I left Mazatlan after a nice, but too long of a stay. Thanksgiving dinner was quite nice and it felt good to do something with a meaning. I worked most of the time I was there by carving and serving the turkey. 180 people and 10 turkeys..whew, I'm tired. Pulled out of the marina at noon and headed for Isla Isabella to get some shots of the blue-footed boobies and some underwater pics of my art work on the boat. Arrived at daybreak and quickly set my hook(anchor) in a patch of sand. I wanted to double check the setting of the hook so I decided to go diving right away. I put on my new shorty and the dive rig my son got for me and went over the side. First off, I did'nt have enough weight to let me go down, so I had to push off the boat and work my fins like crazy to get down. I took a few pics of Gabrielllas name on the bottom of the boat and then decided to grab my anchor chain to check out the setting of the hook. Sure enough, it was wrapped around a rock and the anchor itself was just laying on its side and could not penetrate the hard shale or sand covered rock. There was'nt much wind, but the seas were lumpy and uncomfortable, so I decided to weigh anchor and set off for San Blas. I could always get the pics of the birds on the way back north. As I'm pulling up the anchor I try to pull the boat ahead to unwrap from the rock. With the action from the lumpy seas, my anchor chain dug into the bow roller and chewed it up. Then I finally got the anchor almost all the way up and the lumpy seas caused my anchor to hit my bow and punch a nice little chunk into it. So off to San Blas licking my wounds. I get into Matanchen Bay wich is the outer anchorage at San Blas and drop my hook and let the noise of the engine drain from my body. The next morning I go and start the engine so I can motor into the San Blas estuary and I decided to check my exhaust water flow(which I only do once in awhile) and there was NO water coming out. Here we go again with the raw water pump. I take the pump off and check it out to find nothing wrong with it. So I'm thinking my heat exchanger is shot and start trouble shooting the cause. Evidently I did'nt check the pump good enough because I later checked it out again and found the impeller was slipping off its metal housing. So I put on one of my backups and bingo, I'm back in business. Now I don't want to go in the estuary at San Blas, so I take off for Chacala. A nice 4 hour motor-boat ride and I pull into Chacala with only one other boat. Chacala is so laid back and peaceful for me. The whole tropical look is so inviting and the food is good at the palapas. I give my business to Las Brisas palapa because not only is the food good but I get free internet from their beach palapa. I don't have to lug my laptop ashore and set it up in a internet cafe. I go to visit my good Canadien friends Jan and Wolf in Lo De Marcos tomorrow. I will take the bus to get there and then they will drive me back. They are about 15 miles down the coast. Then Saturday I should move on to Banderas Bay and La Cruz De Huanacastle. The blog pic is for you Bryan. I will try to post a few more pics in the gallery.

Comments [3]

Here I implore all of you to leave comments, but I slack off on posting blog updates......I'm not being fair and Gabriella and her mommy has chastised me. Had a pleasant 24 hour sail then another 20 hour motoring to reach Mazatlan. I anchored in the old harbor for the first day and night then moved on over to the Marina Mazatlan area to get a slip at my favorite Singlar marina. I met up with my old friends Jared(Jorge) and the gorgeous girls of the office, Claudia and Alma. Don't worry Ariana, your still number one in my book. I checked out the Thanksgiving dinner thing here and came to the conclusion that things have changed from last year. It is $10 dollars cheaper and there is real turkey. I know for sure because I volunteered to carve a couple of them. So what to do in a marina while waiting for Thanksgiving to come and go? I actually got the motivation to thoroughly clean and organize the interior of the barge..er..boat. In the last 2 days I've only done the port side, but today I should whizz through the rest of the boat. I also had my spare diesel injectors refurbished in Guaymas for $40.....good price. So I noticed a lot of black sooty stuff spreading around my exhaust outlet and asked the local mechanic what it was....his answer was injectors. I will now install the rebuilt injectors and hope it cures my RPM problems as well. Saturday I will depart for Isla Isabella where the water visibility is phenominal and hope to do some diving to get some good underwater pics. I think my nose will be healed well enough for that. The sad part of having my wonderful XM radio down here is the dismal news about the economy. I hope all of you up north are fairing well. My prayers are with you all. I'm posting a few more pics in the gallery. Better eat my Cheerios and get busy finishing my putz-frau work.

Comments [7]

After tons of real nervousness I said my good-byes to everyone and untied my lines to sail out of Guaymas bay. The cruise ship Ryndam was making her second visit to Guaymas and would be coming down on my stern in a short while. It turned dark after a couple hours out and I saw the bright lights of a small city coming down my way. I called the Ryndam and they answered immediately and said they would pass me on my port side. I love it when good things come together. I raised my mainsail as soon as I left the dock and then about 30 minutes later I raised the jib and was cooking southward. I sailed all night and until about 5pm the next day.....how exciting to sail that much with no motor running. The sailing was so good I did'nt want to stop, so I kept going south. I motored through the last night(a 2 nighter passage) and right into La Paz. There were a lot of nice anchorages along the way but I decided I could hit all those on my way back north next April. I will stay here a couple of nights to catch up on sleep then cross over to Mazatlan. I want to be in San Blas or Isla Isabella for Thanksgiving so I won't think about it too much.......Princess Gabriella...... I running into a lot of cruisers I met last year, so that's kinda nice. My rudder was bent when I put it back together so I monitored it on the way south.....it's not perfect, but works okay. I have'nt repaired my thermostat housing from last year and it leaked a little on the way down. The fact that everything worked and it was a nice, but lonely trip put a smile on my scarred face.

Comments [5]