11. South to Puerto Vallarta

Feb. 20th - Apr. 26th: Seems there's a habit that the crew of Wirewalker can't break ... rushing to the next port. We had lost so much time from our schedule as a result of weather/repairs that we needed to quickly get down to PV so that Diane could catch her scheduled flight back to the states to work taxes, etc. How many times did the word "schedule" appear in the last sentence? Not good.

(Mazatlan on leaving)

We made the sail/motor sail down to Banderas Bay/La Cruz in about 30 hours, arriving at 3:00 pm on Wednesday. The most noteworthy part of the sail is, again, Diane caught a wonderful tuna as we were entering Banderas Bay. Once again, we were going to eat well tonight!

We quickly anchored and went to the local Port Captain to check in and he was gone, and would be gone also the next day. No big, we'll do it on Friday.

Now, many of the earlier cruisers have very fond memories of La Cruz ... the beautiful beaches, the palapas on the beaches, the quaint restaurants like Dos Felipes, Ana Banana's and Philo's. It's changed! They are building a large marina where the beautiful beach was, leaving and ugly construction-in-progress in it's stead. Landing your dinghy is hazardous and the waters are not the most clean as a result of the construction. Once you get past that, it's all good. It is, after all, Mexico and Banderas Bay!

Diane had a flight out on Sunday, Feb. 25th, so Bill spent the next 10 days as a bachelor on the hook off La Cruz. It was lonely and moderately eventful. Where La Cruz would handle 10 - 20 boats at anchor in years past, the shortage of marina space and the increase in cruisers led to 60 or so boats in that anchorage. We arrived to 25, but that quickly increased! The boat in front of us, a steel-hulled "teaching" vessel, had a poor anchor/rode set-up and dragged down on Wirewalker. 70,000 lbs of steel aiming for our home! Fortunately, some head's up boating neighbors spotted the drift hailed her (no one aboard) then climbed aboard, reset the hook away from Wirewalker and left. Thank you! When I returned from a shoreside trip, they had a good story to tell me.

Internet connecting off La Cruz is difficult, at best. If you hold your laptop up at just the right angle at the right time of day, you might possibly connect and get your emails. The other choice, take your laptop to town would be prudent if the landing wasn't so challenging as a result of the construction. Oh well.

So, Diane came back from her US trip and brought our daughter, Elyse, and grandson, Hayden (3 1/2), to visit for 10 days. They were troopers! Once they made the transition from the "usual" vacation to the La Cruz vacation with buses, etc. they were in the groove! Hayden made many local friends while we enjoyed watching the fun and helping teach Hayden how to bodysurf. Can't get much better!









If you haven't had a chance to stroll the old town Puerto Vallarta, you should. It's beautiful, with statues, beaches, and quaint shops ... once you make it past tourist central! We had the good pleasure of having Doreen and Dennis Beyer join us as we explored much of Puerto Vallarta.

We moved Wirewalker to Paradise Marina on April 5th. We were planning a vacation to Little Cayman to do some diving (a vacation from cruising? yep) so needed to put the boat in a safe place. We had a wonderful vacation.

As we returned to Puerto Vallarta on Monday pm, April 23rd, we knew we were in for another classic Bill/Diane/Wirewalker go like hell trip. We had roughly a week to get the boat ready and sail her 600 miles up to Loreto to meet our friends, Gary and Sandy, for the LoretoFest.

In 2 1/2 days, we'd provisioned the boat, shook out the latest repair bugs and got under way. Details in the next blog.