I heard the tinkling of a bell in the morning. I stepped out and with a hearty "Bonjour!" called to El Horno Francés. The French Baker was making his morning rounds of the marina in his panga. This day I bought two Croissant aux'Amandes and a couple of quiches to be enjoyed on our upcoming cruise.

This was my third visit to Barra de Navidad. I knew what to expect. It was hotter this time. And I had an agenda. I did not want to stay too long and delay my progress towards Central America.

Before I left La Cruz, I had gone on line and joined a rally group called the Panama Posse. I now had 152 new best friends, as I was the 153rd boat to join. The group provides a wealth of information about cruising between México and Panamá. Joining meant I suddenly had a whole lot of emails about how to get information and how to communicate with the group. I left Banderas Bay before I could even scratch the surface of all this newfound wealth.

We celebrated Eva's birthday with a dinner at Marlena's, a German restaurant, topped off with some German chocolate cake. I also wanted to post episodes for this blog. For this I needed decent WiFi. Although I was in a marina at an expensive hotel resort, the WiFi was horrible.

Each afternoon, Eva and I would ride a "taxi aquatico" from the hotel across the channel to the town of Barra. We found a restaurant, Ramon's, which would let us sit for a very long lunch. She worked on reservations for her hostel and I tried to educate myself about cruising southward. We also spent part of the afternoon reading by one of the many pools at the resort.

One of my favorite places to dine in Barra is a little taquieria on the street (pictured). Meats are cooked on a grill made from a wheel off a car. A woman hand makes fresh tortillas and grills vegetables. Three tacos with a beer is around three American dollars. The food is delicious.

The resort was hosting a fishing tournament while we were there. It was fun to see the boats bring in large Dorado or Marlins to be weighed. A large crowd formed on the pier at around 5 pm to watch the boats unload their fish. At one of these afternoon parties, I tracked down Dietmar, who is the organizer of the Panama Posse.

As I write this, the 152 members of my new tribe are strewn along the coast from Bahia Banderas all the way to Panama and into the Caribbean. I have no expectation of meeting very many of them, but I have met a few. I already knew Laurin on s/v Second Wind, now in Nicaragua. On the water taxi into town, I met Bob and Margie from s/v Blessed Life. And then, readying to leave Barra, I ran into Randy from s/v Simplify. He and I, with others, had hung out together two years ago in La Paz. He too was headed south. Eva connected readily with Marina on Simplify because they had both been up the same remote river in the Amazon.