We have decided to move the blog to a new place: http://ip380charm.blogspot.com/

We will leave this one as is, but won't be posting new stuff here.

There is a weekly quiet little event nearby the marina. It's called happy hour at the Palapa which is a small restaurant a short walk from Charm across a bridge onto a small isle called the Isla. Anyway, they offer 10 peso beers, a little karaoke inside and some horseshoes outside.

Since I was on the defending champ team at horseshoes, we walked over on Friday to partake. Well, not many there to start with so Marcy stepped up to be part of the competition. However, she finagled the teams so that my partner was Don from the boat Force Nothing. Now Don is a very nice fellow and had just had his 76th birthday on Thanksgiving Day. He sat at our table so I got to know him a little. Don happens to be virtually blind. He can see a little out of the periphery of his vision, but cannot see anything right in front of him, including the horseshoe peg!! So Marcy and her partner Chuck of the boat Saber Vivir managed to squeek out an 11-9 victory.

Before the evening was over I found a new partner, Tom from Blaine WA and we won a few games, so it will be back to defend the week after next. Next week is Copper Canyon. We leave (Marcy, Linda and I) Monday morning by taking a bus from here to Los Mochis, then transferring to another bus to El Fuerte where we will stay at a hotel. Then it's onto a train for the trip up to the canyons. I'll take lots of pictures so I can create an album here.

We will be home for Christmas and then back here for New Years, so just signed up for the NY celebration at Chili's Pepper over on the beachfront in Gold Zone.

We spent part of the morning up at the cruisers' lounge helping clean up and set up for the Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow. Lots of volunteers so it didn't take long. Thanks to Mike on Ahee Kalee for organizing the event as he and Rene did last year.

Marcy, Linda (of Andanzas) and I have set up a train trip to the Copper Canyon starting on the 30th. It's a 5 day trip and is very popular with the cruisers who have done it. Supposed to be some awesome scenery in the canyons up in the Sierra Madre mountains. BTW, have you ever seen the classic Bogart movie "Treasure of the Sierra Madre"? It takes place down here in Mexico. We need to buy some bus tickets up to Los Mochis where the tour begins. That's about a 6 hour ride so we will take a luxury bus like Tufesa or Premera Plus or TAP.

Then after we return from the Canyon, we will be looking forward to our trip home for the Christmas holidays with family. It's nice to keep up with everyone on Facebook, but nothing like being there in person. Wasswa and Kato's first Christmas!

Just before leaving Mazatlan, we will check into a bungalow for a couple days. Rick Cumming's crew (Cape Starr) will start stripping the exterior teak and preparing it for 10 coats of high gloss varnish. By the time we return to the boat just before New Years, it should have 2 or 3 of the coats on and looking good. I have added a picture here of the "before". I'm afraid I let the bright work get away from me this time. We have never done varnish before. Charm only got Cetol, which is okay, but it doesn't have that beautiful glassy deep look that varnish has. From now on, each year, it will get 2 new coats as the tropical sun burns off that much annually.

So lots to look forward to although we are certainly enjoying life here in Mazatlan daily. We took a tour of the Pacifico Cervezeria (brewery) yesterday. At the end of the tour we went to the tasting room at the top about 8 floors up. Along with a couple bottles of Mexico's finest brew, we got a treat of getting the best view of Mazatlan you can get from land. The room at the top had glass all around so you could see in every direction. And I thought the top of the Fremont Hotel was good!! And last evening we got an invite over to dock 4's Tuesday night pizza party. Thank you Wally and Linda. Nice to sit around on the dock and get to know each other over pizza and bebidas.

Today we're off to Bruja beach for some boogie boarding, laying in the sun and reading some of my favorite author, Greg Iles