Dec. 8th: While we were planning on leaving on the 5th, Bill got a bit of a cold and we delayed departure until Saturday, the 8th. Diane made sure we were well provisioned, managing to purchase some of the biggest shrimp we'd ever seen!
First stop was Stone Island, on the south side of Mazatlan. With the first segment being the 85 miles to Isla Isabela and requiring a 1:00 am departure to make it during daylight, we figured to position ourselves in an "easy out" location. Stone Island is fun, with gentle waves and palapas on shore selling great Mexican food. We kayaked ashore and enjoyed a feast.
When we woke up at midnight, the "exit" was full of shrimp boats. Oops. After an hour, we'd weighed anchor and weaved through the crowd and were under way. Nice to be moving again.
We arrived at Isabela at 2:30 pm. Bill was still fighting off the tiredness from the cold/flu, so asked Diane about 'holding off going ashore until the next day'. No problem since we planned on being there a few days. Well ...
On Monday morning the wind clocked around so that it was a south wind, a dangerous direction for the anchorage there at Isabela. At 9:00 am we decided it wasn't safe, and lifted the anchor for Matanchen Bay, about 45 miles to the ESE. You'll have to look at our Isabela pictures from April '07 to get a sense of Isabela; we didn't take any because Bill thought we'd have time on Monday ...
We arrived at Matanchen Bay about 4:00 pm. It is a gorgeous tropical bay about 3 miles east of the historic port town of San Blas. San Blas used to be the Pacific Ocean headquarters for the Spanish fleet (400 years ago).
The pictures of the sunset here don't do justice. It's beautiful and the town of San Blas is a quaint, historic town. Only watch out are no-see-ums (jejenes). They enjoyed the new meat in town!
We spent 2 days before leaving for Chacala, about 22 miles south. Chacala is just a small bight in an otherwise cliff lined coast, but is beautiful. It is very tropical in appearance and very friendly. No more than a couple hundred folks live there. We spent 2 very rocky, rolly nights (lots of swell) before casting off. We will return here.
Friday morning we were off to La Cruz, by way of Punta de Mita, a 40 mile trip. Like clockwork, the winds at Punta Mita piped up about 8 miles off shore making the reach/run into La Cruz wonderful!
While very short, our stay in La Cruz was great. Drinks at Ana Banana's, then on to Black Forest restaurant for dinner and music by "Latcho and Andrea", two gypsy flaminco guitarists. Cool.
Saturday morning we hauled up the anchor and moved into Paradise Village marina where Wirewalker is spending the holidays while Diane and Bill go home to visit family.
