We hit our furthest point south last week at Barra de Navidad, and that was by taking a short bus ride from where we were anchored in Melaque with just a few other boats. Although Melaque was a bit rolly at times, it was for the most part quiet so we decided not to go through the very shallow channel and into the lagoon of Barra to join the other masses of boats that seem to drop the hook there and stay for weeks. The photo was taken at a local resturant in Barra where we found our homeport listed.

While in Melaque we happened on a parade celebrating 'carnival'. I'm not sure what all the celebration is about although we'd heard it had to do with young women trying to earn the most amount of money they could for what purpose no one was sure. I was hoping charity but who knows. Evidently it also has to do with getting all the wild and craziness out of people so they can behave during Lent. During the parade we saw very sedate princess type girls riding on cars like you would at a parade going through the streets of Bellingham but the main portion of the parade seemed to be about super load music, dancing on the floats, and drinking alcohol...the wild and crazy part definitely was coming out and because we are in Mexico where public safety has not reached the same level of 'oh no, we might be sued', that we have in the states, each float is evidently responsible for lifting the electric lines over the highest point of the float by using a three to four foot wooden stick. As one float was rounding the corner some of those low lines needed to be lifted before it could pass through making us cringe! Unfortunately we didn't have the camera with us.

The shore landings here have been a bit challenging to get through the surf. We thought we had timed things fairly well but Kevin and I were both on the same side of the dingy, me in front where it was deeper and Kevin telling me to jump. Now I'm pretty sure all of you have seen me, so just imagine me thigh deep in water trying to jump over inflated tubes which make up the side of the dinghy, which means that at this point, I'm trying to jump over something that is almost to my waist. I tried to quickly go to the other side where Kevin wasn't in my way but wading in water and quick don't really go hand in hand. We'd already taken on enough water to soak everything in the boat including us. Kevin was 'encouraging' me to jump, I was telling him I couldn't, and we were both laughing--sort of. I would have loved to have that one on video I'm sure.

We've begun heading back north and anchored in Tenacatita Bay for a few days where we ran into Ann and Dick on Full and By who were docked right next to us in Blaine for a few years. It was nice to catch up and compare notes, especially while floating in water chairs to cool down!