Everything centres around the watermaker at this point. It's new, it's exciting and it works! It also (as I have mentioned in previous posts) takes some of the frustration of having to motor in light airs. Arriving in a new anchorage with full water tanks having already taken showers on the way in has a way of cheering the soul.
Our sail/motor from Chacala was uneventful until we decided that the anchorage we had planned for just south of Punta Mita was actually too roly and we should continue on to La Cruz de H'unpronounceable. Actually it was still uneventful, just a bit longer.
La Cruz had been given a bad rap by a number of cruisers we heard discussing it on the VHF radio, but we found it to be really fun. There was a relatively comfortable beach to land on (with little to no surf) and the town itself was very interesting with a number of different restaurants - German, French, Italian and "American". The French and American restaurants offered free internet access and even live music depending on the day of the week.


Music man

Mexican fare was naturally available and there was an excellent taco joint. The French restaurant, Le Reve also had a Huichol art gallery attached to it. The Huichol indians produce an art form of incredible designs and colours using thread and beads embedded in wax. These are done mainly by Shamans high on a plant extract. Their work is beautiful and very fine indeed.


Beauty, and...

The Beast

So as you can see La Cruz became a favorite with us...But the dust! And sometimes the smell! I have to say that my most enduring memory of Mexico will be the smell of raw and treated sewage. Almost every populated place we have been provides us at one point or another with the not-so-delicate aroma of "eau-de-cesspit".
La Cruz also makes an excellent spot from which to access the larger supermarkets and stores of Puerto Vallarta without having to go to that awful RB'ers (Recreational Boaters) hangout. The other notorious RB'ers haunt is in Nuevo Vallarta - Paradise Village (Better know amongst actual sailors as Parasite Village!).
So let's give a moment's thought to the tragic rise of the "RB'er" (The Recreational Boater as opposed to the sailor):
This is an interesting phenomenon that has been created by the advent of GPS, Chart Plotters, cruising guides with way-points, marinas and the Ba-ha-ha. They are people who in earlier times were confined to criss-crossing the continent in RVs, because real navigation using charts, compass bearings, fixes and tide tables was way beyond their spirit of adventure...let alone comprehension. When I came this way some 20 years back, "Buddy-boating" and "Weather Windows" were unknown concepts and a "Cruiser's Net" on the radio would have been laughed at. We met people who were truly interested to experience new cultures and peoples with due respect for their customs and ways. Sailing was an adventure and a lifestyle, not a retirement package.
I'm not going to expand on this right now, but watch this space...if your interested.
So all in all La Cruz is a cool place and well worth a visit. Just don't be talked into taking your dinghy into the marina there as it will set you back $10 a day which does not include showers (another $10 each). If you happen to take your packet of garbage ashore at the same time, oops, that's another $10!
We were able to fill our propane tanks there as well - expensive, but easy as a local chap picks it up on the beach and brings it back the same day.
So after catching up on our e-mail and some of our blog, we fired up the iron spinnaker (and watermaker of course) and pointed Jabula back out to sea. Next stop: Punta Ipala.