March 29 –April 27

 Our trip to Tenacatita was a motor sail for although the wind was 25Ks it was mainly on the nose, but we did get l ½ hours of nice sailing.  Sailing is such a pleasure for you are able to glide along with only the slight noise of the wind and the water and not the constant hum of the motor.  We arrived and got the anchor down when we were invited over to MV Aurora for some late afternoon appetizers.  The next morning we anchored closer to shore and then went to one of the 10 or so palapas for lunch.  This means a dinghy landing in the surf which we had not had to do in quite a while.  We watched, counted the swells and made a successful landing.  When you go into shore you must always wear something that can easily get wet, for getting out means wadding out in deep enough water to start the engine.  After standing there and letting the big waves go past you, you jump onboard, give the engine full speed and pray that you are not hit by the next coming wave.  Usually we accomplish this operation very successfully, but once we saw a wave coming at us and Hank hesitated slightly so we got rather wet. 

Every Friday they have a raft up of dinghies, cruisers bring appetizers to share, their own beverage, books to pass and boat cards.  One cruiser puts down a small anchor and the rest of us just raft up to the one dinghy with the anchor.  We stayed in Tenacatita for three Fridays and Hank was in charge of the last two raft ups.  On the final occasion we had a lot of sea swell and the anchor didn’t hold.  Our group slowly floated closer to our own boat but it really wasn’t a problem.  At one of the raft ups a panga circled the group, we noticed that there was a guy with a large video camera and then we saw a guy with a microphone.  We took pictures of him and he was filming us, finally he came very close and asked us to tell him in English where we all were from and how we liked the area.  It was channel 5 news from Guadalajara and we might be famous!

When we arrived the water was very clear and we could see our anchor chain, there were also many swirls of small fish splashing as the larger fish chased them.  Unfortunately the water didn’t stay this clear and in fact near the time that we left we had some problem with red tide.  One night as we were coming back from visiting another boat, the wake of our dinghy looked as if we had an aft underwater light; for the luminescence was so bright we had a lit wake. 

Usually we went to shore every morning to walk along the beach and every afternoon to play bocce ball or once Mexican Train (it’s a dominoes game).  Bocce is fun and everyone seems to have their own way of throwing their ball so that it doesn’t do too much rolling.  If your ball rolls into the water, your throw is no good. 

When you want to get more food you take your dinghy on a ride through the mango swamp to the town of Tenacatita.  It is a fun ride and you can see many birds and possibly a crocodile or quatimundi. We took the ride the first Wednesday we were at anchor.  Pacific Wind and 2 Pieces of Eight accompanied us on the shopping trip, each buying a few vegetables and then having a quick lunch before the trip back.  We had been told that Wednesday was the day that the veggies arrived in the market, but later we learned that this was only true during the season.  Since tourism had dropped off so much after the Easter Week crowds; there wasn’t a regular delivery day. The following Tuesday I walked into town with three other cruisers to preorder for the large delivery that was coming on Friday.  The walk is about an hour and a half each way, but once we got to the vegetable store we were able to give her a list of things that we wanted to make sure that were delivered.  Things like packages of romaine lettuce, apples and broccoli were high on the list.  I also asked her to get some shortening for me. We had a good time walking along and stopped to explore a few beach shacks that are for rent.  There was also a house for sale that had a fantastic view of the beach.  After walking to town and requesting some vegetables, we again made the dinghy trip through the mangrove swamp that next Friday.  We were delighted to find loads of fresh vegetables.  The young woman who ran the store explained in Spanish that her husband was picking up my shortening after he dropped their son off at school.  Soon he showed up and we were able to finish our shopping.  We had left at 9 in the morning and were back by 12, shopping while living on a boat takes a lot more time than going to the store in your car when you live in the states.  Many times going grocery shopping is a full day’s activity!

For the next few days I played Mexican baker, I had purchased a magazine called, The Encyclopedia of Pan (bread) and I wanted to try several recipes after translating them into English.  I was happy with my attempts for I made orejas, polvorones, and cubiletes.  Orejas (ears) are like a flakey pretzel, polvorones are an orange cookie, and cubiletes (Check out on our recipe page)  are a cheese filled muffin.  All the pastries had a ton of butter, margarine and shortening!  These were fun or challenging to make, but had way too many calories to do it very often. 

Finally after 26 days, the water had turned cooler and darker, with zero visibility, so we decided it was time to head north to the next anchorage of Chamela.  This is a great anchorage with about 10 restaurants right on the beach. Immediately after getting our anchor set, Hooligan (Tim and Paula) called to say that they were going into La Prieta for a late lunch.  They serve dollar beers and a five dollar fish dinner that is really good.  The beach is great and there are always a lot of family activities.  A fruit seller and his granddaughter pushed their cart up to one of the restaurants.  At one of the tables sat the grandmother who was also selling cooked corn which she sold in plastic cups with milk or cream sauce.

Back on the boat, Hank prepared a Bonita fish that we had caught on our sail from Tenacatita to Chamela.  Bonita is a very mild fish if you gut it so it bleeds quickly and when filleting it,  you want to make sure that you keep only the very light meat and no dark red meat.  Well the ceviche was great, and we made a complete dinner of it.  Hank spent the time in Chamela to use the Hooka to clean the bottom of the boat, change the oil, and change the water maker filters.  All these tasks are things that make the boat run more smoothly.  

Even though we really like the anchorage of Chamela we only stayed three nights.  Our weather guy on the SSB radio has predicting that the weather going around the Cape of Corrientes would be rather calm for the next few days.  So we decided to leave at 7:30 pm and make a night passage up to Puerto Vallarta.  We traveled in the company of another Island Packet, Andante.  The weather was predicted to be 10 to 15 knots but we found we had up to 20 on the nose.  Even when we made a right turn into Banderas Bay, the wind turned with us and it was still on our nose.  Andante decided to stop in Ipala to take a short rest for they felt they were not making enough process. We continued on and arrived at the anchorage of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle just in time to see our friends on Sweet Lorraine heading out of the marina and going north.  We were sorry that we didn’t get to see more of them but we knew that they too must travel when the weather was good.  La Cruz is a great little town with some great little restaurants, a new marina, and a great spirit.  We enjoyed our time at anchor, eating at a great restaurant named Frascati, having a beach party pu-pu party, and seeing the celebration parade. La Cruz was celebrating 9 nights of parties. The center plaza had carnival type booths set around the square.  One of the interesting booths was a rock throwing contest where you threw 3 rocks at upside down beer bottles.  If you broke one bottle, you got a free beer.  Hank had good luck with this and the photo is of David, Andante, getting ready to pitch a rock.   One of the interesting things was that there was a full cocktail booth, the beer booth and of course the booth where you can win a beer.  Look at this picture carefully; you can see that it was illegal to be drinking in the park. 

 On May 1, we checked into Paradise Village where we will be leaving the boat for the heat of the summer.  We plan to take our car and travel inland again and finally we will return to the boat and get her ready to be left.  The hotel here is beautiful and it is nice to be able to jump into the pool when ever you are hot.