Scott & Liz’s visit & passage to Mazatlan 2.2.2011

Scott & Liz were supposed to join us in La Cruz on the 1st but had flight delays and ended up arriving on the 2nd. Eric & Sherrell from S/V Sarana made it into La Cruz a couple days earlier and we all had an amazing time catching up.



It had been about 4 years since both Scott & Liz and Eric & Sherrell had been to La Cruz so the first day or so was just spent checking out the town and catching up with old friends. Liz was great friends with Sylvia & Marissa and on the day before we left La Cruz, they invited us up to a ‘Ladies Luncheon’. Sounds great! The boys bowed out, which looking back, was a good idea.



The luncheon started out innocent enough – red wine & shrimp ceviche. It was a chilly day and we were outside so Sylvia gave us all a shot of tequila to warm us up. And then another, and then another, and then I lost count… Haha!



We had waaayyyyy too much fun… J We stumbled back to the boat to find two very angry men waiting for us. Oops…I guess we shouldn’t have partied the day before a long passage. I’m sure we’ll feel better in the morning!

Or not.

We woke up the next morning and were fine. We left La Cruz just as the sun was coming up, it was gorgeous…



And it went downhill from there. I lasted about 2 hours before I went down for my first nap. I was still feeling a little….green…but was doing fine. Liz was also feeling a bit under the weather and was sleeping up above. Michael came down during one of his ‘checks’ – checking to see if everything is OK and when he opened up the door to the engine room, it smelled like diesel. Uh Oh… After doing some research, we had a leaky injector – the first time ever on this engine. Michael & Scott timed it, measured it, throttled down, throttled up, tightening the nut on the injector, trying everything they could to get it to stop with no luck. This was a huge bummer as now we had to go the entire way to Mazatlan with a diesel smell in the boat. Now normally this wouldn’t be a problem at all….but with two ‘green’ gals on board, it made it a much more difficult transit.

Needless to say, the boys were none too happy. But we brought it on ourselves and only had Sylvia & Marissa to blame! Wink, wink!



We were nervous with the leaky injector (it was the first time it had happened!) and Michael didn’t want to turn off the engine in case air got into the lines and we would have had to bleed the air from the lines. So we endured. We motored the whole way, which was a huge bummer as we all wanted to sail! Oh well…

We made it to Mazatlan, pulled into the slip, and breathed a sigh of relief! ….And quickly opened up all the ports to get smell out of the boat! Haha…

We spent the next few days enjoying Mazatlan and shopping, shopping, shopping! You see, Scott & Liz live in Nicaragua, a 3rd world country, so even Mexico had better shopping! I’m pretty sure we shopped for 3 days straight. And of course ate at all of the ‘favorite’ spots in Mazatlan.



We had an incredible time – as always – with Scott & Liz. It seemed too quick for 12 days to scream by and we had to say goodbye again.

Until later….
Rene