Time flies when one is having fun in Banderas Bay

On Thursday, February 20th I went to the Port Captain's office to announce to the Mexican authorities that our vessel was to depart the harbor of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle the next day. I was shocked, upon looking at our "check in" document, that we had been in La Cruz and around Banderas Bay for exactly one month. It is by far the longest time we have stayed anywhere on this trip, and about as long as it took us to travel from San Francisco to Cabo San Lucas. We have been completely insensitive to the passage of time; days and dates melted together, and we could tell that another week had passed only by the 1 pm alarm beep every Saturday, a reminder to wind the boat clock. It even became an effort to be conscious of the fact that it was still "winter." The next few blog entries show how many things we've done around Banderas Bay.

On inauguration day we sailed the 43 miles further south from Chacala to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. We thus missed the spectacle of the media coverage, but we spent a beautiful day on the water, and as we approached Banderas Bay we saw a spectacle of a different kind: a whale flaunting its breaching talent. The whale must have been showing off its best tricks to a boat full of eager tourists in its wake, and we happened to crash in on the show. We had never seen anything like that.

We headed inside the bay. We knew La Cruz was very popular with cruisers, but even so, the sight of 35 sailboats anchored just outside of the breakwater of the newly built marina was a surprise. We joined the pack, and feeling like we had entered a crowded campground, dropped the hook as well. We spotted a few boats that we had met before and, for the most part, were excited to reconnect with their people. There was also Volo, a fast, red-hulled boat from New Zealand, who passed under the Golden Gate Bridge within minutes of us, and whom we saw at every port along the California coast.

At night the water here has so much phosphorescence that we can watch fish zipping around the boat like little comets. It makes us feel as if we were on a space ship, and it is particularly magical when we dive off the deck and swim in it. The water temperature is 84 F, pleasant during all hours.