Dodging Shrimpers 11.29.2010

Stone Island was, as always, a welcome getaway and the perfect spot to test out all the systems and get into ‘cruising mode’ before jumping off down to the next anchorage. There was a mass exodus from dock 6 at Marina Mazatlan as Slacker, Pacific Jade, Grey Max, and us bailed around the same time and anchored in Stone Island.

Stone Island is so gorgeous in its simplicity – miles of beaches, a calm anchorage, a protected dinghy landing, and palapas on the beach for your cerveza and food orders! Benji’s is a must-stop for their world class garlic shrimp pizza…yum! We spent a total of 3 days there – Turkey Day, Friday & Saturday, and left around noon on Sunday, next stop Mantanchen Bay.

We left the anchorage and motorsailed (mostly motored as there was no wind to speak of!) down the coast. It was about a 22 hour sail and we stayed close to Pacific Jade & Grey Max until the last hour of the cruise when we kicked in the turbo and cleaned out the carbon that builds up when we’re running low rpm. There was another boat out there called Sea Dream who kept in touch with us periodically as well. It was spectacular – nice calm seas, lots of wildlife, a gorgeous day. We navigated around, through, & away from the Shrimp fleet successfully and cruised through the slalom course into the evening. Michael and I love to eat a nice warm dinner on night passages and we’ve found (luckily) some frozen lasagna/manicotti dinners at Sam’s that we pick up each season just for this occasion. Yum!! Night fell and we were rewarded with beautiful clear skies with millions of stars & a crystal clear milky way. When the moon rose, it was humongous & lit up the entire horizon. I could be caught singing ‘That’s Amore’… :-)

One thing I like the most about night passages is the phosphorescence and it was very active last night. Both sides of the boat were lit up and, well, I find it funny to watch it swirling around when I’m pumping the toilet….I might be a little weird though. Haha!!

Night passages can be pretty boring – staring out at the darkness looking for new lights, watching the radar for new blips, watching the chartplotter & compass to make sure we’re headed the right direction, etc. and I usually read a book or pull out my star constellation book and try to identify new stars or something like that. This time in addition to reading, I downloaded a movie onto my iTouch and watched the movie! How cool! :-) I sure love that little thing!

We finally made Mantanchen Bay around 9am and found the anchorage empty, dropped the anchor in about 8’ of water, and had a celebratory beer while we were putting everything away. Whew! We’re glad to be here, it’s gorgeous, one of my favorite places along the coast if it wasn’t for the no-see-um’s. The last time we were here we were chased out by the threat of tsunami (from the Chilean earthquake) and the time before I ended up in the hospital. I’m going for a non-eventful visit this time though just before we left Stone Island I rolled my left ankle when I stepped wrong. It’s a small sprain, not at all like earlier in the year on the right side. Who knew I would have weak ankles! It’s time to work on strengthening them. We’ll be here a few days before we continue down the coast to Chacala…depending on the weather. We’ll see!

Until then…
Rene

Happy Thanksgiving!! 11.25.2010

Up and at ‘em early this morning, we shot out of the marina around 9am and motorsailed South down the coast a few miles to Stone Island where we’re currently anchored. The weather couldn’t have been better, well, we could have had some wind to do some true sailing, but other than that it was perfect – calm seas (almost glass-like), sunshiny skies, & clear.



The Slackers were ahead of us and Pacific Jade behind and about half way here we noticed some disturbance on the water near Slacker and watched closer….to see about a bazillion dolphin surrounding the boat, jumping out of the water (getting 6-8’ of air!), doing all kinds of acrobatics. Luckily we weren’t too far behind them and within a couple minutes we had them all surrounding our boat, racing along our bow. I was able to get a silly video (please don’t listen to me scream with delight as I will never get tired of seeing dolphins race the bow!!) and will post it when I get a chance.



We’re sitting at anchor in about 13’ of water, it’s 75 degrees and the water is a chilly 68 degrees. But we’re out…and with our 3 best buddies – Slacker, Pacific Jade, & Grey Max. We popped a bottle of champagne when we arrived and will be enjoying arrachera flavored turkey breast, mashed potatoes, & cranberry sauce for dinner. We’ll hang here for a couple days before heading South. There are some interesting weather fronts heading our way so we’ll see where we end up. We’ll be watching the weather closely.

A friend of mine recently wrote about Thanksgiving and what it means to him. I personally don’t feel I really ‘got’ Thanksgiving until we came cruising. Before it was a holiday from work, one that would require twice as much work the next week to catch up, where we would race out to the family’s house 3-4 hours away (if traffic wasn’t backed up), spend some rushed time with family, and race back home. Being here I realize that Thanksgiving is one my most favorite holidays as it’s not based on who we are, what we are, or what we believe or worship, it’s simply a celebration of life & each other. We celebrate (or take the time to realize) our friends, our blessings, our families, and our life!

I hope everyone has an incredible Thanksgiving and enjoys what or where you are.

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump
May your potatoes and gravy have never a lump
May your yams be delicious
And you pies take the prize
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!! :-)

More to follow…
Rene

All out of –ed’s 11.24.2010

We have spent about 4 weeks in Mazatlan getting the boat ready to sail South for the season and have finally run out of must-do’s! Woohoo!

We’ve scrubbed, scraped, sanded, varnished, contemplated, organized, exercised, painted, hoisted, packed, waxed, bumped, replaced, sweated, repaired, reorganized, sold, shopped, provisioned, walked, folded, washed, agonized, vacuumed, pumped, rinsed, grinded, prepped, taped, glued, typed, rewired, tied, stacked, yogad, stowed, hung, hmmm….is there anything I’ve forgotten? Probably plenty, it’s called ‘cruise-heimers’! haha…

It sure is a ton of work getting the boat ‘ready’ for the season but oh so rewarding! Ahea Kali looks like a million bucks and she’s tugging at the lines telling us it’s time to get out of the marina. We had ‘plans’ to bail out on Sunday and head North but time, repairs, & weather did not cooperate with that plan so it’s on to plan B…..get out of the marina, go to Stone Island, and determine a plan while sitting at anchor.

We have been social butterflies, as usual, and have been enjoying getting together with friends and catching up. We almost over-did it (is there such a thing?) this week beginning on Sunday meeting up with friends every evening plus lunches – Elvira & Ramiro on Sunday, John & Gay on Monday, Ken & Lori and Darrell & Rita on Tuesday. Whew! We’ve loved every minute of it.

Last week a small group got together & went to the Mazatlan Venados’ baseball game, which was a blast as usual.



It’s triple A baseball so the game itself is great but what makes it so much fun is everything else! Each section has a dedicated beer vendor who serves you ice cold beers in a blink of an eye, right at your seat, all for less than $2. There are the standards of any ballgame – peanuts, cotton candy, etc. But also available is pizza served by the slice, cups of fruit, sausage, ceviche, salchicha (chunks of sausage), coconut stacks (I LOVE these!!!) and other interesting items. Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the hats that just make you smile...the salchicha (sausage) vendor wear a crazy one with a big sausage on top (would that make them a dick-head?),



the crazy antics of ‘Venny’ & ‘Pollo’ the mascots, rating the outfits of the Tecate girls, Bimbo girls, Fire Extinguisher girls, the crazy music, dancing, & singing, etc. It’s a cultural experience!! ;-)

We absolutely love Mazatlan. It is one of our favorite places in Mexico and we consider it ‘home’ (for 6 months of the year!) We enjoy visiting our favorite places, favorite restaurants, & the general atmosphere of the area. And don’t forget our favorite people! We always have too much fun here….but get restless and, like now, are READY to get the heck out of here!!! We’re headed to Stone Island tomorrow which is only a stone’s throw away from Mazatlan but is out of the marina, so an improvement already.

More to follow…
Rene

What’s New? 11.6.10

Well, we’ve been here a week and it’s as amazing as we remember, only better! Haha…With one week under our belt we have been asking ourselves what’s new?! Hmmm….let’s see…

- new bruises, scrapes, & ‘boat bites’ OUCH!!
- shorter fingernails & ripped off toenails as we learn the hotspots of the boat, again…
- bug bites
- new spots to clean
- sunburn
- new ways for parts to wear out &/or break
- new muscles (I know they are new because they're SORE!)


It sounds awful, doesn’t it?! Yep, I wouldn’t wish this on just everyone! But once we make it past those little annoyances, we’re constantly rewarded…

- new friends
- new experiences
- new food to find at the grocery stores
- ‘jellygate 2010’

Oh the list goes on and on!

We’ve had lots to keep us busy this past week! All of the sails are up, electronics are back in place, the bbq was revamped, about half of the insides have been scrubbed & prepped for this season, the dinghy engine’s part that has been a problem for the past year or two was repaired (in perfect time for a dinghy trip to Deer Island!), a large part of our provisioning done, and lots & lots of other minor things done. The generator was torn apart and the pieces dipped to try to get it up and running properly this season. We should know by early next week how that’s coming along. We’ve been busy!

And of course we have to enjoy Mazatlan and our fellow cruisers too so we’ve had lots of opportunities to play. Monday was El dia de los muertos (the day of the dead) and Mazatlan puts on quite a show so a group of 10 cruisers got together & went to Plazuela Machado for the festivities. This year was similar to years past except for a longer, different route (which was better), AND….this year they actually re-filled the kegs about half way through the parade, something I’ve never seen. There was a vehicle parked along the route with full kegs and they would simply swap out the empties for a full one. Very handy! ;-)



The donkeys were there, pulling the carts…(the burritos alongside the burros) ;-)



Everyone swarmed around the carts to get their cups filled...



The costumes were amazing….



There was dancing in the streets….and you participated!!




We had a great time! :-)


Wednesday we decided it was time for our annual dinghy blast out to Deer Island to cool off in the clean, amazing waters & enjoy some sunshine (that’s where the sunburn came from!) Michael had to jump through some hoops as one part on the dinghy engine has been giving us fits for the past couple years but this time he pulled it apart, put some goop in it (this is the technical explanation), sealed it up, let it sit for an hour or so while the dock party was hopping, and when it fired up, it was working perfectly! Woohoo! We blasted over on a beautiful sunshiny day (when is it not beautiful & sunshiny!) and beached the dinghys just long enough to disrobe & jump in the cool water.



It was…amazing!! Ahhh….. We’re planning to do this every Wednesday until we leave…we’ll see if we make it happen!

Thursday, Joe & Deb from Pacific Jade arrived and we spent a few hours getting caught up on all the happenings. Friday evening we went to dinner at Ray & Jeannette’s – an incredible shrimp curry dinner that was to die for! Great food, great friends, what could be better?!

Today is Saturday and we have a ‘Welcome Back Cruisers pool party’ to attend starting at 2:30. It will be great catching up with old friends & meeting new ones. Bill & MJ from Grey Max arrived yesterday and have been on the dock (we’re dock finger-buddies) – it’s great to have some life on Dock 6! More and more folks are showing up everyday and it’s getting exciting!



We’ve made a tentative plan….something new this year! Joe & Deb from Pacific Jade want to go North to La Paz this year and we would also love to go….so instead of staying in Mazatlan for Thanksgiving, we are tentatively planning to leave Mazatlan around the Sunday before Thanksgiving and head North to La Paz/Sea of Cortez to play around for a couple weeks before going South again. We’ve never been that way and have always wanted to so we figure, why not?!

More to follow….
Rene