The sun sets behind the point at Mantanchen Bay. Do you wonder why we go cruising?

The coast line near of Mantanchen Bay early in the morning

The full moon rises over Persistence anchored in Mantanchen Bay just before sunset.

Adrian does all kinds of boat work in our marina. Here he installs a new wind indicator at the top of our mast.

Heading North

It’s only mid March but in this area cruisers start to look for weather windows so they can start the trek North. The dominant wind direction here from the fall to the spring is from the Northwest. Since going north up the west coast of Mexico really means going northwest, i.e. right into the wind, cruisers wait for periods of southerly winds. The summer winds are usually from the South. The forecast for last Tuesday thru Friday morning was for light winds with a southerly component.

So we took off Tuesday morning with a short 20-mile sail the first day, then a 55-mile trip the second day to Mantanchen Bay. Next a 140-mile overnight leg Thursday morning to Friday morning. We traveled with two other sailboats and met Basta!, the retired OBGYN who was next to us in Paradise Village, on the last long leg. We had a comfortable trip except for perhaps 8 hours when we pounded in to headwinds. We have pounded worse so it wasn’t bad. The new autopilot lived up to our expectations. The highlight was the night in Mantanchen Bay, which was beautiful. The jungle-covered mountains in places come right down to the ocean, ending in large cliffs. I will post pictures of the blazing red sun setting behind some palm trees. The next night we had a full moon until an hour before sunrise when clouds obscured the moon. We could see the glow from Mazatlan by then and a large cruise ship that was covered with bright white lights crossed in front of us as it entered the commercial harbor. I had an opportunity to do some neat navigation work to avoid the islands and other navigation hazards around Mazatlan.

The entrance to the Mazatlan marinas is considered a little tricky and at times it is closed due to sea conditions and dredging. I was concerned but we arrived at dawn with the wind calm, just 30 minutes before high tide and the seas almost flat. A helpful cruiser inside the marina gave us the current conditions in the entrance channel via radio. There is often a dredge working on the channel that closes much or the entire channel. The three days before Easter is huge holiday in Mexico. Inland Mexicans head for the beach and the costal towns are mobbed. The locals that live on the coast head inland to avoid the crowds. A long way of saying the dredge was not working on Good Friday and we had an easy entrance into the marina. As I write this Easter Sunday morning the harbor entrance is closed because of the sea conditions.

As is the custom, several cruisers took our lines as we docked. After introductions I told them I owed my bride a nice dinner because she handled her night watch like a pro. Could they recommend a restaurant for tonight? No they said, take her to dinner next week, the town is mobbed, you don’t really want to go into town.

It takes several hours to clean the boat up after a passage, wash the salt off the decks and stainless steel, rig her for dock power, cover the sails and do the required paper work to check into a new port and marina. Then its nap time, we don’t really sleep well the first night at sea.

If the cook stands watches she can’t cook so it’s PB&J, soup and munchies during night passages. We both wanted a nice meal before catching up on our sleep.

So about 3 PM we went up to the main road, we are several miles north of town, to catch a bus. As luck would have it a pickup truck with benches in the truck bed drove past. I waved it down and Rhea and I road into town in the back of a pick up truck. We shared the truck bed with two huge speakers, which the driver thankfully shut off.

Downtown looked like Ft. Lauderdale during spring break. Wall to wall young adults in swimsuits drinking as they walked the street. We found a nice restaurant and had a good meal. After a little shopping we took an open air taxi (pulmonias), they look like a golf cart or a VW bug with the roof cut off and a couple of rows of bench seats on the back, to the marina. We were in bed by 7:30 and didn’t wake up until dawn.

Saturday night is of course date night, so along with three other boats (Persistence, Daneli and Basta!), we all came up from Puerto Vallarta at the same time, we went into town. We took a bus. The traffic was so bad that we could have walked faster. Some of the highlights were: a Cadillac Escalade with three young ladies on the roof; young ladies sitting on car or truck door windows signing or yelling I couldn’t tell the difference; not once but twice a car in front of us stopped so the driver could get into the trunk to refresh his beer supply.

We had a nice dinner and a couple of drinks. Our kids won’t believe it, but six of us rode home in the back of a pickup truck sitting next to two huge blearing speakers doing the YMCA song, rocking the truck and yelling at the crowds.

Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore. The cruising life can be a lot of fun.

Our future intentions are to cross over to the Baja peninsula from here then up the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez to the latitude of San Carlos. Then cross the Sea again to San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico, then put the boat, “on the hard” for the summer. We intend to arrive in San Carlos prior to May 1^st give or take a week or two. We will then go into our “dirt dweller” mode for six months.

Short term it doesn’t look like we will have a weather window for the crossing until next weekend.

The really big news is that Good Friday our son Joe told us his lovely wife is pregnant. That will be two for them and our fourth grandchild. Way to go Joe and Dana! You make us extremely happy.

We welcome any questions, comments or special request. Send emails to:

rheastrebig@hotmail.com

Enjoying Paradise

Using experience learned from our bus trip home we were able to take a first class bus most of the way back to Puerto Vallarta so we had a more comfortable, quicker trip back.

Once back at Paradise Marina, we found Vagari in good shape and quickly fell into the resort living mode. The marina/ hotel where we are staying sponsors an international sailboat regatta. We were able to crew on one of the participants for the 3 days of racing. We were on a 30 plus year old 44’ Kelly Peterson that weights 37,000 pounds. We had a lot of fun and I was able to build up my strength and stamina. We finished 4th in our class of seven. There were a couple of boats that we beat or lost to right at the finish. After about 3 hours of racing we would cross the finish line less than a minute before or after the closest boat in our class.

Before moving from San Diego I purchased a modem that will let me send and receive emails from Vagari using the Ham radio. For a year I never even tried to install the system. I did install it at home in Saddlebrooke last summer but never got it working. There is an expert who is a former cruiser living here. He had it up and running in no time and showed me how to it worked. So Vagari can now send and receive text only emails. My first email went at a blazing 137 bits per second. Slow for sure but it’s nice to be in contact with family and friends when we are at sea or in remote anchorages.

We both came down with a case of “tourista” Tuesday evening. Rhea was on the road to recovery in a day Stan took a little longer since he had the double ender assortment.

A word about diversity. That word has become a political buzz- word but Vagari is in the middle of diversity. On our starboard side is the 32’ or 34’ sailing vessel “Darhma”. I don’t know what make or model it is but it is a wreck. The decks are covered with junk; tarps are blowing in the breeze. The owner is Susan from the bay area. Susan used to be a he before she became a she. Because it would cost so much to clean her up I wouldn’t take it if it were given to me.

To port is a top of the line sailboat that is a 37’or 38’ eight year old that is in pristine condition owned by a retired OBGYN physician. It’s for sale for $185,000.

Both of these people are pleasant interesting neighbors.

A Break in Our Plans

I was enjoying a pleasant bicycle ride the Saturday morning the Coleman family was arriving for a visit when I crashed and broke my shoulder (clavicle).

Rhea and I took a bus to the hospital. An MD who was an Orthopedic and Trauma specialists made the diagnosis after reviewing 6 X Rays. He put a brace and sling on, gave me ten days of medication after explaining the course of treatment and telling me what to expect. The total cost was 2,070 pesos or just under $185. This took 90 minutes. We took a taxi back to Vagari.

We had a great visit with our family and believe we were able to completely spoil our grandchildren. I had to take a pass on some of the activities and we weren’t able to take Vagari sailing but we still had a very enjoyable visit.

A couple of days after the Coleman’s returned to real world I had my first follow up visit with the doctor. He tightened up the brace and said I could travel as long as I could take the discomfort. He told me to get another X Ray 3 weeks from the date of the injury.

We decided to go home and take our planned break to do our taxes in February instead of March. Living on a sailboat even when docked is more physically demanding than living at home.

We took a bus to the town where our truck was in storage and then drove home the next day. The bus ride was just over 25 hours. That is a story in itself.

The doctor in Tucson said that he would have treated me just like the Mexican doctor after reviewing the X-rays from Mexico. He prescribed some really great pain medication so my stay at home has been comfortable.

After five weeks in Saddlebrooke our taxes are filed, I am almost as good as new and we are looking forward to returning to our cruising lifestyle. We will leave March 7^th for Puerto Vallarta.

Our plan is to cruise until early May.

Not Sailing

You may think that cruising is “roughing it”. There is some truth to that thinking. Long passages with just two people to stand watches can get tiring and become a drag. We don’t have hot water for bathing in the shower. In fact we have never used our onboard shower. When at sea we shower on deck when no boats are around or at night. We heat the water using the sun. The marinas have showers.

On the other hand, the marina we are in now is attached to a very luxurious resort. The swimming pools are stunning with large slides, islands, bridges and gorgeous views. They have a small zoo. You will often see ostrich and peacocks walking the magnificently landscaped grounds. The lap pool’s water is kept cool, which of course is what the distance swimmers like. The restaurants offer exotic menus with prices to match. They have a club for the cruisers with great Internet access and reasonable long distance telephone access; US satellite TV and relatively cheap drinks and food. The marina runs seminars for cruisers that are going to the South Seas and another set for those going thru the ditch. Dock parties are held every week or so. They also sponsor sailboat races and regattas. The marina is spotless.

Vagari could use some maintenance but we have a hard time getting to it because we have to go the pool every afternoon to visit with the other cruisers. In the cool of the morning we really enjoy exploring the area on our bicycle. Then we have to decide what we are going to do for dinner.

So we are not sailing for a while, waiting for the Coleman family to visit. We are excited waiting for our kids and grand children. In the meantime we are enjoying the good life.

Cruising [krooz ing] verb- present participle (1) Repairing your boat in exotic anchorages

The outboard motor saga continues. The seller told me that the fuel shut off value leaked and should be replaced. I played with it in La Paz and thought I had it working. It may have worked when tied to a nice stable dock but the rigors movement of the open sea caused it to leak again. In PV the only fuel valve I could get was for a different brand outboard. I simple modification to that shut off value and it now works.

We used the outboard every day when anchored. One beautiful day, when anchored off La Cruz Huanacaxtle the motor worked fine but the dinghy didn’t move. The shear pin that connects the drive shaft to the prop broke. I took it apart and saw that a wire had been used as a shear pin. I made my own wire shear pin and it lasted for a couple of minutes. As luck would have it was marked day in La Cruise Huanacaxtle. So we went to the market area. I was able to purchase a used long shaft screwdriver with the appropriate size shaft for 10 pesos. Back to the Vagari machine shop (vice grips, hacksaw and file). We had a shear pin and several spares in a few minutes. The outboard has been working great since then.

We were in exotic anchorages when we made these repairs.