I guess I must have taken the holidays off from blogging...so time to catch up.
I had a very nice Christmas in Barra de Navidad. There was a cruiser party where a local marine repairman bought turkey and ham and all of us cruisers brought a dish. There was salads, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing and many other delicious goodies. The one thing there wasn't was any kind of mexican food...yea!

The day after Christmas I left Barra for La Cruz, this 130 NM trip was my longest singlehanding so far. I broke it up into a 38 mile leg to a bay called Chamela, where I spent the night and most of the following day. I left the Chamela anchorage at 3:00 the next afternoon for 96 NM leg to La Cruz. The reason for leaving so late in the afternoon was to round the notorious headland of Cabo Corrientes in the calm morning hours.....which didn't end up working out very well. In order to avoid the fishing lines I sailed almost straight out (pic) until I was about 12 miles off shore, I then turned towards Corrientes and got hammered by 15-20 knot wind...on the nose. I motored sailed all night and the wind never let up. As I approached Corrientes the wind picked up....so much for the early morning idea, and Si Bon and I continued to get hammered as we entered the beautiful Banderas Bay. Finally as I got further into the bay the wind died off.

As I anchored in the La Cruz anchorage, after being awake for 36 hours, the control which runs the windless (raises and lowers the anchor) broke. Luckily this happened after I had gotten all of the anchor out and was getting ready to put on my snubber (used to take the load off the windless while anchored). My first thought was...well you don't probably want to know. Luckily for me my electrician Mark Burrows had drawn a wiring diagram for me and I dug it out, cut some wires and was able to work the windless by touching two wires together. Not an ideal situation but it worked. There's nothing like a little emergency to wake you up.

I am now in the La Cruz marina where I will be for the next month. I've met some new friends, both cruisers and locals. One of my new friends, Marcia, invited me to go to a New Years eve party at some friends of hers house. It was a wild party, in a beautiful home, with some very cool people and it was capped off by a spectacular fireworks display which we were able to watch from the roof top palapa. We were able to see the shoreline from La Cruz all the way around the bay to Puerto Vallarta, and there had to be at least a dozen different places shooting off fireworks. As I walked (stumbled) home I tried to remember the last time I was actually awake at midnight on New Years....it had been awhile.

OK...that catches me up, and as I know many people count on this always exciting blog I will try to not let it go so long in the future.