Raining in Barra
27 December 2013 | Barra de Navida
Ellen
Photo: The clouds as they were building up around 5pm.
Yesterday in the late afternoon as Ian and I sat and enjoyed our happy hour we watched the clouds as they built up into towers, wondering if we were going to get a storm. There was some cloud to cloud lightning strikes going on but nothing coming to the ground. It was pretty spectacular to watch the clouds forming and changing shapes as they grew. Eventually it got too dark and we retreated down below for the evening.
Around 3am we woke up to rain and lightning and some wind. The rain continued all night and is still coming down this morning. Woop-ti-du I'm sure some of you are thinking as you sit in the rain day after day up in the Pacific Northwest, but for us it's an event because it happens infrequently here in the winter.
Other wise we had a good Christmas although I spent the 24th in bed with the flu but managed to revive to go out to a cruiser's Christmas Potluck dinner. It was a really fun afternoon with about 80 people in attendance. There were 3 turkeys, a ham and lots of stuffing and mashed potatoes and all the good stuff that goes with Christmas dinner. Afterwards we had a gift exchange. Everybody brought an inexpensive gift homemade, used or under 5 dollars. You drew a number and got to pick a gift when your number came up. Either pick a gift to open or you could steal a gift someone else had already opened that you wanted and then that person got to pick a new gift. Lots of fun but with 80 people it took a few hours to get through them all.
We stayed at the Grand Bay Marina for 6 nights as they were having a special at 70cents a foot over 5 days stay. We had Pat and Les with us for the first 3 days there and they left on the 23rd on the bus back to Puerto Vallarta to fly home for Christmas day. We made good use of the hotel pools and even went to a movie one night.
Now we are back anchored in the lagoon and will be here a few more days. We are hoping to head down to Santiago just outside of Manzanillo for New Years Eve as we hear they have good fireworks (we just have to be able to stay up late enough to see them!)