Allan and Rina's Sailing Adventures Continue...

When we left La Cruz in Banderas Bay on November 4th for the Sea of Cortez we were looking for cooler weather. Our last two nights in the La Cruz anchorage were hot and sweaty so we looked forward to cooling sea breezes as we sailed North. Conditions were...

After hauling out and getting fresh bottom paint at the La Cruz Shipyard, we relocated full time from Paradise Village Marina to Marina La Cruz to be closer to some of our favorite restaurants and live music hangouts. As October progresses, more and more...

Nuff Said....

For the nautically challenged, a cleat hitch is a simple but effective knot for securing a line to a cleat. No amount of additional turns around a cleat will improve the holding power of this simple but effective knot.

Peter Vargas and his team at SeaTek Yacht Services in the La Cruz Boat Yard did a fantastic job refreshing our aging bottom paint, sanding down to the gelcoat, laying down 2 coats of primer and 2.5 coats of black Amercoat ABC3 ablative bottom paint. His team...

As luck would have it, we were scheduled for a haul-out to repaint sv Follow You’s bottom the day before Hurricane Lorena was supposed to hit us. Generally speaking, a hauled-out boat in the yard is safer than being in the water during a hurricane but it...

During the entire time we were in the States, Rina and I obsessively checked the weather, looking for signs of hurricanes forming and heading up the coast. Climate Change not-withstanding, the hurricane patterns in the eastern Pacific are pretty consistent....

Lewis and Alyssa celebrating the now refreshed topsides on sv Quixotic

We splashed the boat on schedule and headed to Port Denerau to celebrate getting out of the hot and dirty yard....

In early July while enjoying daily workouts and yoga at the Paradise Village Resort Spa (3 bucks a day for the Gym and 90 minute Yoga class!) we received a call from Lewis and Alyssa in Fiji, who proceeded to outline how they had just

Megan first visited Costa Rica in 2003 while in high school, delivering wheelchairs to disadvantaged kids and fell in love with the country. Fast forward 16 years and now she's in love with Anthony Corrao. What a beautiful setting for a wedding. 40 people...

After a little over a month in Zihuatanejo we are ready to head northwest up to Banderas Bay. When we arrived in Ztown there were 30+ sailboats in the anchorage and now we are down to about 4 as the great migration started.

Winds will be mild...

When Rina and I cruised 10 years ago one of our best boat buddies was Dietmar and Suzanne on Carinthia. Even our meeting was epic.... new to cruising and having just arrived at the Kona Kai marina in San Diego with our Baja Haha crew of brother Philip, his...

Like most small towns in Mexico, the local square is the center of community life. In Zihua’s case, they also have a basketball court, with lights and stands integrated into the square. On most nights once the heat has subsided, the court is busy with...

One of our most important pieces of anchoring gear is the flopper stopper. For us on mono-hulls, there is nothing worse than the boat rocking back and forth endlessly, especially at night when trying to get some sleep. Here in Zihua we get wind waves from...

The Zihua Guitarfest was a blast, with several acts each day and night, including a main stage right on the beach. Eric McFadden and Omar Torrez, above, rocked the place with...

For most coastal cruisers, Zihuatanejo is the furthest point South ventured. South of here the distances between good anchorages become longer and the crowd thins out unless you are heading to central America and through the Panama Canal to the Caribbean....

A common question for us is how the dogs like living aboard. Well, much like for us humans, there are compromises, but they have adapted very well. Knowing we would be sailing again someday, we purposely searched for breeds that were adaptable for life...

Another of our favorite cruising destinations is Barra De Navidad. This small town is off the beaten track of most North American tourists, but has a small U.S. and Canadian expat community, a thriving music scene and a strong local community. For the...

One of the benefits of cruising slowly this year is being able to spend a long time in places we like. In our last trip to Mexico in 2009 we were 8 days offshore on our way to French Polynesia by this date. That meant we could only spend days in each...

We were honored with a visit by good friend Joe Bellamy, the Bass/Keyboard player I have played with in Over the Edge, Tangled Roots, and Four for the Road. Joe flew down from Amador County to spend a week with us in Barra and Tenticatita. Joe is a...

Tenticatita Bay is a very special place on the gold coast of Mexico, seemingly designed just for cruisers. Every year, sailboats migrate from the Sea of Cortez, pushed by the (relative) cold of winter that brings water temperatures down to the high 60’s and...

So many stories will go untold but the pictures tell a thousand words.

Click on the gallery tab above and check out the Gold Coast 2019 pictures.

Enjoy.

Happiness is a never-ending series of good anchorages. What else can we say about the perfect conditions we have been enjoying South of Puerto Vallarta on the Mexican Gold Coast. Between Chamela Bay, Tenticatita, Barra De Navidad and a bunch of smaller...

There's nothing quite like living with a person for almost 40 years...we finish each others sentences and some idea will pop into my head and 5 seconds later she suggests the same thing... She knows me better than I know myself sometimes, and more often than...

La Cruz Mexico, where aging expat musicians retire to play out their remaining days... Only half in jest.... the musical scene in La Cruz is vibrant, with plenty of venues to pick from every night of the week. Rina and I will pop our heads out of the boat,...

Propane is central to energy use in Mexico, especially since electricity is so expensive. It is used in virtually all houses and restaurants for cooking and heating water, so when propane distribution was interrupted, all hell broke loose. Restaurants were...

After days of having the boat torn up with projects, we needed a nice night out and found a wonderful restaurant in La Cruz called Masala, serving Indian infused fresh mexican dishes. A great example was Rina's beet and pear salad with a raspberry...

This is how we spent our New Years Eve.... Yanking out the old exhaust hose and installing the new one. Nothing like contorting your body into un-natural positions in tiny compartments in 90% humidity and and carving up the old hose to rip it out. The 3"...

When we last checked in we were leaving La Paz for our eventual crossing of the Sea of Cortez to Puerto Vallarta. Our original plan was to head for Mazatlán for Christmas and New Year's, but we were craving the warmth of Banderas Bay so decided to hop down...

As Adam came aboard and we asked what he wanted to do, he said he was just along for the ride and wanted to experience what we do out here... No playing tourist, no charter ride here.... We had lazy mornings, lots of down time and no itinerary. Just enough...

Watch Adam and I on YouTube!


After a passage through the San Lorenzo Channel which had us motoring through the nicest rain yesterday (of course it helps to be in a state-of-the-art vessel with...