In La Cruz

Sand Dollar rowing out the surf line in Tenacatita.  They almost got swamped. 

Sam and I at LA Loco all-inclusive resort in Tenacatita. 

Appa at anchor in Tenacatita Bay. 

Sun setting on passage to La Cruz in Puerto Vallarta. 

We left at 5 at night and got into La Cruz at 3pm the next day. Easy passage. Just as we rounded Cabo corrientes the wind picked up and we got the sail the final 28 miles. Hit 8 knots at times. 

Max is back and all is right with the world. At least on Appa. We missed him and so happy to have him back. 

We are staying in La Cruz and will be here till Saturday I think. Jen wants to take me to the costco down here. She loved it. We have to get our visas renewed along with the boats import form. I also exploded a couple blocks on the boat and have to replace them and will do that the big store they have down here.  

Appa is going to get waxed and polished while we are here.  She has been good to us and we want her to look good. $2000 pesos for full boat wash and wax with all the stainless getting polished. That is $150 bucks. In the states I paid $890 for just the hull. 

We are already missing our peeps from Sand Dollar but they will catch up to us in the next couple weeks. 

Some musings

Appa heading to Manzanillo. Paul from Unleashed took this shot!

Jen wanted me to come up with a total amount of miles sailed so far on this trip.

Near as I can figure since we left San Francisco, we have sailed 2502 miles. Add another 900 for the trip from Seattle to San Francisco.

Overheard Sam and Ben arguing once again.  Ben goes "Samey, you are evil."  Sam's reply, "No I'm not.  I'm righteous!"  What a scream these two kids are!

Had a lot fun in Tenacatita. Swam and played for hours in the surf.  Huge waves!  8 feet at times. We got crushed a couple times. Loads of fun.  

Left the anchorage yesterday and had an outstanding sail the 10 miles to Barre de Navidad.  

Today Max comes back and we are leaving almost as soon as he gets out of the taxi.  I think. The weather is kinda iffy but per my research, I think it is going to be ok.  Max might not want to go right away and we will consider it but if we don't leave tonight, we could be trapped here due to too much wind around Cabo Corrientes which is the cape we have to round to go back north to Puerto Vallarta. About 120 miles away.  

Back in Barre de Navidad

We left Santiago this morning at 0800 and motored for 30 minutes up the coast to Esenada Carrizla. The little bay is one of the few bays that has no development.  No building.  Nothing. We shared the anchorage with 3 other boats.  Great snorkeling. 30 foot visibility. We saw these fish

The coral appeared to be in pretty good shape.  Nice weather and warm water.

After lunch we decided to head 20 miles north back to Barre de Navidad to get some marina time.  20 days spent anchoring. Not even a fuel dock.  The boat (and us) need a good long bath.  Salt is everywhere on Appa and she needs a spa day. 

I forgot to mention on our way down to Zihuatanejo we were stopped by the Mexican navy. I'll bet most of you haven't had a Marine with a machine gun on your boat before.

This is the ship and they approached us with a panga.  

This is the naval officer taking our information. Passports and US documentation.  He was extremely nice and very young. Wore shiny black shoes.

There they go to intercept Sand Dollar and then Unleashed. Jen has a bit more in her blog I believe.

Here are some photos from today.

Max's room has turned into the playroom. Sam keeps it cleaner than Max. Go figure. 

This little girl loves dresses. Jen got this for her at the huge market in Santiago. 

The crew walking back from town in Bahia Santiago. 

In trying to figure out a way to stop the kids from having some much screen time, be it movies or the damn ipad/iPhone games, I thought I'd try some role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. Tomorrow is our first adventure and the kids are pysched. I'm just going to wing it.  The rules have changed soooo much since I last played, it isn't even the same game.  I'll report later on how it goes.  So much reading of the rules is making me a little cuckoo. 

I figure we will be in Barre for 2 days.  Change oil and the like.  Head out to Tenacatita which is about 10 miles north of here and hang there for a couple days.  Hit a couple other little coves around here and by that time Max should be back.  Then we will head back up to Puerto Vallarta for a bit.  The thought is to go see the Monarch butterflies at the end of their migratory route.  Suppose to be just wonderful. The area where they hang out is near Mexico City. 11 hours by bus. But the buses are huge and nice. Also travels at night so maybe we could sleep. They serve food, have a bathroom and wifi with gaming consoles. Better than first class airplane I'm told. 4 days of doing that. Maybe 3. I don't know, I just drive the boat. 

While we are doing the butterflies, I'll have the local sailloft do some repair to our jib and main.  They are in need of some love.  The clew on the jib is starting to pull out. I just had that redone in Seattle before we left. Put some miles on the old sail. 

I'd love to get another solar panel on the boat also.  Maybe have a welder come out and see what he can do.  After 20 days without hooking to shore power, I think one more panel might just cover our needs.  We use a lot of power. The freezer and fridge have separate compressors and being so hot down here they run quite a bit. About 10 minutes on and 15 minutes off for each compressor. One runs and the other is off but occasionally they both are on.  The amp meter shows -10 amps when that happens.  The solar panels right now put in about 40 amps per day. More if the boat isn't swinging all over the place. The boat swings and then the panels get shaded by something (radar mast, boom, etc.) and the output drops dramatically. 

The picture below is one of my favorites. Jen has really gotten into the SSB radio. It is like a HAM radio. Same thing actually. Here Jen and Sam are talking with our friends on Vales Veleo who are in the southern most part of Mexico waiting to crossing this stretch of water called the Tehuantepec. They are 400+ miles away from us and Jen tuned that radio in to talk to them. Samey is saying hi to Anna on VV. 

Such good friends. 

We'll more later. JC and I have to take the laundry into town and visit the port captain and then try to find a place that will print up my DnD stuff.  Also have to fix a small irritating leak in the inflatable dinghy. 

Lots to do tomorrow. 

Zihuatanejo to Isla Grande (Ixtapa) then to Manzanillo

We left Zihuatanejo bay on February 8th for Isla Grande.  We did the short hop there in a couple of hours. We planned to stay one night and then shoot to Manzanillo. It was so nice there, we stayed Tuesday. Just perfect. 

Our kids and the Sand Dollar kids went on this crazy couch that gets towed by a jet ski. The kids looked so happy, us adults took a turn. Then the owner of the palapa took all the kids for a spin on the 140hp jet ski. Needless to say they loved it. 

This island is about 1/2 a mile from the coast and just 5 miles from Zihuatanejo. Gold sand, blue water....we loved it.  

Tuesday we left for Manzanillo. Without Max. Just Jen and I handling the boat.  200 miles. Forecast showed no wind. They were partly right. 

We left at 6:45 in the am with the land around us just starting to show itself.  No real wind. We motored and charged the batteries and made about 60 gallons of fresh water.  The wind never showed itself all day or night.  

Jen and I really didn't do shifts during the day. I stayed up till 3am or so after a quick nap at 11pm. Jen got up at 3am and took over.  Nothing to report. No wind. No ships. No fishing lines. Just the steady drone of the Perkins diesel. 

Jen got me up at 8 am and the wind was coming up. The wind was heading out of the direction we wanted to go but we still wanted to sail some. Up went the sails for about 2 hours and then the wind shut off.  About 1045 we started to see the dreaded plastic 2 liters bottles stretched out before us indicating fishing lines.  We came across 8 strings of fishing lines and had to stop forward progress to transverse the lines.  Once we got to the end of the lines, we could go around. Hours this took. The lines are couple miles long. When you come up to them you don't know if you are in the middle or the end.  Just take a guess and turn to port or starboard. I got so sick of that crap. Oh well. You gotta be able to make a living.  I make it a point to not eat fish because then I can bitch about the fishing lines.  

Sun coming up as we left Isla Grande. Jen's blog has more photos of this island. 

We had about 40-50 dolphins swim with us for about 20 minutes. They are as common as squirrels to us now but I never tire of them at the bow. 

Our buddies sailing with us to Manzanillo. This is Unleashed. Hardin 42 foot ketch. Paul and Carol.

Sam reading during our passage. Beginner's Bible.  After finding it on a friend's boat, she has been going through it quite regularly. 

Sunset at sea. 8 miles from shore.  Motoring at 6 knots.  This passage was suppose to take 36 hours. One overnight. 

Wednesday afternoon about 3pm the wind started to build and finally topped out at 25 knots. Couple reefs in the main and small bit of jib had us doing about 6 knots or so.  The waves built and built.  Eventually the waves got big enough that we started to get wet. Ben and I went to the bow to get doused and got absolutely soaked by a couple of the waves. I'd say they were about 6 feet high or so. 

At 6pm we still had 8 miles to go and the wind was cranking. Appa started to fall off the wave fronts with a resounding crash that sent spray everywhere.  The waves slowed our forward progress a bit.  I'm having fun at this point but even I think that it would be good to be sitting at anchor, gentle rolling with the waves rather than bashing through them.   Jen was feeling ok but definitely was ready to get off the water.  

The swell was running with the wind waves and after hours of blowing the waves got big. 10 footers once in a while. Felt like the boat was getting mugged at times.  Occasionally we would drop off one wave and land in the tough.  The next wave would knock the snot out of us. Stop all forward momentum. Clobbered is the word I think of. Water up and over the cockpit.  Standing water on the decks. Guess who left the windows open. Me. I know better but was having fun sailing in this slop and forgot. Not till Ben went down the stairs and said "Water is everywhere!!" did I remember. 

Took most of today to clean that mess up. Ugh. I have a stupid brain at times. 

This breadbox is about 8 inches deep. This is after I bailed it for a bit then decided to take a picture. 

Ben is under her. A bit seasick. That yellow bit you see is part of his life jacket. I love that boy. Gets seasick, pukes, and states that he is ready for more.  Told me "better soak up this good feeling because the seasickness is sure to follow again.". Love my kids. 

Finally got into Manzanillo at 8pm. Sam was asked by Jen how she liked the trip up to Manzanillo. "Wow. That was traumatic" Sam said. 

 Fell asleep at 9pm and woke up at 9am. Carpel tunnel screaming at me woke me up. Wouldn't have it any other way. 

We anchored in front of Las Hadas resort again. Swimming in the pool right now. Typing this, my swimsuit is wet. 

Tomorrow we go to Bahia Santiago. Right around the corner. 

For this post I'll need the Wayback Machine

We are back in Manzanillo after an epic, majestic, traumatic trip back up the Mexican coast. Without any further adieu let's step into the machine and go back one week to when I wrote this following post.  Using the machine is just easier than rewriting this post. I meant to post it but life got in the way.

Thursday February 6th

We have been here a week or so and are ready to go.  Ziwha has been great and we have had a ton of fun here.  Wednesday Jen and I hosted four people aboard for Zihuatanejo sailfest which is an auction charity for the underprivileged children here. Let me tell you there are plenty of underprivileged here.  Dave and Betty from San Fran were aboard along with Dave and Diana from Sidney BC. Dave and Diana have have sailed before and own an Ericson 35. Prior that they had a race boat. David from SF has owned a couple of sailboats and definitely has the racing spirit.

The panga dropped them off around 1000 and at 1100 was the start of the sailboat race.  16 boats entered and it was a pursuit race. That means the slowest boats start first and the fastest start last.  The boats give their weight and then sail area and plug it into a program that assigns each boat a number. The higher the number, the slower the boat. Appa was assigned a rating of 85. Patricia Belle has something like 500. Lion's Paw had a 215 rating. A catamaran raced and was assigned a rating of 20.  Lion's Paw is a CMS 41 possibly designed by Bob Perry who generally draws fast boats.  I say possibly because there is or was a lawsuit surrounding this boat about the design.  So anywho, this ensures that we all, theorictally finish at the same time.  Appa was one of the last to start.  

Above is the Patricia Belle, a 80 foot wood schooner, from Seattle was first to start. They had a 20 minute head start.  They started at 1100. We started at 1127. In past years there has been no wind. Or very light.  This year we had 18 knots.  Patricia Belle reportedly saw 9 knots while going downwind. No one caught them.  We came in 3rd. I let the two Daves drive and we did 3 laps on the race course. 

Appa is the 3rd boat in the photo above from the left.  Look at all the cruising crap these boats are carrying!  This photo is in the west coast rag Latitude 38. 

Today we did the parade and had an additional 4 people onboard. Great time also.  Saw humpbacks breaching and had dolphins surfing with the boat as we charged toward Ixtapa. 

Max left us about 2 hours ago and we anxiously await his return in two weeks.  We will head north and pick him up in Barre de Navidad.  

Sam and Ben had a knock down drag out fight about who can play in Max's old room.  

We tried the famous "Street hamburgers" in the town square yesterday. 

They were delicious. One patty with a slice of cheese and ham along with fresh cut veggies. So good.  You can get a hot dog also. Wrapped in bacon. 

Couple of shots of the market.

Playa la Ropa beach in Zihuatanejo bay. 

The only way to refill the diesel in Zihuatanejo when you have an 8 foot draft boat.  Panga ships 30 gallons out to you.  You siphon. Tastes bad.  

Ben and Easton on the beach. 

The church I went into just prior to the start of the Seahawks game. No kidding. 

Just prior to the church we were here.