Thursday, April 7 Still in Nuevo Vallarta - we needed to connect with Kay and Steve Van Slyke, who are the Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) station hosts in Puerto Vallarta. We had ordered some charts in San Diego and had them mailed to PV c/o Kay and Steve. They also have a library of charts and we intended to copy of few of theirs –some of the first services we’ve taken advantage of as members of SSCA. They live in a condo overlooking the Marina Puerto Vallarta. We took the bus into town but ended up doing a lot of walking and it was a hot day. We picked up our charts and some from their library, walked to and back from a copy shop. We gave them a copy of one of our charts that they did not have in their library and bottle of wine, Gallo of course given our nephew works there. We walked and bused to a chandlery and Wal-Mart for provisioning and some more summer clothes. I think we have seen and/or used a Wal-Mart and Home Depot in every major city we have visited. Office Depot and Dominoes also seem to be everywhere. It was 2130 when we got back to the boat so we decided to eat out at a restaurant near the harbor. We went to Eddie’s Place (had to try it in honor of our brother-in-law). They had live music and it was quite enjoyable sitting out under the stars.

The boat next to us, I’O with Robert and Bobby, included two large German Shepherds. They were very sweet and friendly and of course seeing that they had brought them all the way to PV with minimal problems, we immediately wondered if it would have worked out to bring Coco and Kiwi. Unfortunately we later learned that one of them had contracted cancer some time ago and had stopped eating the day we arrived. They had to put it to sleep the next day which put quite a grey cloud over us all.

Friday, April 8 in the morning, Dennis rode along with Robert and John of Molly J (another neighbor in the marina) on a mission to repair Molly J’s heat exchanger. In addition, they planned to drop by a chandlery and Home Depot which gave Dennis a chance to look for fittings that would allow him to hook our BBQ up to or main propane tanks instead of using the small Coleman camping canisters. No luck on any of it that morning but Robert and John made another go at it after lunch while we decided to do our sight-seeing and provisioning. We took a bus back into PV and from the window on the bus, saw Robert and John at the next repair shop they tried. Arriving in PV, we realized we forgot our camera again –too focused on the tasks and not the fun! And we saw some wonderful things that we would have liked to share via photos: two cathedrals; a vast municipal plaza Mercado spanning the river that flows through the middle of town; intricate sand sculptures in progress; a man balancing stones into tall tower-like sculptures; the malecon with its many restaurants, bronze sculptures, and nightclubs; the naval history museum; cobblestone streets; and another plaza full of at least a hundred exercise enthusiasts doing aerobics in the hot afternoon sun. Although we muffed the photo ops, it was a very successful day. We found the propane fittings Dennis needed for the BBQ, a post office, and later learned that John had his heat exchanger fixed. We did some more provisioning at Costco and Wal-Mart. When we provisioned in La Paz with our bikes and trailer cart we could do it all in one big trip, but using the bus it takes several trips. We didn’t get back to the boat until 2200 that night. We had ridden 5 buses and carried many pounds of provisions. We went to an Italian restaurant in the marina plaza and ordered pizza, we were just grateful the kitchen was still open. We hadn’t had any pizza in months and it tasted pretty good. It was our first non-Mexican food ordered at a restaurant.

Saturday, April 9. In the morning we kayaked the estuary. We saw lots of birds and iguanas sunning themselves high in the tops of the mangrove trees. We saw warning signs about crocodiles, but we didn’t see any. For an afternoon of sight-seeing in La Cruz Huanacaxtle (mostly called just La Cruz), after lunch we took a bus out of Nuevo Vallarta to the main highway where we got off and ran across the 4-lane freeway (following all others doing the same) to catch a bus heading in the opposite direction of PV –we had become the figures in those caution signs of crossing pedestrians on the 405 freeway in Camp Pendleton! We had anchored in La Cruz on our first night in Banderas Bay, but we didn’t go ashore to visit the town. It was a long, hot ride, but quite interesting. A couple of times the driver stopped while someone came aboard and sold items to the passengers: chips sprinkled with hot sauce, incense, cold drinks, candy. It was 90+ degrees with no breeze and so we tried to keep to shady paths where possible. We walked the small town and it has a very cute and well-shaded central park where fishermen were ending their day repairing their nets. We walked through the new Marina Riviera Nayarit with its malecon and amphitheater and witnessed the end of what looked like an ocean swim competition. La Cruz also has cobblestone streets and it makes you wonder how long shock-absorbers on cars here last. We had expected to spend quite a few hours in La Cruz but we found ourselves finished with sight-seeing quite early and facing a hot afternoon bus ride back to the boat. So we decided on an early dinner that we would somehow stretch into the evening. We checked out ‘Philos’ which we’d read is a big cruiser hang-out and the ‘Tacos in the Street’ restaurant which was highly recommended by some cruiser friends. But both of these spots were fully enclosed and we sought an open-air place in hopes of an occasional breeze which we desperately needed. We found a restaurant (think it was called Glorietta’s) on a corner of the intersection that has an island in the middle with a large cross made of Huanacaxtle wood, the tree of interest in the town (see full name of town above). It was a good choice, it was shaded, cool, and breezy -we had a great time there. The staff was very pleasant and kept telling us “think of this as your home”. When we learned they did not take credit cards, they heard us talking about finding an ATM and they offered to drive Dennis to one while our food was being prepared. The meal was wonderful, a shrimp salad served in an avocado. We had to take a picture of it. It was huge and really hit the spot on that hot day. A couple from Canada walked in and sat next to us. We struck up a conversation and ended up visiting with them for a couple hours while we sipped our cold beverages –no problem stretching that dinner out till evening. After vacationing here, they had decided to buy a condo for retirement and would be finalizing the sale on Monday. They had driven down from Vancouver and had many stories to tell about their trip. They brought only what would fit into their Jeep Cherokee and gave the rest to their children who are still in Vancouver. They thought we were off on a big adventure, but we felt they were on a grand adventure themselves, moving into an empty condo in a foreign country which they really didn’t know very well. We got back to the boat at 2000 and intended to invite our neighbors over for banana bread (bananas ripen so fast here!), but we were exhausted and needed to plan our passage for the next day. They are planning on heading south too (one of the few others we have met) so maybe we’ll cross paths again.

Sunday, April 10 we cleaned off the boat, packed away our shade structure (which we had used for the first time in Nuevo Vallarta – it covers the back deck and really worked out well), brought the dinghy aboard, and left the marina about 1300. We had 17 knot winds from the southwest so we sailed across the bay – the famous Banderas Bay! We then headed into the wind and motored in the lee of the point for some protection towards Yelapa. Small towns and resorts dotted the coast along the south end of the bay. As the guide book warns, Yelapa experiences swell, so when we arrived we hooked up to a mooring ball being offered by one of the local fishermen. Dennis tried several configurations of our flopper stoppers but the problem was more one of yawing (bow to stern rocking) than rolling (side to side rocking) and so he didn’t have much success. By 2330 we felt like we were in a washing machine – being bounced every which way, a leftover of that wonderful day of sailing. (Yes, Virginia had popped a double dose of her nausea pills and was feeling OK in that regard.) We had planned to leave early morning at 0300 to go around Cabo Corrientes. It is compared to Point Conception in California – where you need to find a time when the conditions are calm which is usually in the middle of the night/early morning. We decided to head out early as we figured it couldn’t be any worse out there and we weren’t going to get any sleep anyway.

Monday, April 11, it was definitely nicer ‘out there’ as we could choose the direction and speed we wanted to hit the swells. Making it comfortable took us off course and somewhat out to sea, but as you’ve read here before, we prefer to make it more comfortable even if it is a longer passage. The swells finally got to Virginia and nausea set in – but she didn’t lose her dinner. We sailed all night with each of us sleeping briefly. We had intended to stop at Ipala, but our early departure would put us in there while it was still dark, so we continued on to Chamela. As we arrived, there was one boat leaving and two boats anchored. The anchorage was very calm and protected. The departing boat returned shortly – they were headed north and into the conditions we just escaped. As we waited for our dinner to cook we could hear music from one of the beach palapas.

Tuesday, April 12 five dolphins were playing around our boat in the morning. Another boat had joined us so now there were five in the Chamela anchorage. We went ashore for lunch, stopping by Aquadesiac – out of San Francisco – to visit. Linda and Doug decided to come ashore with us. We had lunch at a palapa on the beach and then walked the main street (small dirt road) visiting the three small tiendas and picking up a few things we needed. Linda and Doug are headed north with the three other boats in the anchorage to put their boat up and go home to Napa for the summer. They spent the summer in the Sea of Cortez last year and said the heat was unbearable in the north where they needed to be for insurance purposes. Doug mentioned the business he had retired from and it sounded a lot like what our son Darren does. It turns out that sometime back, Doug had indeed worked at the San Jose branch of the same company (Veeco). Ultimately he retired from a competing company making “atomic measuring devices” that he was sure Darren would recognize (we can’t remember the name). He retired the same day as Dennis – March 31, 2009. Their friends Mel and Larry from Marina del Rey joined us for lunch. They were the boat we had seen leave the anchorage to return shortly thereafter. They were leaving to try and get a guest they had aboard to PV for a plane flight. But he was just as happy to take a bus from Chamela to PV, given the swell they were experiencing when they left the protection of the bay, so that is what they did. In the evening the four boats headed north together and we had the anchorage to ourselves. Four dolphins played around the boat that night. Two local boys came out in kayaks to chase them around the bay. Then the dolphins decided to play with our anchor chain and Virginia didn’t think they were so cute anymore.

Wednesday, April 13 we made a short run to Paraiso – an anchorage behind some outcroppings of rocks that looked like it would be a good kayaking area. There are two small coves, each with a very small hotel on the beach. When we arrived, another Amel was in one cove and we anchored in the other. We were the only two boats there that night. We had lunch and read and napped all afternoon hoping the wind would calm a bit for an early-evening kayak adventure.

Thursday, April 14 we ended up kayaking early this morning and explored blow holes and sea caves. We paddled by the other Amel, but their dinghy was ashore and we guessed that they may have taken a room for the night as it had been a bit rolly and they looked more exposed than we had been to the swell. We considered it mild compared to Yelapa! We left later that morning and sailed all the way to Tenacatita – it was wonderful. There was a nice evening breeze in that anchorage, keeping away bugs and keeping us pleasantly cool. There were about ten boats there. Tenacatita is a 3 mi x 3 mi bay backed by jungle. There are several things we wanted to do there, one being a self-guided “jungle cruise” up the estuary, so we planned to spend at least two nights.

Friday, April 15 we took our jungle cruise in our dinghy. We got over the sand bar at the estuary entrance with minimal problems – very small surf. Dennis rowed a ways where it was shallowest, but then we slowly motored our way through the mangroves. We saw lots of beautiful birds and two small crocodiles but no iguanas in the mangroves like we’d seen in Mazatlan. The day was overcast (making it comfortably cool) so we figured that may be the reason we didn’t see any sunning iguanas. We took our bug spray but had no problem with bugs. At the end of the estuary (about 1 ½ hours trip) there is a lagoon with a narrow berm to the beach. A government official met us there and asked where we came from. He dutifully wrote “California” is his spiral notebook and then asked Dennis to put our names next to that. He radioed the information to someone and with a smile let us pass, asking that if we had a camera we could take pictures of the sea only, not back toward the land. There wasn’t a military installation there, so we figured the private residences on the beach likely made that request. We had hoped to have lunch at one of the beach-side palapa restaurants there mentioned in the guide book but with tourist season waning, they were all closed. We walked along the beach and then headed back knowing we hadn’t spent enough time for the tide to come in, which would have made our trip across the estuary delta easier. As expected, the tide was very low and this time the shoal was completely exposed at the entrance and we would have to haul our dinghy quite a ways, so we ate a late lunch at the palapa restaurant on the beach there to allow the tide to come in some. We ordered the “rollo de mar” which we were told was “the thing” to order in this area and it was indeed delicious. It’s a piece of fish wrapped around celery and shrimp, covered with an almond sauce. There was a campground next to the restaurant and we enjoyed watching the Mexican family there and listening to the beautiful music they had playing. There were two men in the group who fished the whole time; with lines, then with a net. We figured they must have been put in charge of dinner. There were foot-high waves breaking at the entrance of the estuary when we decided to leave so Dennis did his best to row over that shallow area but Virginia got a refreshing shower from one or two of the waves. A dinghy from a nearby powerboat had been cruising the area trying to find an opening to go ashore; they eventually decided not to go, but hung close by in case we needed assistance, or maybe they were just enjoying the free entertainment of our ‘shore launch”. It was a very fun day. The anchorage was very calm that night and we got a good night’s sleep. We played dominoes in the cockpit watching the sunset.

Saturday, April 16 we headed for Manzanillo. There were several anchorages within a day’s sail from Tenacatita that were recommended to us by other cruisers – too many choices. We saw sea turtles along the way, floating in the water. As we approached Manzanillo Bay, we saw blue whales – a mother and her calf – just behind the boat. They surfaced within view twice, gliding along so gracefully. We could see the large resorts along the oceanfront in both Santiago and Manzanillo bays. Only four boats were in the anchorage – we made five. We listened to music from the Las Hadas Resort all night long, and well into the wee hours of the morning (the Las Hadas Resort is in the northern section of the bay, several miles from Manzanillo which is a commercial marina prohibiting cruise boats and the anchorage is not protected. Las Hadas Resort is the location where the movie ‘10’ with Bo Derek was filmed). The music was so loud; we first thought it was live when they were playing Spanish tunes, but then when the song “YMCA” came on, followed by a number of other popular American hits from past years we realized it must be a DJ.

Sunday, April 17 we rode the buses into Manzanillo Centro (yes, it’s always ‘buses’. The bus system is great in that there is a bus for where you want to go about every ten minutes BUT you have to learn all the connections). The bus stop at Las Hadas is up a steep hill at the top of the resort, so we got some exercise. The road from the resort to the main highway is cobblestone, narrow, and hugs the side of the cliff. The speed at which the bus driver drives it was a bit harrowing and we survived the trip out and back twice. In Manzanillo, we walked along the malecon and saw the various sculptures, including the HUGE swordfish. We went to the outdoor Mercado and bought some produce. We walked the cobblestone streets and kept hearing the church bells, but never found the church. We wandered through a bazaar along the waterfront. We saw the commercial harbor with numerous large freighters unloading and loading. When we got back to the boat, we barbequed the yellowtail we had in the freezer and ate it in the cockpit with a cool breeze keeping us comfortable as the moon rose over Manzanillo. A different resort had music playing that night, much softer as they were a bit further away. Las Hadas was quiet that night. So we got to sleep before 0200.

Monday, April 18 was another one of our errand days where we took the bus to an Auto Zone in Manzanillo to get some oil filters (no luck, out of our particular size), then over to Santiago (the neighboring bay) to a Chandlery/Hardware store that our harbormaster recommended for some particular plumbing parts we wanted (they didn’t have them but they thought they knew who would but they were back in Manzanillo – the far side of town). Another bus ride in the opposite direction to that hardware store that also did not have the plumbing parts but did happen to have our oil filter size so the trip was worth it. Along the way we saw more of the area, including an outdoor church in Santiago. It had a roof, but no walls – quite practical for this weather actually. This day we paid $100 pesos (about $10.00 US) to use the marina and resort facilities which included showers, trash cans, the pool (including resort towels!) and the dinghy dock while we were out running errands. After we got back from our bus trips we had a refreshing swim in the beautiful pool, then ate dinner at one of the restaurants on the waterfront that had wifi. We enjoyed another “extended” dinner while we both logged onto the Internet to check email and our financial condition and download some tide tables for our next marina stop. Eventually our laptop batteries ran low and the mosquitoes came out and so we headed for the shelter of the boat where we haven’t yet been bothered by bugs. We needed to get back to start our passage preparation anyway – checking on weather via grib files and such. One of the other boats in the anchorage was Lykke. We met the captain John Christopherson (spelling?) and had a nice visit with him ashore. He had been in that anchorage since November. He is part owner of a little bar in Manzanillo and lives on his boat. He takes the boat north during certain times of the year while his partner manages the business. We noticed that he seemed to be watching out for a smaller sailboat in the anchorage and asked him about it. He said that it actually is a boat that had been donated to a Sea Scout squadron down here. It needed some engine work and he volunteered to tackle that. He had been very involved with USPS when he lived in the states. He gave us a contact of a friend who lives in Huatalco (our last stop in Mexico).

Tuesday, April 19 we left at 0800 to allow for a potential 30-35 hour overnight trip to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo. If the weather and sea conditions were calm, we planned to stop at a few intermediate anchorages and avoid the long passage. But the cruising guide warned that they were only fair weather anchorages so we wanted to be prepared. We saw several sea turtles this day, one with a sea bird hitching a ride atop its back. We had mild conditions and a minor northwest swell most of the day so we first checked the south side of Punta Cabreza Negra (about 50 miles south of Manzanillo) for anchoring. A south swell with the north swell rapping around the point there made for a very confused sea, so we decided to check out the north side of the point. Finding it much calmer, we anchored on the north side of with no other boats there. There was some swell and a current that kept us broadside to it, so as the sun was going down Dennis spent some time setting a stern anchor to point us into the swell. Somewhat successful, we settled into a gentle seesaw motion for the night. The beach was lined with expensive private homes.

Wednesday, April 20 we left at 0800 and motor-sailed all day. We saw sea turtles, whales, and several freighters that day. We anchored at Caleta de Campos, another 70 miles southeast. There were huge waves breaking on the beach - quite dramatic. There were several palapa restaurants on the beach but we weren’t tempted to take the dinghy ashore not only because of the breakers, but also because the beach was packed. Knowing that Easter was the upcoming Sunday we figured it must be Spring Break in Mexico….a fact that was confirmed later. Again we listened to loud DJ-conducted music late into the night, coincidentally including a version of “Time of My Life”, the theme of the movie Dirty Dancing which we had watched that evening.

Thursday, April 21 we pulled up the anchor at 0730 as we were expecting about an 11 hour trip to Ixtapa Marina which has a shoal at the entrance that deep draft vessels should only traverse at high tide –which explains the tide tables we downloaded in Manzanillo. We checked the tides and knew we wanted to go across around 1800-2000. We passed the commercial port at Lazaro Cardenas about noon and thus saw quite a few freighters either underway or anchored near the harbor. We had to keep careful watch as we crossed the shipping lane which was unusual for us as we could go a whole day now without seeing another cruiser heading north or south. We arrived at Ixtapa at 1830 and made it across the bar into a slip in the marina. As we walked our documentation over to the Harbormaster’s office for check-in, we saw a six-foot crocodile swimming in the marina waters between the boats. We had been warned that the marina was built in an estuary which crocodiles called home. Signs warn you to keep your dogs on the boat (they’ve been dragged right off the dock) and keep small children in hand, away from the edge of the dock! It’s quite warm and humid here, so things really slow down and activities (other than swimming) are reserved for the early morning and late evening. We will be staying here at least 4 days as tomorrow is Good Friday and most commercial places will be closed, so any errands other than provisioning will need to wait until Monday.

From here we plan to go to Acapulco. It will be about a 120 mile trip, so an overnighter for sure. But there doesn’t appear to be any reasonable anchorages along the way, even in light conditions. We haven’t done an overnighter in awhile and we will have had 4 or so days here to rest, so we should be up for that.