Wednesday, November 13, 2013, I tried to post this a couple of hours ago but it did go, so trying again. Sorry if it's a duplicate, I'll delete later.

I'm solo here in La Cruz. I took Bill and Buddy to the airport Sunday 11/10 via bus transport and a stop at Home Depot on the way back. Gee, PV is almost like home, kinda. It has been hot here and humid, started to break today (Wednesday) with a front coming in, only 97* with 20% humidity in the cockpit, 94* in the cabin as I'm writing this. The other day it was 80*/80% at 7 AM and went up from there! The marina is not very full, first of the Baja Ha-Ha rally boats should start arriving in a day or two and the marina should start to fill it in. Slip rates here were about $500 a month when I was here three years ago, it's now $650 plus water, elect and IVA so closer to $750 for my boat and the store, bar and restaurant are closed. Bummer! The staff says they are going to open again, soon, but the boaters say they have been saying that all summer and I see no activity in that regard, also seems maintenance has fallen off a bit. Oh well, it's early in season, we will see how it goes. It is still La Cruz, a great place to be.

Marisa posted some short blogs for me based on what I had said in my Sat phone emails to her and I need to update the photos. I have the Banda Ancha data card connection and it is working fairly well so I have email routinely. I also have a local phone, donated by Bill when he left. My US phone is still in service but with limited minutes so it's off most of the time, I only check intermittently for messages; in fact, don't leave a message unless it's urgent. I'll see that you've called, it burns minutes just to check in!

We had quite the varied trip coming down. Initially a lot of downwind sailing with the gennoa polled out, nice ride, but that was only the first two days after Ensenada. After that it became variable, but not necessarily light. We had wind from every direction, seas as well. We bashed our way out of Bahia Santa Maria into 20-25 knots and soon had gusts to 30 with s/w seas on the nose. It was ugly. Getting the anchor up I was on the bow and took two waves over the head when we dipped into a couple of short troughs. We were going to go into Mag Bay to get inside and up against the mountains of the islands, but winds shifted to the east and blew like hell, choppy confused seas. Ugly number two. "Raymond" had reincarnated and was sending stuff up at us until the final leg into Cabo. We waited for that to pass then tropical depression "18e", shortly thereafter named "Sonia" shut the door and we were stuck. They closed the harbor, but all it did was rain, no wind, no seas. Walked to the beach and the bay was flat as a millpond, no swell at all. I guess it was all out in the middle. When we finally got out we had quite the off wind sleigh ride the first day actually hitting 8-9 and 10 knots (briefly) surfing down some faces with pretty big winds and following seas. We thought we were going to get 'pooped' and put hatch-boards in. That abated the further east and south we got until we were motoring again. We slowed up the last night night out with a wild lightening show in the mountains all around Bandaras Bay. Bill and I didn't want to get close to that stuff so delayed our arrival by several hours until Buddy convinced us it was all in vain. A good trip all in all, but as I said, very, very different weather and conditions for going south along the Baja. We made good time, 8 days to Cabo and 48 hours to Banderas Bay.

After our arrival here in La Cruz we played tourists; took a bus into PV and found a new micro brewery there in the old town area, "Los Muertos Brewing Company". What a name, but the beer was good and great hamburgers. Made a bus trip to San Pancho to see Bill's friend Chris at his beach house there, nice digs. We walked around La Cruz, not a lot open yet, but fortunately Tacos on the Street just opened this week and we hit that twice. Another good find was "Cocina Economica" Buddy's favorite. I feel like I put all the pounds back on that I lost on the trip down! Since the guys left I've discovered a new wood fired pizza joint and sports bar "Charley's" for MNF, Tuesday it was open mic night at La Britannia where all the local talent come to jam and tonight it's Ben the guitar soloist at Gecko Rojo. During the day it's boat projects, laundry and I was invited to accompany our friend Karen Tenorio from the last voyage down by bus to Punta Mita Tuesday for lunch. Bill and I had a chance meeting with Karen at the local farmers market Sunday before they left. It was nice to see Karen again and glad to get a locals lay of the land.

Marisa flies down 11/22 for Thanksgiving break, then home and back again 12/18 for Christmas break. By then the boat hopefully will be in Barra de Navidad, or "the Christmas sand bar" about 150 nm further down the coast.

That's about it from here. Quiet in the marina and town, but at night all the gringos come out, mostly Canadians this early in season since it's already winter up there. This place has a surprisingly good music scene for a small venue, something different nightly, seems the restaurants all share the talent. OK, I've tried to post this three times now, with pictures then fewer pictures so this time without pictures, I'll post them if this is successful!