Blue Snail Travel

Vessel Name: BLUE SNAIL
Vessel Make/Model: Corbin 39 CC
Hailing Port: Vancouver
Crew: Frank & Linda
About:
Frank is from Vancouver, B.C. and Linda is from Washington. They left their home in Maryland in late 2010, to start cruising. They traveled South through the ICW to Florida and on to Mexico before transiting the Panama Canal. [...]
Extra: Frank and Linda enjoy traveling with their shipmate Moshe, a domestic short hair cat.
04 May 2016
20 April 2016
21 October 2015
22 June 2015
04 November 2014
04 September 2014 | San Carlos
20 June 2014
06 May 2014
17 March 2014
27 December 2013
05 November 2013
01 October 2013
13 September 2013
16 August 2013
10 July 2013 | 27 56.5
Recent Blog Posts
04 May 2016

Blue snail 2 location

Hello everyone,

21 October 2015

Blue snail II October 2015

It is a out time for a new blog post! I am blaming the delay on the computer. The truth!

22 June 2015

Los Alamos

June 2015

02 April 2015

San Carlos Blue Snail Two

April 2015

04 November 2014

San Carlos Nov 2014

Blue Snail is still in San Carlos. In September, we were fortunate to have the boat here as the remnants of Hurricane Odile passed by, about 75 miles away. This was the storm that was devastating to Cabo San Lucas and La Paz on the Baja side of Mexico. Winds here in San Carlos were about 35-45 for [...]

Sa Miguel De Allende, Guanajuato, Mazatlan

06 April 2014
We traveled to San Miguel de Allende on 3/18. Turned out to be well over 400 miles inland from Puerto Vallarta. We took the first class bus from PV . Very nice transportation with one bus change in Guadalajara. About an hour out of PV our bus driver rear-ended a car just north of the nice little town of Sayulita. No big deal, but it delayed us a good ½ hour and we only had 50 minutes between buses in Guadalajara. We did make a little mistake later that worked in our favor. When the bus arrived in Guadalajara, we rushed off to make our connection only to be told we had exited at the wrong terminal! Who knew there were two?? We rushed to a taxi and were lucky to get a young guy who was a competent and fast driver. He got us to the correct terminal which was quite far across town with just barely 5 minutes to spare. Our original bus would have cost us 24 hours as it had not arrived yet.
As usual we enjoyed the all day bus ride through the mountains and valleys. The 10 hour ride brought us to San Miguel de Allende at 9 pm and we were quite tired. A nice couple recommended a good hotel and we arrived shortly after at La Mansion del Bosque very close to the downtown area. What a fabulous place! Flowers and plants everywhere and rooms tucked all over in the two and three stories. Original art was everywhere and the rooms furnished with an eclectic collection of everything. Quaint and utterly charming is the only way to describe it. Stayed for 2 nights. Explored most of Allende by walking the very steep cobblestone streets and walking to top of the hills to oversee the town. Saw beautiful squares and parks and visited the botanical gardens just outside of town. Very nice assortment of desert plants and one with a 4’ live snake that I think was an uninvited part of the display. We enjoyed this town very much and it reminded us of Antigua in Guatemala although a bit larger at about 85,000 population.
After two days, we took the local bus for the 50 mile trip to Guanajuato, the nearby old silver mining town. This town is not only for tourists but is much more a Mexican working town and much larger than San Miguel de Allende. Population now is about 100,000. There are many, many big churches and gorgeous plazas and of course, again, quite steep hills to climb. Everywhere we went there were more steps to climb! Old silver mine tunnels run under the city and are used as highways and a good thing as traffic everywhere in the city is very heavy. We found a nice hotel not far from the center of town and close to everything. The Savacon was clean and friendly, relatively inexpensive and served a great breakfast.
Friday morning, our last day, we walked and taxied all over town. Our first stop was at the Valenziano Silver Mine where we took the walking tour that brought us 76 meters down, on all uneven stone steps and with only a rope rail here and there. Found it quite interesting. From there we took a bus to the bottom of the hill and then walked back up to the Museo de Momies (Mummy Museum). We viewed almost 100 of these poor souls who were buried in the late 1800’s during a cholera epidemic and discovered many years later mummified in the dry sand of the region. Very sad to see and hard to get the images out of mind. Very interesting and worth the trip. After that, we took a tram car that runs up the mountain to the Monumento Pipila overlooking the city. Great view! Had a late lunch at one of the plazas and traveled to the bus terminal around 7 pm. Our bus was not scheduled until 11 that night, but we were too tired to take another step so were glad to just sit. Our first class and brand new bus was nice and a direct run to Puerto Vallarta so no chance of connection excitement. We arrived back at Blue Snail at 9 am on Saturday and were surprised to see that Moshe (acted like) she missed us! We’ll never know. If anyone is wondering….she did have a caregiver while were gone.

After getting organized after the trip inland, we departed La Cruz on Sunday 3/30 and motor-sailed to Chacala, where we spent one night. Really pretty spot off of the little town but just a little rolly. Next morning we traveled to Mantenchen Bay just south of San Blas. Again we stayed for one night. This very large, pretty and shallow bay is most of the time calm with very little wave action. Good thing too. During this trip from La Cruz, our head clogged and Frank discovered that we were overdue for a cleaning of the salt from the hoses. This ugly but necessary procedure must happen about every 2 years or so no matter what we do to prevent it. So, Frank got everything squared away while we were in the calm waters of Mantenchen Bay. Enough said and poor Frank!
Our intention was to leave Manenchen and pass Mazatlan without stopping and go directly to La Paz on the Baja side. The winds did not cooperate and turned on our nose and made our easy trip look like it might take much longer, so we diverted and stopped and anchored in the Mazatlan commercial harbor. Turned out to be a pretty good location as Old Mazatlan and the famous Mercado and cathedrals are only walking distance away. The commercial traffic is interesting to watch and we have enjoyed this stay. Looks like we will have a weather window to depart early on Tuesday the 8th of April…..so we should be in La Paz within a short time.
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