It's hard to imagine that a place like this exists without throngs of tourists swamping the charming town and pristine beaches. Having Mazatlan to the north and Puerto Vallarta to the south as the main tourist destinations has saved the town of San Blas, in my opinion. The new marina had not yet opened and perhaps the lack of marina is another reason that many cruisers skip San Blas in their journey south, however, this place is by far the best destination we have seen since heading out cruising on September 28th. Since I'm not able to post photos over the ham radio blog update posts, I won't even try to describe the area, but will just wait until I can upload some photos which will tell the story better than my rambling words.

Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of meeting Norm "jama" and spent some time at his home while he and his wife went over their map of the town and list of where we could find everything from the best market to the best tacos in town. They moved to San Blas 43 years ago and have been helping cruisers get to know San Blas ever since. He runs the morning cruisers net and is a wealth of information. Meeting people like Norm and his wife is one of the joys of cruising. They live to help people and not just cruisers. While we were visiting, a local family in need arrived to receive some of the donated clothes and shoes that they collect and hand out to the most needy in town.

Norm talked THIRD DAY and two other boats (S/V Whisper and S/V Triumph) into the harbor and to the estuary anchorage with his 43 years of local knowledge.

Within a few hours of exploring town we all fell in love with the city and decided that this is where we wanted to stay for Christmas. Sure there are some larger towns further south that typically make the Christmas stay list, but I think it would be hard to find a town with the small local charm of San Blas. And besides, Norm and his wife have invited us to a Christmas eve dinner at one of the local restaurants with them and some of their friends and we found it almost impossible to turn down his offer.

The town of San Blas survives today as a fishing and shrimping town. Fresh fish and shrimp are everywhere in town with shrimp the size of small lobsters going for 140Pesos per kilo, which is a great price considering they were just taken off the boat earlier that day.

While here, we will have a chance to pull out the Sairite sewing machine and finish up some canvas projects: cockpit sun shade, bug screens, and some miscellaneous covers. For now the bug screens are tapped to the inside of the cabin roof with blue painters tape awaiting Lori finishing touches with either Velcro or snap attachments. The bugs have not been too bad, but considering we are anchored in a estuary and San Blas received 11 FEET of rain last year, there are bugs here! Staying here for a longer period will also give us the chance to get into a better home school cycle and routine for the kids.

Speaking of kids, S/V Whisper is anchored next to us with their two kids ages 7 and 10 and we will enjoy their company. They are the first family out cruising that we have seen whose boat isn't 5 to 10 feet longer than THIRD DAY, so it's good to see someone out here cruising with our size of boat! It makes us feel not as crazy when we see other families out cruising. But I guess another way to look at it is that they are just as crazy as we are! It hard to tell really, but either way, we are here in Paradise spending time as a family away from the influences of a society that is constantly screaming in your face that you can not be happy unless you have more, while our kids are seeing that you can be happy with less, much less, so how crazy are we in the end?

(photos of San Blas to be posted when we next have internet access)