Happy Thanksgiving! Brian and I are very thankful for all our friends and family, fair winds and following seas thus far on our trip, Four Points sailing awesome, meeting some great friends along the way and good surf at Pita Mita! We have been hanging around Punta Mita for a couple of reasons, one we have been able to go to Debo's Caf� to access internet and there several really fun surf breaks! The surf report was calling for a south swell to come in over the next few days...so we decided to extend our visit at Punta Mita. Today was a very busy day for us. In the morning we met with a fellow sailor/surfer from s/v Midnight Blue (Tim) to review the charts for good anchorages and surf along Central American coast. Tim has sailed this area several times and has just made the passage from BVI to winter in Punta Mita. We appreciate the input and look forward to experiencing some of the spots he pointed out. We plan to pull anchor early Saturday morning and start our way down the Gold Coast of Mexican. We figure our next destination will be Bahia de Chamela, which is approximately 105 miles south of Punta Mita. Depending on how the winds are blowing and the time we are making, we may need to tuck into Punta Ipala for the night then head out the next morning. The cruising books mentioned once we pass Cabo Corrientes (south point of Bahia Banderas), the weather would change to more of a tropical climate. So far we have had hot, sunny days but at night the air temps drop slightly to be very comfortable sleeping weather (very similar to what we are accustom to in California). Sounds like this is going to change very soon!
Since Mexican's do not celebrate Thanksgiving and since we are not big on turkey anyway, Brian and I decided to head into town (Bucerias, approx 18 miles from Punta Mita) to the Mega store to provision for our next passage. Provisioning for the boat is always an interesting task and ends up being a day's work just getting everything, then getting it on the boat, then to find a place for it on the boat.
In order to get into town, Brain and I walk to the main road (there's only one so it's not hard to miss) and catch the bus along with the locals. There's no particular bus schedule, just stand by the road and wait for a bus to come by and they stop and pick you up...pretty easy! It usually costs 10 pesos/person each way (~80 cents in US) The best we can figure is the buses are own by individual bus drivers because each bus has it's own unique personal touch to them. We are usually the only "gringos" on the bus but this does not seem to be a problem and everyone is polite to us, even when try to communicate with our broken Spanish. The bus ride is an adventure in itself. As I mentioned before, there is only one main road into town, single lane in each direction. The road winds around the countryside and goes around Banderas Bay. Definitely some prime real estate with ocean views, however, there are still areas overgrown but overall the area has not been developed fully at this time. I am sure it will not be long before this happens because we saw some new resorts under construction.
We were able to get everything we needed at the Mega store. This is a Mexican super store very similar to Wal-Mart in that it carries just about everything from produce to whatever! I think the prices where even better than Wal-Mart!
We were able to get everything in our backpacks and catch the next bus back to Punta Mita. With this task behind us, it will give us all day to surf on Friday, just in time to catch the swell that is heading this way!