while we had drinks (Leiann Margarita, Me Fresca). We had a very nice (well deserved) meal over looking the bay and our little home Crysalis II, amazed and grateful she had brought us all this way. The next day we were getting ready to go to shore and the boat next to us said that a big swell was coming and to put out a stern anchor, I immediately got into action. Before I finished getting the stern anchor tight here came huge 10 foot swells, lifting the boat high and then dropping into the next trough. I kept pulling on the stern anchor trying to keep the bow into the waves, but the anchor would not set and kept coming in. Finally we heard a loud bang, Leiann said what was that, I said I don't know then noticing the bow coming around I raced forward to see the bow anchor rode (rope) had broke. This is pretty amazing as our chain (5/16) was secured by two 3/4 inch dacron rodes (a bridle) then the chain is attached to a 5/8 inch rode. All of which broke as I had hauled in on the stern anchor! I ran back to the cockpit and fired up the engine. The only thing that was keeping us off the beach was the stern anchor and as I said it was dragging. Leiann took the helm as I struggled to get the stern anchor up. We were off, safely heading out of the anchorage. We took the baot over to the other side of the anchorage where the swell could not affect us. I put out the only anchor we now had and headed back over to town to see if we can find a diver to recover our anchor. I had seen a dive center when we were out walking around. We went over to a hotel/resturant/home (the oldest on the beach)that we had seen earlier (more later on Casa Elvira later). Anyway the restautant owner introduced us to his son (who spoke fluent english and was in the US Army) who then took us over to a charter boat owner who helped us find a diver. I know this is hard to follow but these people to did not know us from us adam and understood our dilemma of a loss of our precious anchor and 100ft of 5/16 chain (very difficult to get in Mexico). The divers, who were local octopus fisherman who were resisent to try to dive in the current surf, because of very poor visability and d not wanting to waste our money, finally agreed to try for one hour @ 1000 pecos ($80 deal). So one boat, me, two divers, a compressor, and another boat air hose handler. All for $80, wow. After 45min I was really beginning to lose hope, then up one came with the chain. None of these guys spoke english at all, so I'm in the boat with them when my precios anchor comes on board I told them I could KISS them. The head guy holds his hands up says no kiss, no kiss. We didn't have anymore trouble with our anchoring for the rest of our time at Zee Wat.
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03/30/2012, Zihuatanejo or just Zihau
We have been trying to learn Spanish while on this trip and have added quite a few new words to our repitore however one thing that is challenging, besides learning the language, is learning to spell and pronounce the places we visit. Our next stop was Tenacatita where we stayed for two days. This bay is also known as the "Aquarium" however it wasn't so while we were there because the waters were murky and not much to see. We did do our regular exploring though and on one side of the shore is the usual palapa with food and drink and on the other side is the Blue Bay All Inclusive Hotel. The best of this bay were the sea turtle nests that were by the hotel. This is actually a large cage where the turtles eggs are kept by the locals in order to preserve the ever endangered sea turtles. While taking a break at the beach by the hotel.....ok we kind of snuck in....I went to use the banos (bathroom for you non Spanish speaking folks) and I came upon a little pool filled with little baby sea turtles. It was an awesome sight but you will just have to imagine it cuz someone forgot to bring the camera! We left Tenatacita and sailed (yeah) around the bay over to La Manzanilla where they have houses literally built on the side of the hill and we did have the camera to get pics of these. Then we left to go to Cuastecomte aka the Secret Anchorage but since it's in a guide book it's not such a secret anymore. There were three other boats already there when we got in and we decided to wait until the next day before traveling in to the surfy shore. Now I thought that I was getting dang good at getting out of the dinghy while the surf is following you in but it seems this time I wasn't so lucky. Dave has a routine of what we are supposed to do once we hit the beach and my job is to grab the painter (rope tied to dinghy) and keep the boat straight so the waves don't wash over us. Well for whatever reason I didn't get that far before a wave, and these aren't little waves, washed over us and turned the dinghy upside down. This is not a great position for the engine to be in but even more so I was now under the dinghy and the painter was wrapped around my legs. Most of you know how much I like water so this was my moment to learn NOT TO PANIC! Ok so I did a little but I knew my hubby would be my hero and that I wasn't going to succumb to the seas, not to mention I was in 2 ft of water. Obviously I survived but the good news is I have become an expert at getting to shore through the surf.....of course with my husband's help! We left Cuastecomate and got to Melaque next. I wanted to go here because our guidebook talked about Chippy the dolphin that hung out in the bay and would come say hello to you. Sad to say chippy wasn't around while we were there. The good news though is that our friends from Cricket, Pat & Lynn, were. So the first night we had dinner on their boat with them which was excellent as usual. We met Pat & Lynn way back in Magdelena Bay and spent Thanksgiving with them. They are awesome hosts! Then the next day our other friend Greg from Foreign Affair showed up in the anchorage so we all had dinner again on Cricket. Thank you Pat and Lynn!! So to reciprocate and because our boat is too small for company I took over Greg's boat and made dinner for everyone there. We had papas locas which are basically baked potatoes with cheese, steak, la crema or cream and salsa! They are great and fun to make! To recipricate for the use of Greg's boat Dave climbed the mast to help Greg with a problem at the tip top of the mast. Pic included. Dave decided we needed to go over to the lagoon on the other side of the bay and check it out so we went over to Barra de Navidad Lagoon and hung out at the Sand's Hotel where for buying drinks we could use the pool and showers. Dave here: We ended up spending 8 days between Melaque and Barra Navadad (they are 3 miles apart. The lagoon in Barra is very protected from sea swell but not from wind and we had some. We enjoyed going into the Sands Hotel and just hagging around the pool while we stayed in the lagoon. We also explored the little town of Barra de Navidad. We then went back over to Malaque and hung out with our friends, and watched amazing fireworks to celebrate St. Patricks Day. We told you they find any reason to have yet another party (celebration) in Mexico! We finally left Malaque/Barra and our friends to head south. We don't know if we will ever meet these people again so it is sad to leave them, but more adverture awaits. Our next stop was only 20 miles south at a little bay called Carrizal this bay was reknowed for it's snorkeling. However when got there the water was very cloudy and cold so after a night there we headed out the next afternoon for Las Hadas. Hadas is a resort that was one of the first of it's kind in Mexico. Built in the mid sixties it is showing it's age but still a very cool place. Looking up from the water the buildings are bright white cubicals with domed tops so they look like Mediteranian/Moorish design (see pics). We hung out at the pool some and walked (sneaked ) through the place even snuck into a top floor suite that was open for cleaning just to check it out. We were actually lost trying find a ATM that we were told was at the front of the Hotel. The next day we got on a bus and rode all around and over to Mazanillo and even into the barrio (Leiann was a little nervous) but we were in broad daylight and never felt threatened. We like to get off the tourist path and see some of real Mexico that they don't show you in the travel brochures. After three days we left Las Hadas / Mazanillo (again 3 miles apart) for Zihuatanejo (Zee Watinaho.) This was a two night 190 mile trip. We then arrived at Zihuatanejo where we ended up staying for 10 days.
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03/19/2012, Navidad Lagoon
We are currently in in Bahia Navidad lagoon. We had a pretty bumpy ride down from Banderas Bay. We had no problems coming around the infamous Punta Corrientes, however when we got 20 miles south 5 miles off Ipala bay holy hell broke loose with 30 knots of wind and 8 ft breaking sea's. I would not let Leiann in the cockpit as it was just to dangerous and she was sick as a dog anyway, rough night for me. At one point I was doing 8 knots with no sails up! At that point I hove to for the next 4 hours before continuing on to Chamela Bay. We met our old friends Bonnie and Kevin on "Kist". It was a great having a meal with them on their boat and walking around town and hanging out at the hotel pool together. Both of us got good dunkings on the beach with the dinghies. When we both headed out to the boats for they last time the surf was huge at 4-5ft. We watched the local Mexican fisherman who knew the surf like the back of their hand, they waited and waited then went out with no problems. So after studying the surf from the resturant over several drinks (me Fresca) we finally decided to give it a go. We both had our dinghies in the water with one person on each of the dink. We patiently waited for the surf to pause for a moment. Finally getting what we thought was our best chance we headed out as fast as we could and then jumped on board and franticlly trying get the motor to start before the next wave series starts, the outboard fired up and we were out past the break. Now Bonnie and Kevin were still in the process. Bonnie on the oars pulling hard (me yelling Go Bonnie Go). Finally Kevin got the out board going after some difficulty and then they too were safe out side the break! We said our final goodbyes to Kist not knowing if we will ever see them again but they live in Bellingham so most likely we will as some point. Thanks you guys for feeding us it was great hanging with you! More to come later.
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03/04/2012, La Cruz
Well todays the 4th of March and we have been in Bandares Bay since Feb 13th. We have stayed much of that time at La Cruz. La Cruz is in the North part of the Bay, and it is a kind of cruiser mecca. There are several restaurants and bars owned by gringo's who were once cruisers and put down the hook here. There are also lots of Mexican restaurants. The town still has the sleepy feel of old Mexico, roosters in the back yard, cobble stone streets, nice buildings next to one falling apart, you know real Mexico. We have spent most of time here on the hook. We are at the dock now to do a couple repair jobs that are easier than on anchor. We plan to leave for parts south on Monday.
We spent a couple days at Punta de Mita when we first got here, a few palapas, a nice beach and I tried a little surfing .
After a week a La Cruz we went over to Puerta vallarta so we could provision and play tourist for a day. We rode our bikes all the way from the marina to old town (about 5 miles) then parked the bikes and walked for several hours. At one point we were in the oldest (run down, falling apart, scary) in the dark, Leiann said OK we have seen enough let's get the heck out of here. By the time we got back to the boat were both worn out, but felt that we got to see most of Vallarta,
Then we headed to the south end of the bay to Yelapa. This little village is only accessible by boat. While now it has regular tourist visitors it still a very remote and unusual place. The entire town is built on the hillside with little paths going everywhere. Some of the paths are cobble stone while others are still dirt. Prior to Qauds that zoom up the narrow paths, burros were the only transportation and are still used. We were walking off the beaten path up from the town when here comes an old Mexican on a donkey with two bags of Raicilla (bootleg tequila) he smiled and let us take his picture. Yelapa was great and we with we could have stayed longer but high winds were predicted and there is little protection there so we headed back to La Cruz after one night. Leiann's version: Dave has this uncanny ability to take us where we are going in a round about way. We were headed to the waterfall when we discovered the man on the burro. Only we ended up going up a very very steep hill, which actually had street lamps, and found the cemetery. Which isn't a bad thing because the cemeteries here are quite a sight to see with their little houses built for family members. Anyways we kept trekking up this windy path and came to pickup trucks sitting on a road?? We found out that there is a road into Yelapa for delivering items to the town but the actual town has no raods in it. Dave decided that we should take what he thought was a shortcut and down we went through follage and boulders. It was a shortcut but it was interesting taking that path (uh actually a dry creek bed) down. DAve is right, we could have stayed alot longer in Yelapa but had to leave because of the weather. He did however get the T-Shirt he has wanted since we learned of Yelapa which says "I'd rather be in a palapa in Yelapa than a condo in Redondo".
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02/15/2012, Punta de Mita
We Arrived in Punta de Mita ( the entrance to Banderas Bay) Monday evening the 13th. We were welcomed by several of our old friends Velella Velella, Jean Maria, Kist and Marionetto, all boats that we had met somewhere on our trip down at some point. This is one of the simple pleasures of cruising, running into each other as you cruise. You never know when you are going to run into someone you met. Always a great reunion. I guess it's because we understand what we each go through to be here. We enjoyed our stay at Chacala, staying four days rather than the planned 1-2. Then after a couple hour cruise, down to Jaltemba. Jaltemba shares the beaches with two other towns Guayabitos and Los Ayala. One long continuous beach stretched out in a 6 mile crescent. These are rather unknown tourist beaches with all the trinket sales. It is a beautiful beach but the tourist part is not attractive to us. We walked the beaches, and what there was of a town (not much). We did not find that there was much to see here other than the ocean, islands and beaches (like that's not enough). We are always interested in local architecture (churches, old building, ruins). And getting to meet the locals. Well we will head over to La Cruz today (7miles) where we plan to hang out for a few days, maybe longer. La Cruz is a cruisers hang out with grigo hangout resturants and places that cruisers can get off the boat for a while, shower, read, socialize, etc. We plan to take some short trips to other ports of call in Banderas Bay (Puerta Vallarta, Yelapa, Marietas Islands and such. The plan which is quite flexible, is to hang around Banderas through the end of Feb, then head further south. Today it's quite overcast and weather reports say a large system is moving through. So will head to La Cruz today and expect wind and rain for a couple days. I keep telling Leiann that there will come a day that we will miss that clouds and pray for cooler weather, but as for now we have not had enough sun, even though we are both getting pretty tanned. More later on Banderas Bay. Now it's Leiann's turn: When coming frpm Jaltemba to Punta de Mita we were lucky enough to see a show from a humpback whale. These things are HUGE! and how I know that is that this whale wasn't even close to us but we could see his whole body come out of the water and splash down and then we could hear him. It sounded like a belly flop does only louder. I was whining that I wanted to see them closer but after talking to our friends on Jean Marie I have decided I am perfectly content to see them from afar. Jean Marie had a whale hit their boat (15ft juvenile) while in the marina. Lucky for them that no one was hurt, and the only damage was to some lines that they were able to tighten back up. And then they were out sailing and one came too close for comfort.....but good news is it was just tooclose no impact. So I am perfectly content to see them from as far away as they want to be! or go to an Aquarium if I need to see one up close. Now I am going to tell on myself before the story gets out there and blown way out of proportion. Oh that's right I blew this story way out of proportion! Bonnie and Kevin from KIST and
Dave and I went to shore in Punta de Mita so the guys could surf and bonnie and I could wander around. While we were meandering along the beach I glanced out at our boat and saw a power boat and panga very close to it. I looked again and saw someone on our boat and told Bonnie. She said are you sure? I told her "Look they are moving from side to side." We started running down the beach to the dinghy, and this was no easy feat considering the beach is slanted, and yelling at the guy from the hotel asking if that was their panga. He said no so we kept running towards our dinghies. Then there was the local native guy that was whistling to someone out on the water and I just knew that he was alerting whoever was on our boat to retreat. We came upon the dinghy and since I don't know how to run one ( I know, I know, lessons coming) we got got Bonnie's with the help of Eric (from Marionetto) and off we went to capture the burglar. Bonnie asked if we should stop for Dave and Kevin and I said no there's not time. As we wer gaining on the suspect and he got closer I realized it was nothing more than our jib sail cover swinging in the wind. Oh boy....Bonnie was wonderful and was very positive about needing to run lickety split across the beach, jump in the dinghy and go tearing off across the water as if the grim peaper was after us! Thanks Bonnie. So we discussed that it was a drill, kinda like a man overboard drill. And I also told Bonnie her and I couldn't hang out together after dark as our two imaginations (especially mine) could get us into a predicament for sure. The other thing I learned was not telling my boat name to someone on shore.....a whale watching tour guide kept telling us to go out with him to see whales and I said I saw them from my own boat. So when he asked the name I told him. I thought for sure he was the culprit behind the stranger on my boat. Live and Learn, just another funny sailing story to share along the way! Oh and a great big thank you to our friends at Punta de Mita for not laughing at my expense.
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-Bonnie
