Las Hadas resort in Manzanillo

We left Barre Navidad yesterday and had a great sail south (and east) to Manzanillo. This is our final stop before Zihuatanejo. 

The marina is at the bottom of the picture and you have to Mediterranean moor there.  We choose to anchor for free. 

We watched the sunset while sailing into this bay and dropped the hook.  No bugs and a great refreshing wind made for a beautiful night. We all slept great. 

This morning we got the motor on the dinghy and putted into the marina and are currently poolside enjoying the hotels anemities. 

Max is finishing up his schoolwork for his eventual trip to Seattle for his midterms. Ben, Sam and myself all are swimming. 

The plan is to stay here till thursday or Friday and the do an overnight sail down to Zihuatanejo. Get into Zihuatanejo before the weekend and get a nice spot to anchor.  I watched the Seahawks get defeated in either the Super Bowl or a championship game back in 2005 or something in Zihuatanejo.  Now they are back in the Super Bowl and I am going to watch the game down here again.  This time without Jason so maybe they will win.  After super Sunday wear e going to be doing sailfest in ziwha.  Max flies home on the 7th and Jen and I will get the boat back up to the Manzanillo area and explore for 2 weeks while Max takes his finals and see a couple of friends.  There is a possibility that our good friend Jeremy will make it down to Zihuatanejo.  He might be able to sail with us up the coast for a bit.  Max will fly into Manzanillo after 2 weeks so our forward cabin will be free.  Could work out great.  

Bahia Chamela

We left PV, hell I can't remember!  Week ago?  Anyway we left under sunny skies and no wind. Motored for about 3 hours out of Banderas  Bay and once around Cabo Corrientes, the wind picked up and we set sail.  The Rainbow Warrior went by us under sail. 

After a great couple hours sailing we arrived in Ipala. The cruising guides don't have much nice to say about this place but we loved it!  We stayed two nights. Warm water but not clear.

That is good old Sand Dollar swinging off the anchor at Ipala. So peaceful there.

We left after two days and as we were raising the anchor, a whale swam into the tiny bay.  No pictures. 

Here is the rope swing I made off the spinnaker pole. Ben and the kids from Sand Dollar loved it.

Blew out my dinghy wheel. And my flip flop!  Surf landing in the dinghy can be treacherous. We came into the beach at Chamela and got caught by a huge rolling surf.  It swamped the dinghy and took Sam's pants off!  We laughed and laughed. We even had a fish in the dinghy there was so much water!  Jen has the pictures.

Appa swinging around out in Bahia Chamela. 

Jumping in the 82 degree water.  You can see about 30 feet underwater.  Anchor and chain clearly visible from the boat in 20 feet.  Not the Caribbean but it is nice.

Appa, Sand Dollar,  Unleashed and unknown boat right off isle Pajarea in Bahia Chamela. 

Watched the Seahawks last night in a RV trailer park on the beach. Pretty funny comparing notes with the camper guys. They have about the same types of problems. 

Gotta go.  My hour of internet here at the cafe is up. 

More later. 

Top Ten Sam quotes

I was walking down the street in Barre Navidad and started to laugh about something Samey said to Max recently.  I decided to put down my favorite Samey sayings...

My top ten Samey quotes!!!!

10.  "I do more!"

9.  "My do it!"

8.  While hiding from Max under the table, "You don't know where I am because you don't know where I've been!"

7.  When asked if she can swim back to the boat, "Indeed I can."

6.  While fighting with Ben on the drive down to meet Appa in San Francisco "Does not compute Ben!  DOES NOT COMPUTE!!!"

5.  After Max tries to grab Sam as they are chasing each other "Look in your hands Maxey!  They are empty!!" 

4.  "Get in my belly!" complete with Scottish brogue. She picked this up from Max who got it from the movie Austin Powers. 

3.  "Actually, probably at the boat." after being told I was at work.  She was one year old at the time.

2.  "That's a confident wolf!" after seeing the University of Washington's husky dog mascot. 

And the number one Samey quote

1. "Get me an apple stupid!" to Max while watching a movie in the forward bunk whilst on Appa. She got in trouble for this but it has become part of our lexicon but only when she isn't around.

Leaving for Manzanillo Monday.  Sea Otter arrived yesterday and another kid boat, Antipodes, is pulling in now.  Party on A dock!!!!!!!

Barra Navidad

This is where we are. 

Wyndham Resorts in Barre Navidad.  60¢ a foot for baja haha race participants. 3 pools and golf course etc. I don't golf.  Mark Twain said "Golf is a good walk ruined."

This is what we did on the way to Navidad.  Everyone reading. I just finished "High Fidelity". Loved it.

One of the more pleasant aspects of cruising is the kids are reading more. Ben is devouring books and Max has really started to read also.  Max is reading Interview with a Vampire and Ben is reading The Lost Hero of the Percy Jackson series.  I have recently finished The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (I know, great relaxing book eh?), The Bourne Identity,  In the Garden of Beasts (about the US ambassador in Nazi German during the thirties), A Night to Remember, Handling Storms at Sea, Titanic First Accounts, The Twelve by Justin Cronin, Log of the Sea of Cortez by Steinbeck, a bunch of Jack Reacher novels and some others that don't came to mind.  

Boat is holding up well and we are having her waxed tomorrow.  I did it once in La Cruz and almost erupted into flames. So bloody hot!  

Watermaker is chugging along and really <knock wood> the boat is doing good.  Lots of preventitive maintenance but nothing more than what I expected.  

Let's see.  Last post had us in Chamela after the Seahawks victory. Monday, Max went out fishing with one of the guys we met in the rv park.  He caught a small dorado and we made sandwiches out of it. Yum!  Lots of swimming and playing in the anchorage and on the beach also.  

Tuesday Max went out again this time with our buddy Randy who is on his 55' steel trawler Antipodes. They took the Zodiac out and fished for three hours or so.  Caught a barracuda. 

We left for the next anchorage down which was Parasio around noon or so.  Parasio is about 8 miles south of Chamela. 

Beautiful anchorage but rolly as hell. We dropped the anchor in 11' of water on a sand bottom. Just gorgeous water. Warm clear. 

There is Sam and Sonia on the tiny beach off our boats.  The three boats pictured above have a combined total of 8 kids.  They played for hours on this beach. Just off to the left is great snorkeling. 

Easton, Ben and Nate swimming. 

Ben, Easton and Sam

JC of Sand Dollar.  Nicest guy you can hope to know. 

Max and Sam on our trip down from Parasio to Barre Navidad.  

Just before the wind kicked in and we started sailing, Max and Sam watching My Pretty Pony. No joke. 

Parasio was nice and we had another wind "event".  West wind started blowing about 25 knots or so and the anchorage turned rocky and rolly.  Lasted about 3 hours and then we had to sleep in the left over slop and the normal swell that runs through here.  Luckily we played so hard during the day that sleep was easy.  

Wednesday we travelled south to Barre Navidad which was about 30 miles. Got to sail about the last third of it.  

In the marina now and loving the pool. 

Went to town this morning and checked in with the port captain.  Painless and fast.  

Some town shots

Thursday market

Shopping for fruit and veggies

This is the only mayo that we can find. Has lime in it.  I love it so far.  

Trying to plan out the next part of our trip south. We might just bomb down the coast and hit Zihuatanejo right away or bounce down the coast. Trying to make Sailfest down there and we need to make sure that we have room in the anchorage for us. Sailfest is a 4 day event that supports the idengious Indians down here that don't speak Spanish and yet want to go to school. This festival raises money for it. Very worthwhile we are told. 

More later....

The cost of owning a boat

We did the haul out yesterday to swap out the prop.  I have been nervous about this since I knew that we had to do it.  If I could turn back time, I would have done this job in Seattle but at the time the prop wasn't in the shape it is in now so hindsight and all that. The haulout was scheduled for 1300 and they fired up the lift at 1315.  Not bad for Mexico.  By 1330, Appa was hanging in the slings and the workers were swarming over her.  They have scales on these lifts and Appa weighed in at 16 tons.  That's about 32,000 pounds.  Dry weight on the boat is 28,000 pounds.  We got some stuff on her, eh?  Notice the towels still hanging on the lifelines.  

Barnacles are everywhere on her bottom.  Not too impressed with the bottom paint but then the word around town is that almost no matter what you use, the bottom is going to get fouled.  The water is so warm and rich in life that it is inevitable.  Just have to stay on top of it.  Of course having the boat just sitting in the marina for a couple weeks with the occasional day sail will also doesn't help keep the bottom clean.  

So here is the problem.  See the taller coupling?  That is the new one.  It is suppose to be the same size as the one on the left.  The old owner had the prop shaft changed out and switched to SAE.  We are turning 1 3/8" prop shaft.  The old one was metric.  The old owner wasn't sure what the taper was, metric or standard.  Since the shaft is now standard I assumed the taper would be standard.

That about says it.

Ah hell.  What a waste of time and money.  I could have been on the beach with my wonderful wife and kinda weird kids.
So here is what I think the old owner did.  He got tired of trying to find or couldn't find a cutlass bearing that would fit his metric shaft as the boat was built in France.  But he already had a very expensive MaxProp on the metric shaft.  So he had a new shaft made and then had the tapered end made to fit the old prop.  So SAE shaft and metric taper.  Of course he forgot that part of it or I didn't ask him the right questions.  Either way, there was no way to know till I took the old one off.  PYI who makes MaxProp wasn't much of a help as they didn't have any record of the old owner buying the prop years back.  Maybe not their fault but it sure would have been nice if they could have pulled up the old receipt and said, "Yep, metric taper on this prop."  Grrrrrr.
My good buddy JC stopped by while we were in the throes of this stuff.  The voice of reason as it were.  I was so frustrated I was going to cut the slings and be done with it.  In the end, we just put the old one on and pumped it full of grease and Max will take the new back to the Seattle and exchange it for the right one.  JC took detailed measurements and that should help PYI figure out the mess that is my prop shaft.  And here I was worried about pitching the new prop correctly.  When Max comes back, we will be heading back to Puerto Vallarta in March for the Banderas Bay Regatta and I might haul the boat yet again and put the new prop on.
That is another thing.  The old owner told me that Appa has a 19" prop and he always thought that it was too small and should have gotten a 20" prop.  So I ordered the 20" prop.  Turns out that Appa had the 20" prop all along.  All the old paperwork that came with the boat from PYI shows adjustments for a 19" prop.  It is all wrong.  The old prop is a 20" prop.  No wonder I had to adjust the pitch soon after buying the boat.
As frustrating as this all is, I am thankful for my wife who was very understanding and didn't make me feel stupider than I already felt.

If you are reading this Jen, high five!  Go team Appa!!

So the boat is sitting in her slip and we are next to JC and Shauna on Sand Dollar and across from us is Sea Otter who are back from Bend OR.  Just down the dock are Winterhawk and Unleashed.  All of whom we have done the HaHa with.
Couple days left in La Cruz and we are outta here.  Heading south, baby!

Just sitting here in Puerto Vallarta

The tequila place we toured back in December. 

Ilse and Pete arrived on the 24th of December bearing almost all the gifts of Christmas upto and including Appa's new feathering propellor. Luckily they did not get stopped by customs upon their arrival in PV. 

The above photo is Sammy helping to pump out the dinghy after the torrential rains that we had for most of Pete and Ilse's visit.  Last time I seen it rain that hard was in Miami. It just poured for hours. We had to empty the dinghy a couple times. 

Couple days after mom left the skies cleared and it got nice again. We did a tour of the set of Predator and did the multiple zip lines that they had there.  One was 1,200 meters long. You could hit 50 mph. Max was not allowed to do the biggest line as they said he would not be able to stop and could hit speeds of 90.  The ziplines crisscross a river that has a restaurant along it and was the scene of the CIA camp in the movie.  After zipping we swam in the crystal clear fresh river and small waterfall.  It was great. After that we had a nice sleepy bus ride home.  

Santa got Ben a new boogey board and he has been perfecting his catching of the waves ever since.  I am amazed at the difference between a cheap board and Ben's board. So much easier to catch waves with a stiff slick board.  We also are borrowing a 6 foot surf board and are slowly working up to use that.  

Couple days ago the kids along with Jen and Max went swimming with dolphins. Even Sam got to ride.  See Jen's blog for all that action.  

I went along but did no stinking dolphins!  The dolphin adventure park is inside a pretty big waterpark. The rides are about as scary as I've been on in a water park.  One ride is called the flush and you climb up about 200' or so and get launched down this tube into the bowl. Round and round you go till you hit the center and drop into a 5' deep pool.  Really fun. Hard on the body though. 

Not sure who that is in the photo. 

The other rides were equally as fun.  Great day.  We really enjoyed our stay at Paradise Village and will be back in March for the Banderas Bay Regatta.  

The boat gets hauled out tomorrow at 1300 to change out our propellor. My only worry is getting the pitch of the prop right.  

We have been spending the night at anchor now for the past three nights and it has been remarkably calm at night.  Hardly any rolling.  Our day usually starts like this:

Wake up to the sun and the kids more or less wake at the same time.  Call it 0745 or so.  

Jen starts breakfast and maybe sometimes I do.  

The radio net is on at 0830 and it has the marine forecast, tides, lost and found, service needed and other stuff. That is done by 0900 or so.  

There is always something that needs to be done on Appa and this morning I started up the motor and ran the watermaker.  The alternator belt started squealing which was odd because I just tightened it 2 days when changing oil on the motor.  I shut down everything and inspected the belt.  It looked ok but hasn't been changed since Seattle so maybe it is time.  I changed it out and then tightened the watermaker belt also.  Fired it all back up and no squeal. Exciting eh?  Such is life on a boat.  Of course I had to take over more than half the boat to get this job done.  Tools live in one place and the problem is another place and I need room for all the tools after taking them out of their storage place.  

Anyway, Sam and I got into the dinghy to visit friends while Jen and the kids got down to schoolwork.  I do math with Ben and he is ahead now so he and I had the day off from math.  Max is in review mode and Jen is helping him with English and we all know that is for the best. 

Yesterday almost the same thing except Sam and I went Home Depot and the Mega grocery along with hitting the big marine store here.  We left the boat at 0930 and got back at 1730.  It took all day.  Multiple buses and searching for parts eat up a lot of time.  

Sam and I went with our good buddy JC as he needed some parts also.  We stopped for lunch at Sofa King Good.  Not kidding that is the name.  Say it fast and aloud to get the full effect.  Crazy eh?  Nice place really.  Had a sign over the bar.  

Ha!

So the boat is holding up well and we are doing the same.  More or less.  I think Jen and I are ready to get the hell out of here and head south to Zihuatanejo. Our buddies Sea Otter are coming home today and we are going to meet them on their boat and maybe grab a bite to eat.  Once they get their boat back online and settled in, we are leaving.  Friday I think. Providing the prop gets all fixed.  

It surprises me how many people down here are just not prepared.  I have my prop issue but our anchor setup is set, engine and watermaker all ok (touch wood), shade, etc.  We are doing ok. Talked with others throughout our stay and they have ordered anchors from the states and waiting 5 WEEKS for them to come through customs.  Water makers are getting installed down here and again, waiting for the part to arrive.  On and on it goes.  How in the hell can you come down the coast and then figure out that your anchoring setup is suspect?  Same with sails.  And electronics. And charts. And dinghies. My goodness the people giving their money away to the inflatable repair guy down here and then when that fails they have to buy a new one.  Very pricey.  Had a guy ask my friend Eric if he knew someone that could change his oil for him on his sailboat!  Where is the self reliance?  

Alright.  I gotta go.  More later....

JAFO

This is an old blog that never got entered.  The date of the tour was the 28th of December. 

Ever see the movie Blue Thunder? There is an acronym in it.  JAFO. That's what I was today.  Hell, maybe everyday.  We took a tour of "old" Puerto Vallarta today courtesy of mom and Z. 

This is the river that flows to the ocean and the spaniards founded the town at the mouth of this river.  The river is called Cuale. 

Freddy was our tour guide and he was very fun and interesting.  

Couple more photos...

"Roaring" like a tiger.

Nativity scene in the church. Samey wanted to know about the lambs and if their mamas where helping them.

The church all decked out for a wedding.  According to Freddy, the bride was late.  

Again per Freddy, this church was built by the people of PV. No architect, engineers, planners were used.  They just built this sucker in 1895 and prayed that it holds up.  So far, so good.

Painted on a wall in the alley that leads to the ocean.  Amazing I think.  Graffiti others think. 

The "Arches" of Puerto Vallarta. You can find examples of arches littered throughout the town.  PV was originally named after these pinnacles and the arches.  

We finished the tour with dinner and a tequila tasting.  Expensive stuff.  Good fun though.