November 2007-January 2008

 If you are a regular reader of our website, you might have wondered where we were and why has the website has not be kept current.  Let me tell you that keeping up our journey  could be a job in itself for we are doing so many activities and having so much fun that it is hard to sit down and write about it.  So here is what has been happening from mid-November until mid-January. 

 While in La Paz we stayed at the marina, Costa Baja.  This is the first marina that you come to as you enter the bay of La Paz and it is also the newest.  We stayed there last year and we are still impressed at how well the marina is run.  The water is crystal clear, there are several restaurants right around the boat area, and the marina organizes things for cruisers; all these are important reasons for a cruiser to like an area.  The marina put on a catered dinner for the Ha-Ha crowd and for the marina cruisers that would have put the states to shame.  This dinner was just a thank you and therefore it was gratis, and muchos cruceros always show up for gratis! We sat with friends on Robin’s Nest and another Island Packet Jakyrah.   

 Our favorite restaurant in the marina, and really in all La Paz, was Azul Marino, which was owned by a 30 year old chef and her sister and brother-in-law.  The menu changed every Thursday, allowing her to plan her menu around what was fresh in the market.  We loved this place so much that we ate there four nights in a row and never had the same thing.  This was also a perfect place to share an appetizer and main entre.  As we headed out of town, I stopped by to give Christina a small Christmas present. 

 Also while in La Paz, we attended Spanish emersion school at Se Habla....La Paz.  We enrolled for two and one half weeks at four hours a day.  The classes were fantastic, but then you had to go home, in our case, back to the boat and do about 2 to 4 hours of homework.  The classes were conducted in Spanish and you had a different instructor every two hours and each week they changed too.  We had some wonderful teachers, two of whom are pictured here.   At the end of your stay, no matter how long it was, they had a little graduation ceremony, in which you needed to give a short speech in Spanish.  I practiced mine many times and I think it was good, others read their speech, or even talked off the top of their head. This last picture is all the graduates and all the teachers. 

 Our friend’s on Oya had a car which is a luxury and they took us all out to a beach palapa for a wonderful fish dinner.  We had a whole gang and we had to go early for there were no electric lights and therefore the place closed up when it started to get dark.  

 For Thanksgiving we signed up to do the Club Cruceros dinner, which meant that they furnished the turkey and you brought your own beverage and a side dish for 10 to share.  I made small corn meal muffins with corn and chilies the night before because we were going right from school to the party.  We got out of school at 1 and walked about a mile and a half to Marina Palmira where the party was being held.  The starting time was 3 o’clock but when we arrived at two there were already a great crowd.  Luckily they were prepared for about 200 people and they cooked many turkeys.  I don’t think anyone went hungry in fact some folks even took some back to their boat.  This is a picture of what Hank’s plate looked like when he finished going through the buffet line. 

 Another activity we did in La Paz was participate in Subasta, which is like a giant garage sale with food.  All the money raised goes to the schools in La Paz and the cruisers do raise a lot of money.  Many local citizens line up at the gate to get the best buys.  It looks like they are doing their Christmas shopping early for they especially like the small appliances that were donated.  Nothing is very expensive so things go quickly.  After everyone had looked over the clothing, and it was getting late in the afternoon, they dropped the prices to half the original.  At that time we went over to look and had fun seeing what had been donated.  One of my friends even found several things that she had donated.  The funniest thing we found was a net shirt with long sleeves.  We didn’t realize at the time that it was a bug shirt and that there was no neck opening, just a complete hood for your head.  Now when you are around No-see-ums this would be a very handy piece of clothing.  We also had some great food and got to talk with many familiar cruisers.  I sat down with JJ, and Anita to take a break while the guys were watching the live auction

 Finally our last experience in La Paz was meeting with a real estate person and looking at the drawings of some units that would be built on the hills overlooking the marina.  They have a golf course planned and these homes would be a small cluster of 65 places right below one of the holes.  Now they took us up to the hill and we walked the land but there were no stakes as to what was what so it was still a little vague.  Also there were no models, just an architectural drawing, but we liked the idea and we had seen the quality of work they did at the marina.  Long story made short, they did not like our offer, for we wanted to stand on the graded lot, see structural drawing, and see how the electrical outlets would be arranged.  I know that many people were comfortable with just signing their name and paying a large down, but I guess this was not for us, for we couldn’t go into it blindly like others seemed to be doing.  Down the line we might kick ourselves that we let this go, but for now, we are going on to other places. 

 We left La Paz on the 9^th of November, stopped one night in Muertos, and then did a two night sail across the Sea of Cortez to San Blas.  We had stopped there about this time last year so we knew what to expect in getting into the inner estuary.  We knew that the town would be celebrating the Virgin of Guadalupe for many days so were didn’t go to town the first night.  This is a town of No-see-ums and you have to be careful.  So I put all the net port light covers in, and the larger netting pieces for the hatches.  Our boat has screens but no-see-ums can get through the screens.  That afternoon, Sail Soon asked if we would like to do the jungle cruise with them, it would be $10 dollars a person and last approximately 4 hours.  This is something that I had wanted to do last year, but we had run out of time, so we jumped at the chance.  We met out guide at 8:30 in the town plaza and walked to his boat.  He asked us if we minded another man coming with us and of course we said no. Going early in the morning is the best for we saw so many birds, and wild life.  Our guide was also so knowledgeable with bird names both in English, Spanish and Latin. We traveled the river taking pictures and stopping at each photo opt along the river.  The tide was in so we had to bend lowly whenever we came to a bridge.  We also didn’t see anything along the shore with the high tide.  We visited the crocodile farm and saw where they raised the crocs from eggs to big guys.   

After the farm, we took the other fork of the river and ended up at a swimming hole and restaurant.  We had been warned by Norm not to swim but many people did and it sure looked safe to us.  We did have a beer and a small bite to eat with our boat driver.

On the way back we didn’t see many birds but we definitely saw some crocodiles.  One was huge and our guide took the boat right over to it.  Wow, could it move quickly, and since I was in the front seat, closest to the shore I will admit that I was worried. 

 San Blas celebrates for several days, we went into town for a play of the meaning of the celebration.  This was quite involved and we watched as the Sisters from the school finished the background and figured out how to make a large purple cloth into the curtains.  After the play we walked around the plaza, looking at all the food venders.  We were intrigued by one vender of plantains, so we tried them.  They were first fried, cooled, mashed, covered with strawberry jam and then drizzled with sweeten condensed milk.  They were wonderful, but I am glad that Hank and I shared one. 

 We arrived in Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta on the 15^th of December.  We had rushed for we found that the charity dinner at Estudio Café was going to be that Friday night.  One of our friends had made reservations for us even thought it was a sold out event.  Estudio Café is right on the water in Nuevo Vallarta, it is a home, art studio and restaurant. Each year they have put on a dinner and show with the money going to the arts program in the local schools.  Frederico and Luli were our hosts. When the entertainment was over, the tables were quickly assembled for a wonderful dinner. This program reminds us of the charity dinner in Auburn, CA that always seemed to start the holiday season for us.  

 We got the boat situated and then we purchased tickets on a deluxe bus to drive us back up to San Carlos to get our car.  The bus left the bus terminal at 4pm and we would get to San Carlos at 10am the next morning.  The bus was designed for sleeping and there were window drapes and foot rest with reclining seats for your comfort.  They played two movies both in Spanish and several short subject items.  Along the way the bus would stop for inspections by all sorts of groups.  Several times it was the Federales and twice they had everyone get off the bus while they searched the carry on luggage.  I think it was about 8 times that the bus stopped.  One time Hank decided to take his back pack off the bus so he could see them check it.  Everyone around us was very comfortable with all this security so we just did what the bus driver told us to do.  When arriving in Guaymas we caught the local bus to San Carlos and then called the yard where we had left our car.  They picked us up and took us back to the covered storage area.  Soon we were driving our own car and heading south.  We decided to take toll roads all the way and so we had our pesos ready for each of the toll stops.  On the way south the car was not stopped once!  We spent the night is a local type hotel in Los Mochis and had a great steak dinner at Owen Steakhouse.  Hank even had a shot of tequila that cost more that his steak!

 Our daughter Jennifer arrived for Christmas on the 23^rd and we had already done the shopping, washing and cleaning of the boat.  Traditionally we have been making tamales for Christmas Eve dinner along with shrimp chili rellanos.  I checked all over to find out where I was going to get our masa and also experimented using blue cornmeal and regular.  So when Jen got there we were ready to make tamales.  I decided to make them like the ones Carlos from Santa Rosalia had brought us, and I added sliced carrot, potato, and chili with the meat mixture.  They also put an olive in the center too, so Hank and I did, but Jen decided against it.  Here is a picture of our Christmas Eve dinner. We woke the next morning to find that Santa had come, or maybe it was that Jen was able to bring so many of our ordered gifts in her luggage.  We also give a traditional holiday toast to all our family, hoping that they remember to do it too.  

 Christmas dinner was here at the boat.  We had invited friends from the boat Sea Esta to share our dinner.  It is always fun to invite people to share our celebration and we were glad they were able to be here with us.  We made our traditional beef wellington with a great filet roast that we bought at Wal-Mart.  Cooking on a boat is a challenge, so we were very pleased to find that we were still able to fix meals similar to ones we had done back in Auburn. 

 After Christmas we headed off to do some day trips.  Our first was off to Sayulita which is just North of the bay.  It is a small town that is very popular with surfers and artists.  They offer surf lessons and it was fun to watch a couple trying to master the move that got you standing on the board.  Most of the streets were dirt with the buildings being that brightly colored orange, red, or blue paint.  We found a place to have a taco at the beach, bargained with a vender for a beach wrap for Jen, and just walked around getting the feel of the town. 

 We drove over to La Cruz on Thursday for rib night and to listen to Philo’s band play.  The food was great and the entertainment good.  We joined our friends from Southern Bell and Sweet Lorraine for a fun evening. 

 Our next jaunt was to a small suburb named El Pitillal which we visited last year on a tour.  This was the time when I left my camera on a local bus, so I wanted to revisit so I could take pictures again of the church especially the inside of it.  Unfortunately for my picture taking there was a wedding at the church just as we arrived.  I very quickly took a picture of the inside where you can see the hanging Christmas piñatas and the suspended statue of Jesus.  Last year there was not a blue drape behind the statue and it really did appear to be just floating in air.   It was lunch time when we were there so we looked around for a place that the locals were eating lunch.  We found this wonderful taco place where the meat was in the window and the menu painted on the inside wall.  All different types of tacos were 8 pesos and the drinks were 8 pesos too.  We each had two tacos and a drink, making our total lunch was 72 pesos.  

 Jennifer had to leave after a week so we decided to do the Sunday brunch at El Tigre before we took her to the airport.  This is a great brunch with champagne and some wonderful Mexican food.  I believe that the best time to go might be late in the afternoon for they are open until 4 and then you could combine dinner and lunch.  Since we needed to get to the airport in the early afternoon, we were there right when they opened.  We didn’t need a reservation and we had no problem sitting outside. 

 Our New Years Eve was spent here at Paradise Village, dinner was at the Yacht Club and then we watched fireworks at the beach.  All the major hotels have displays and it seemed as though they each were trying to outdo each other.  We toasted our friends all over the world with champagne and then headed back to the boat.  They kid around that cruisers celebrate New Year’s Eve at 9 o’clock.  We knew that we would be going to the club on New Year’s Day to have black eyed peas, cabbage, and a bloody Mary, all assured to bring good luck for the coming year.  We sampled the food and watched a little of the parade.  Here’s wishing all our friends a prosperous 2008, filled with love, peace, and joy.

 The new year meant it was time to get down to business and do some of those projects that we were going to do at this marina since we had electricity.  I completed the project of making the sun covers for the windows of the dodger.  We have solid fabric covers, but I wanted to make the sun type that you could see through.  I had purchased the fabric in Seattle and knew that I had the correct size snaps so that they would fit the snap bases that are already on the dodger.  I was pleased with my results which look very professional.  Next I started on some covers for the hatches that will allow air into the cabin but keep out the no-see-ums.  These I made out of a very fine net that I had purchased from Sailrite when we were in Florida.  Presently I am working on a bag that can be attached to our dock cart.  We had seen another cruiser with one and we decided to copy their design.  It helped that we won a raffle while in La Paz so we used our winning to get some blue Sunbrella.

 Having a car is a real treat and we wanted to take advantage of this fact.  We will be leaving the car here in Puerto Vallarta so we looked around to find good day trips.  Southern Bell and Sweet Lorraine were going to rent a car and together we decided to explore the town of San Sebastian.  This is a town about 1 ½ hours north east of PV at an elevation of about 5000 feet.  It was awesome as we drove through the country side, watching cowboys wrestle with stray cows, seeing fields of agave, seeing adobe bricks drying in the sun, and stopping twice for road work.  The first stop was for a half hour while they were using tractors to push dirt down the mountain slope and across the road to the next slope.  This was a way to keep the rainy season from turning the road into a muddy mess.  The second stop turned out to be much more amusing.  A dump truck had just dumped a load of large cobblestones in the middle of the only lane.  After they were dumped, workers moved them by hand to a pile out of the way of traffic. It took them a while to move them all, but we weren’t going any where in a hurry so we stood around enjoying the landscape.  Finally we got the signal to continue going forward and we proceeded to climb further into the hills.  When we approached the town the road narrowed and we found ourselves driving on cobblestones.  We parked the cars and walked to find a place to eat a small snack and get something to drink.  After a short respite, we started to walk and explore the town.  San Sebastian is a beautiful town with buildings painted white and the lower third of the building a red brick color. The streets are narrow and the houses have many flowers around them.  We noticed that there were coffee bushes all over the hillsides and many fruit trees too.  As with most towns in Mexico, there was a beautiful plaza and church around which the town was built. We looked at the few shops and found a great place to buy some local coffee and tequila.  Remember I said that there were many agave plants on the hillsides and so tequila was being made in this area too. This town was so quiet, standing stately in her proud heritage.  She had been a silver mining area, but since the closing of most of the mines she had turned her attention to coffee and tequila. Not too many tourists visited the area and if they did come by bus, the bus would stop at the out skirts of the town and the passengers would walk to the town center.  The day we were there a bus arrived after we had had lunch so for the first few hours we were the only tourists.  I must admit that I really enjoyed the town much more when we were the only ones there.  Luckily we had purchased our coffee early in the morning for they sold out quickly.  After walking a bit more and looking inside the church we decided it was time to start heading for home. 

 As we drove down the hill we knew that we wanted to stop at a new tequila factory that we had seen on the way to the town.  This factory, I guess you call it a factory, for I know it is not a winery, was just after the large bridge that spans the steep ravine where the road work was being done by tractors.  This was truly a tequila factory not just a display area like downtown.  The proprietor explained the process to us and then he showed us how they tested the strength of the tequila.  It was an informative stop and even though the tequila was not yet fantastic, we each purchased a bottle.  With only a small sample taste we headed back to town and said goodbye to our traveling buddies as the headed to La Cruz and we headed to Paradise Village. 

 On Saturday night we went to Philo’s in La Cruz to eat and to listen to Willie and Lobo play the violin and guitar.  Kellie had gone early in the afternoon and saved us a table and we were so thankful she did because the place was packed by 6 and the music was not going to start until 8:30pm.  Hank and I ordered a pizza and that turned out to be a mistake, for Dave and Kellie got their hamburger really quickly but our pizza did not come for three hours.  Hank had gone out and purchased a bag of chips so we were not starving, it is just that the pizza ovens were not large enough for the size of the crowd.  The music was well worth the wait, so lively that it was hard to keep your hands and feet still.  They took a break, selling their CDs and then continued to play for another set.  We left in the middle of the second set, knowing that we had about a 20 minute ride home.  Without a car we would have had to bus it, or take a taxi to enjoy this event. 

 Now the week is starting to pass quickly, Hank has had some dental work done; we have been out to dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday with cruising friends and hope to leave Paradise Village by Saturday.  Nothing is every completely definite until we have checked the weather and wind conditions.  It is difficult to do that in Paradise Village because we have so many mega yachts around us, that we are not able to hear the nets or Don on the weather.