Santiago Bay 2.2.09

We left Barra de Navidad lagoon on Monday morning and headed South for Santiago Bay with Lovely Reta,

Eyes of the World,

& Pacific Jade. On the morning we were leaving as Michael was cleaning up the cockpit, he found a boat card from our friends on Seabird – John & Linda – and written on the back they told us they had just come into Barra! Of course! On the day we leave, after being here a whole month, some long lost friends turn up! I don’t know if you remember John & Linda but they are on a 47’ Nordhavn which is a super nice power boat. We met them on the way down the coast of Baja early last year and buddy boated down until Mazatlan. Since we last saw them, they went back up to California, then to Alaska for the summer, and now are working their way back down Mexico and will go through the Panama Canal and over to the Mediterranean. Wow! We were thrilled as they dinghied up to the boat and we were at least able to chat with them for a few minutes before leaving Barra. And to add insult to injury, Wally & Linda on Andanzas also showed up in Barra on Monday. Bummer! We hope to meet up with them when we head back to Barra in a week or so. The day was spectacular, we motorsailed all the way as we only had wind enough to sail as soon as we rounded the corner. It was nice & sunshiny, warm, & calm seas….perfect! The coast here is just amazing – miles & miles of sandy beaches and no houses! The mountains & hills are tree lined with brown & green foliage and the sandy beaches have a bit of black on them. It’s really beautiful. We anchored on the northwest side of Santiago Bay along the beach of Playa Miramar along with Pacific Jade. There is about 13 other boats here, but on our side there are only 4. There is a wreck in the middle of the bay, one that was called the “Mexican Titanic” by the tour boats that are visiting the area, that you are able to snorkel. We hope to see it before we leave. We are right outside of an estuary entrance and water is clear on the incoming tide. We anchored right next to Joyeau, another boater friend from Mazatlan, Rob & Sue, and had them over to the boat for quick conversation the day we arrived.

OK, so Santiago Bay is absolutely beautiful….a long stretch of sandy beach lined with colorful umbrellas & palapas. We had a restful evening on Monday and decided to stay put on the boat as it was very windy that evening & just settled into our new home. Tuesday morning we dinghied into the Playa along with Joe & Deb and went in search of internet. We had scheduled two interviews for Tuesday and wanted to make sure we could find a strong wireless signal to phone them via Skype. Skype is an internet phone service that has very inexpensive rates. The only other viable option is to use a cell phone, but it is .60/minute…where Skype is between .02 and .05/minute. That makes a big difference on hour long interviews. So we found two options – one was at the Oasis restaurant & bar where we ate lunch and I did my first interview of the day. There was nowhere to plug in for electricity except for right at the bar so I asked the bartender if he would mind if I sat there & made my phone call. He even turned the music down so I could make the call uninterrupted…they are just so kind here. Unfortunately though, the restaurant began filling up & the bar started to get busy and before I was done with my interview, I was surrounded with people who were staring at me amazed that I was talking to my computer. I explained what I was doing and everyone was just floored! But I will say it was very intimidating trying to do an interview with people around you staring! Not so good for the concentration. Haha… So I wanted to find a little more peace & quiet, sans onlookers for my next interview. We were thrilled to find out we had two additional companies hoping for interviews and scheduled all 4 of them for that day. Whew! We won’t do that again! We’re sure that by the last interview, our brains were oozing out of our ears as we were toast! I had 4 interviews, Michael had 3. It was amazing. We found our 2nd spot for interviews right down the beautiful cobblestone street behind a small tienda. There was a table & 4 chairs and the price was 20 pesos per hour. We got there around 1:30 and began the interviews. Joe & Deb were so nice to stay with us nearly the entire time, chatting to whichever one of us was off the phone at a time. But after a while, it even got boring to them and they headed back to the boat. We finally finished up our interviews around 5pm – whew! And the gal at the office only charged us 50 pesos for the internet. We were absolutely spent. We headed back to the dinghy & out to the boat where we were so surprised to see John & Linda on M/V Seabird anchored right beside us! We dinghied over & chatted with them for a half hour or so but Michael’s back was hurting him so much he could hardly stand it. We went back to the boat & crashed…ate, read, & crashed.

The next morning Seabird contacted us and told us they were headed further down to Zihuatenejo and were thrilled we could visit with them. They’re headed to the Mediterranean and so we figure we won’t see them for a couple years. Again, that’s the good & bad of meeting cruisers down here! The friendships are wonderful but so often separated by cruising plans! It happens and we just can’t wait to hear of their trip.

More to follow!
Rene