Greetings again from La Cruz. We opted to spend Christmas Day here in the marina and not travel to Nuevo Vallarta to avoid any potential transportation issues. The bus service is quite good here, but from the main highway out to the resort area where the marinas are located in Nuevo Vallarta we were not so sure of the Holiday schedules and were concerned about the return trip at night. We celebrated Christmas morning with breakfast at a local place called "The Organic Café," which is also an art gallery and a little jazz club, not that they were playing any jazz in the morning, but the place is quite nice and had free Wi-Fi. There we were, six middle aged people sitting at a table and five of six were on lap tops! It was really fun to make a call to the grand kids with a video monitor via Skype. If you have not opened a Skype account consider it as an option worth exploring also very cheap. We spent the remainder of the day catching up on phone calls home to family and friends, and to get a little rest after all the last minute Christmas shopping on Friday. We were invited to a real home style Christmas dinner with turkey and all the good stuff aboard Swift Current that afternoon. I volunteered to bring desert, and what could be more fitting than flan? We had it aboard and it turned out to be a real hit, but what to share for an appetizer? I'm thinking: OK, what do I have that I can take to the party? Well of course, tuna. I was going to cut some up in chunks and Bar-b-que them but then decided to 'try' to get fancy. I'm thinking some kind of flaky, tuna encased little bite sized things. Well, long story short they turned out to be biscuits with bits of tuna inside. Pretty funny, way too much bread, but not bad, or at least everyone was polite and said they were "really good." OK, I'll stick to cooking and leave the baking to someone else. Anyway, it was a feast and one of the best tasting turkeys I have ever eaten, so thanks to Lynn and Howard for including us along with their other friends.

OK, now for the dirt. The day after Christmas we traveled down to Nuevo Vallarta to the Paradise Village Marina to meet the crews of Sirocco and So Inclined. We made the trip and figured out how to get from the main highway out to their location. We met up on Sirocco and got to see Bob Ray just before he flew home. After chips, salsa and a beer we made it over to the resort's pool area, where some of us got into the hot tub or pool, and others of us napped in the sun on the pool loungers, (that would be me, so I'm absent in those photos). After a little mall shopping we hopped into dinghies and headed up the channel into the mangroves in search of a place called, Fajita Republic. We found it and what a great choice that was! Lee said the credit goes to John Erhardt for the referral, so thanks John!

We took the boat over to the fuel dock Monday morning to fuel up to get ready for the next leg, then out into the bay for a motor sail to make water, pump out our holding tank and just to throw off the dock lines. It was pretty uneventful ride except we were once again treated with a great whale show and pretty close by too. After that it was back to the dock for more boat work and to start provisioning. Our water consumption has been greater than we can keep up with, with our on board water maker. It is a Katadyn 80E and makes 3.5 gph. We only make water when out in open, clean ocean water and we needed it. Still didn't make enough so ended up buying 10 & 20 liter jugs and lugging them back to the boat. That's the kind of stuff that fills your days, but not today, Tuesday. Today we hired a local boat cleaning and maintenance crew and we took the day off and went by bus to downtown Puerto Vallarta. Marisa had not been there so we went sightseeing and did a little shopping and tequila tasting. It was a long day and we walked for miles before finding the bus connection to head back home to La Cruz. We both agreed La Cruz is the place to be and the boat looked great when we got back! How easy was that?

Tomorrow, Wednesday, So Inclined will be joining us here in La Cruz. Bill and Cindy Rousch, Oceanside friends have joined Mike for a week and they have not been to La Cruz yet, so what better day than for Tacos on the Street!
All in all it's been a good few days with the day time temperatures holding at about 75°, clear and sunny. Speaking of that, we need to get moving south. The weather reports are that it is about 10° warmer overall down in Zihuatanejo, our ultimate destination. The plan is to leave early on the morning of the 30th with So Inclined. We will head southwest to Cabo Corrientes, which is about 27 nm across the large expanse of Bahia Banderas and by passing Yelapa until the return trip north in Spring, then down the coast south and east towards Chamela. Chamela is about 100 nm from La Cruz and we may break it up with an overnight stop at Ipala for the first day's leg which will be about 50 nm. We are leaving what they call Mexico's Coasta del Oro, Gold Coast, and heading down their Coastalegre, Happy Coast. I've also heard of that area as being referred to as the Gold Coast as well but happy or gold that's the way we are going, but that's not for another day yet. Hang on Mike and Julie, we're coming!