Careyes and Food

Jan 31 - Feb 1, 2008:

Careyes is a beautiful anchorage, located where the old Club Med "Playa Blanca" was located. It has now become a location for some of the more spectacular homes to be found on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Wow!










More importantly, what do sailors eat when they are cruising? Well, if you're with Diane, Ray, Jim and Darda (Bill's good for dishes and that's about it), you eat like royalty! Here are some sample dishes:

Around Cabo to Ipala; Oops ... Chamela

Jan 26th - 30th, 2008: After an early morning departure from Yelapa, we rounded Cabo Corrientes without difficulty. First lesson learned; even if you cleaned your boat bottom 2 weeks ago, Banderas Bay (and more specifically the anchorage off La Cruz) is amazing at growing beards on boats! Clean your bottom before rounding!

We were not able to make the speed we had hoped, but since our first stop was Ipala, 15 miles around the corner, it shouldn't be a problem. We arrived at Ipala about 10:30 in the morning and spent about 45 minutes anchoring. Ultimately, Bill (me) didn't like the limited room with the fish nets, etc. and decided to push off for Chamela, another 50 miles down the coast.

If the bottom had been clean, no problem. As it was, we couldn't squeeze more than 6 kts. out of Wirewalker so we arrived after dark into Chamela. First, my apologies to the crew, who didn't sign on for that kind of adventure! What made it better was our chartplotter's ability to overlay radar onto charts so we could tell where the land "really was" vs. the 150 year old charts. To add to that, we had some friends 'inside' Chamela already who relayed waypoints for rounding the entrance and avoiding an extensive outlying rock group. Very handy.

With the anchor down at 9:00 pm, we enjoyed a superb meal and rest. We spent 5 days in and around Chamela, enjoying the land and the sea.

Next Stop; Yelapa

Better a palapa in Yelapa, then a condo in Redondo ... or so the saying goes. Yelapa continues to be one of our favorite places to visit in Banderas Bay! With the moorings that now exist, it's fairly secure to spend the night there, so we made the decision to visit Yelapa and 'stage' ourselves for a 3:00 am departure around Cabo Corrientes. Start early avoid, minimize the winds.

Yelapa lived up to it's reputation. All had a terrific time visiting this quaint little village with no roads (or cars). They do have "quads" and donkeys to provide help in moving things around, but no cars. All supplies arrive by boat. Very nice.

The Blessing of the Fleet; KJ'ers in Banderas Bay

Jan. 20th - , 2008

The sad departure of our children; Elyse, Greg and son, Hayden, was softened a bit with the arrival the next day of our good KJ friends, Jim, Darda and Ray, who were joining us for the adventure south to Zihautanejo.

First things being first, we needed to provision and also make sure our friends had a chance to see some of the local color. La Cruz de Huanacaxtle provided that color, with the blessing of the fleet! Many of the local fishing boats were decked out in baloons, streamers, and (yes) fireworks for the parade/event. Like many of the good fireworks displays in Mexico, something will probably go wrong and, sure enough, not long after firing off a few of the fireworks, the entire crew of the boat dove overboard! Seems the inventory decided to go off prematurely! Oops. Well, it was still fun!

Children In Paradise

Jan. 11 - 20, 2008: Okay, children in Paradise Village Marina, Puerto Vallarta.

The year started with our daughter, Elyse, her husband Greg, and our grandson, Hayden joining us at Paradise Village Marina in Puerto Vallarta. Oh to be 4 years old and the world your oyster! Hayden quickly made friends with many folks, including the captain of a 120' motoryacht who invited all of us aboard for tour. Wirewalker is a nice boat and all, but it doesn't compare to a yacht of this caliber.

And the title of this email is "Children in Paradise". Elyse and Greg are pregnant with another child (given that it has taken me 10 months to complete this, I now know the "who" is "Calyn Louise Foley"!).

Anyways, it was Hayden who did most of the playing:

Leaving Mazatlan; Maz to Puerto Vallarta

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.

Marina Mazatlan - Boat Projects

Nov. 5th - Dec. 8th, 2007: Mazatlan may be our favorite town on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. While it isn't far enough south to be the year round tropical paradise, it's still warm and beautiful and has a culture of its own, apart from tourism. The "old town" has a 150 year old theater and some of the best classical and contemporary musicians in Mexico. The malecon (beach walkway) is just terrific.

So, within a day of arriving, Bill's favorite haircutter, Luis, showed up on the docks offering hair cuts. A very proper Mexican gentleman who provides a shoulder and scalp massage as part of the haircut, all for a very pricey $5! Gotta love it.

Bill had planned on doing a lot of project work in Mazatlan. Way back in Gonzaga (Sept.) we met our KJ friends who, along with their good friendship, brought Bill massive quantities of boat parts, etc. with the plan that Mazatlan would be where they'd be installed.

The project list was daunting, 26 projects and only 30 days. Cutting to the finish line, he got 16 of the projects done (a record percentage completion)! This may have been a direct result of the local priest blessing the fleet, including Wirewalker. We'll take all the blessings we can get.

The good news was there was still time for playing in the evenings and weekends, where Bill and Diane saw the National Ballet Company of Mexico perform "Sleeping Beauty", the Mazatlan Symphony perform Requiem for Mozart (see the fancy duds we're wearing ... our friends couldn't believe we could actually dress up!), Rafael Rodriguez (Bill's favorite Mexican guitarist), along with competing in the Mazatlan 10k race. Diane did really, really well!

Ultimately, it was time to leave so we tossed off the docklines and set a course south!