The shortest leg of our journey so far was the 9 miles we travelled from Marina Mazatlan to an anchorage off of Stone Island which is just the other side of the breakwater of Old Mazatlan Harbor. The wind was blowing just enough for a nice leisurely sail. This passage took us along the islands that are off of the city, as well as El Faro, the light house we climbed to the other day. From the seaside it looked even higher! We joined two other boats in the anchorage and had time to explore a bit. Kevin bought dinghy wheels while we were home at Christmas so this was our first opportunity to use them. Pulling the dingy up the beach is so much easier now, especially for Kevin who always winds up pulling more than his fair share of the weight. They will come in handy on those long shallow beaches that we hear are in our near future. As soon as we beached the dinghy, a black lab greeted us and decided he was going to follow us for our afternoon walk.

The following day we went back into shore and hiked up Isla Chivos (Goat Island). Goat Island is connected through a man made breakwater to Isla de Piedra (Stone Island). Goat Island consists of Benji’s restaurant and a few other eating huts that were nameless. It looked like at the peak of tourism there may have been rooms, kayaks, and water toys (whatever those are) for rent. At Benji’s we were told the black lab likes gringo’s and is called Marly. The owner of the restaurant told us he’d watch our dingy for us so off we went, Kevin, Marly and me. We hiked to the top of Goat Island with Marly having some fun chasing the poor goats. He also followed us onto Stone Island, walked along the beach with us, and anywhere we were going until he saw someone who knew him and was willing to pet him.

Although Stone Island helps form Mazatlan Harbor it has an entirely different feeling to it. With just a few small hotels, it is very laid back. The locals ride around on ATV’s for transportation and tractors pull wagons of tourists out to the various plantations. It feels like it may have been what Mazatlan was like before it was ‘discovered’. The vendors don’t overtly try to get you to purchase their wares and seem to take ‘no gracias’ for what it means. We bought some freshly roasted peanuts from a vendor using a transmission to help turn the roaster. I’m not sure of the mechanics of it but I’m sure Kevin can tell anyone interested.

We had a wonderful lunch at Benji’s of coconut shrimp, large enough for both Kevin and me to share for all of $100 pesos or about $7.50 US. We met a couple while sitting at lunch who rent a house in an expat community in Guadalajara. They said they have never felt unsafe on any of their travels in Mexico and are thoroughly enjoying their retirement here. Nice to hear.

This was a pleasont way to begin the next phase of our trip especially knowing the following leg would be another overnighter!