Enjoying Mexico in Banderas Bay
04 December 2017 | La Cruz de Huanacaxtle
Pat
I've been told by my mother that my blog has once again been neglected.
November was a busy month. After moving all our stuff to a storage facility in Arizona we finally drove to Mexico on Thursday November 2. We stayed the night in Guaymas, near San Carlos in Sonora Mexico. On Friday November 3 I dropped Melodie off at the TAP Bus station and then I drove to the storage yard we've used the past two years in San Carlos (a 20 minute ride). I got a ride back to TAP and we caught the 1430 bus to Nuevo Vallarta.
Why take the bus? Well we took 150 pounds of boat parts, including three gallons of paint for the bottom. That and our new flares made flying impossible. TAP is an ok bus line, but it isn't as nice as Tufesa. It was about 20 hours to get to Nuevo Vallarta. That included an unscheduled and unexplained one hour delay in Obregon, a couple hours south of Guaymas. Did I mention there was no extra charge for the two additional bags? (one was a box from COSTCO, the kind with the yellow lids).
We arrived to find Starshine had weathered the summer pretty well. We were glad to see the interior had no mold, but there was some growth on the exterior. It is very humid in Nuevo Vallarta and rains almost daily in the summer. Our boat caretaker did ok, but there were many details he overlooked. Our boat guy in San Carlos washed the fenders monthly. This guy didn't and now the fenders are kinda trashed. The dock lines had some green growth too. Not something I'd expect from our guy the previous summers. Anyway, we spent the next few weeks getting Starshine back from being "summerized" and back into shape. We also enjoyed the cable TV they provide at Paradise Village Marina. We spent the summer kind of TV deprived as you might recall from other blog posts.
My sister Cheri and her family came to visit during the week of Thanksgiving. We had a very non-traditional holiday. We spent one day poolside. One day we took the water taxi to Yelapa and took a hike to a waterfall. Well we almost made it to the waterfall. A slight detour up the river/creek we were following took us off the designated trail. We did not actually see the waterfall, but we enjoyed the hike nonetheless. We made it back to the beach in time for tacos and beer before we took the water taxi back to Puerto Vallarta. We spent Thanksgiving Day visiting Sayulita, a hippy gringo surfer town north of here. We had vegetarian tacos for lunch and seafood for dinner. No turkey or stuffing, but we ate well anyway. This is our second time spending Thanksgiving at Sayulita. Remember it's just Thursday for the locals.
After the Robertson clan returned to California Melodie and I had Starshine hauled out at the shipyard in La Cruz. It was a planned event. We've hauled out every other November since we bought her in 2011. Everything went well and we were back in the water as scheduled at almost at the estimated price.
Today Starshine is in the La Cruz Marina. Melodie and I will be here for about two weeks until Melodie flies to Milwaukee for Christmas. We'll move to the anchorage while she's gone, as marinas in Mexico are more expensive than California (during the season Nov-May). It will be nice to enjoy the amenities here before going out to the anchorage. We'll also have the chance to see many friends who we've heard on the radio or seen in passing, but haven't had the chance to socialize with yet.
Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. Life is good here on Starshine.