Yesterday we entered the first stopping place on the northern end of Banderas Bay, called Punta de Mita. Although we are anchored here for a rest we have no reason to venture into the town and in fact from here there is nothing about the place that invites us in. The beach area is surrounded by American style condos or town houses with the timeshare look about them. To the north of these soulless structures is a huge Four Seasons hotel and even further to the north, near the point is a Jack Nicklaus designed golf course that has an additional hole out on a small sandy island that is accessible during low tide (nothing for us there either). The actual dusty little town of Punta de Mita cowers just two blocks behind this monstrous grandeur. Who know what they must think? The resort must offer the townspeople a much needed source of income, but for us there is little drawing us and we are heading off after a restful overnight anchored in the bay.

We were pretty tired yesterday when we arrived here. We had left Chacala at dawn for the 40 mile sail. The wind did come up around 1100 and we were able to sail for the rest of the trip. The problem was that we were subject to some vicious little wave patterns, born of the 40 mph northerlies that have been blowing up in the Sea of Cortez for the last ten days. The swells were big, choppy and short, making for some considerable discomfort. Luckily we were able to sail with no main and Big Panties (our drifter) flying ahead which afforded some stability. Our new friends Alan and Christine on "Mystical Crumpet" were out there with us. They motored the whole way in their Passport 40 and reported an equally uncomfortable rather sick making passage.

I arrived a little battered. I was sheeting in one of Big Panties new light lines and was just about to take a couple of turns around the winch when the wind gave a big tug on the sail. The line flew through my hand burning the inside of my left palm. On seeing the smoke I let go, but too late. I wrapped a wet cloth on it for an hour or so and then chose my moment to descend down into the pitching cabin to find antibiotic cream and a couple of band aids. We have been bare foot for the last six weeks on the boat as it has been so warm day and night and shoes feel intolerable. As I descended the stairs and put my foot on the cabin sole, the whole navigation tray chose that exact moment to fly off the desk. Everything landed in a heap except the dividers which found their mark in my third toe. Wheee! The air turned blue I can tell you.

The passage was not a total dud though. We saw about fifteen cavorting Humpback whales at various times albeit a long way off and then, we had the company a huge school of Pan Tropical Spotted dolphin. I have never seen so many dolphins all at once; there were legions and legions of them. Those horrid waves were an ecstatic endless roller coaster for them. They passed around under and almost over us for almost twenty minutes, wave after wave of them, on their way to somewhere.

Banderas Bay is enormous (twenty miles across) and there are several great looking places we want to stop and see around its generous span. Puerto Vallarta is one of our stops, but it is large and full of tourism, so we will just be provisioning there and moving on as soon as we are finished. Even the slightly detached cruising community is getting excited about the inauguration of Barak Obama and many are making plans to be somewhere with a TV to witness the event. We will be in La Cruz at a cruiser's hangout called "Philo's" we hope.