Barra de Navidad (December 18)

Me and Dan on Che Bella (thanks Larry and Sherry for the picture!)

As we sailed toward the bay enclosing Barra de Navidad, I remembered back to February of this year, when I was sitting on the beach of this bay, looking out at the sailboats going by. I thought, “I really want to be on one of those boats.” And a little less than a year later, I was wearing a big grin as that dream was realized.

View from the beach in Melaque

The entrance to the channel was a little bouncy, as the depth decreased dramatically there.

As we approached the marina, we were scanning for the right dock, when we realized that we didn't have dock lines or fenders ready. After anchoring for two weeks, we had kind of forgotten about those things. I suggested we do a 360 turn to give us some time to get ready. We did one, and were doing another when Dan asked me to take the wheel. I noticed it wasn't coming around into the wind very well, and that the depth was getting shallow... too shallow. By the time I thought to throw it into reverse, it was too late. We'd run aground and were stuck in the sand. Fortunately, we didn't have to do a messy kedging off maneuver with the anchor. Dan called someone he knew anchored in the lagoon, and they came in their dingy to push our bow around, and we were able to back out then.

I'd never ran aground before, and if it had been earlier in the trip I would have been mortified. But Dan didn't give me a hard time about it at all. In fact, he had mentioned a couple days before that I'd been coming up with a lot of good ideas, and was generally right. Running aground, he said, was just proof to him that I wasn't superwoman. Which is a pretty nice thing to say to someone who just got your boat stuck on a sandbar with a falling tide.

Anyway... the last half mile was a doozy, but the accomodations at the Marina attached to the Grand Bay Hotel made up for it. A beautiful place, with lush grounds, several pools, and hammocks on the beach, it was a comfortable end to a long trip.

Tenacatita (December 16)

Another beautiful little bay on the coast -- actually two bays, an inner and outer. Spent one night at the outer bay at a beautiful anchorage, next to “the aquarium,” where there’s great snorkeling.

The fish in the middle was my favorite. He looked a little better in real life. The ones on the right were part of a big, bold school that I was swam through. Fish are cool.

Moved to the inner bay the next day, and took the dingy on a “Adventure Dan’s Jungle Tour” up the river through the mangrove trees.

Adventure Dan

Saw some beautiful birds, and we woke up what looked like a very small raccoon taking a nap in the branches over the river.

Here I am telling Dan where the deep part of the channel is, so we don't get stuck.

Fishing (December 15)

Started off from Ipala, and the wind picked up strength early in the day, so that by 9 am, the seas were up to 8 feet. I expected the wind would continue to increase through the day, as it usually did, and that things would soon get… interesting. But it didn’t. By the time Dan came up from listening to the radio at 10, the wind and waves had dies down, and we had to turn on the engine.

I asked Dan if we could do some fishing, to break up the monotony of the afternoon. He didn’t know much about fishing, and I didn’t know anything, but he said sure, and went to get some lures and swivels and lines and such. He tied a big ugly blue feathery thing to a thick black line and sent it overboard, where it skipped along behind us. We slowed the engine so it would sink a bit, and decided we’d troll for a half hour and then kick the RPMs back up. Neither of us was very optimistic.

But I’ve found pessimism to be the best bait, and a mackerel soon hit the line. Actually, he was about 5 minutes late, but we weren’t prompt about throwing in the towel. From this experience, I'm inferring that fish respond well to deadines, though like most things in Mexico, they run a little late. It was a good looking fish, it didn’t look all that big until we tried to it fit in the bucket and a large part of it stuck out. Dan hit him in the head with the hammer previously used to coax the started into working (such a useful tool!), and cut off his head before I could get a picture. The mackerel was very tasty filleted and sauted with garlic and butter for dinner that night, and the next night as the starring ingredient in fish tacos.

Killing fish is messy. Note the hammer of death at the right.

Cabo Corrientes (December 14)

Sunrise, leaving the Bay of Banderas


Cabo Corrientes, one of the Great Capes of the World… or at least one of the capes of some minor significance on the North American continent. Its supposed to be comparable to Point Conception in California. We rounded it without incident, leaving Puerto Vallarta and the Bay of Banderas behind. Winds were 15-20 knots, following seas 4-5 feet. Boat speed averaged 5-6 knots. A cakewalk. Until we went to jibe and didn’t haul in the mainsheet enough before taking the stern through the wind. One of the quirks of this boat is that it has a very long boom. During this maneuver, the boom raised up and got stuck on the backstay (the wire that keeps the mast from falling forward). Hmm… that’s not right… we both stayed calm as I took the helm off autopilot and fired up the engine to turn into the wind. Dan grabbed the boathook to snag the boom and pull it down to get around the backstay. It snapped free of the backstay and then quickly snagged on the radio antenna wire. Ooooh… THAT’S not good either… but he pulled it off that also. And nothing broke, which was a real bonus! We were more careful during our next jibe, and everything went fine. The infamous Cabo Corrientes -- Cape of the Currents

The next anchorage was called Ipala. I wouldn't call it a town, because that would imply some ammenities, but there were a few houses. We were shocked at how small the anchorage is, and didn’t believe we were looking at it until we had the suspicion raised by seeing a couple of cruisers anchored there was corroborated by the GPS reading. Ok, I guess it is that little nitch in the rocky cliff… not that big sandy area further east… huh.
Ipala -- All of it
The weather was warming up, like its supposed to do south of the Bay of Banderas. There was a hot wind blowing off the surrounding rocky hills covered in desert-like vegetation. But the water was warm (78 F) and I went for a nice swim, though didn‘t see much in the way of interesting sea life, the vis was only about 10 feet. This was one of our more interesting anchoring jobs. After we dropped the hook, Dan noticed that we were too close to a big very hard looking rock covered by about 3 feet of water. We came so close to it while re-anchoring that I could almost hear the cruch against the hull. Gulp. But all was fine. Gotta pay more attention to odd features on the water surface...

Sitting on deck drying in the sun after a swim, listening to Johnny Cash and sipping a beer (note: this scene would have been improved if the beer had been something other than a Moosehead light -- not my purchase), watching the waves crash over the rocky shore, I got to thinking that Ipala grows on you. Apparently cruisers are encouraged to bring school supplies for the local kids, who otherwise have to make an 8 hour journey inland on a rutted dirt track for such things.
Dan gave me a couple of pats on the back that night. First, for talking the price of lobster down from $220 to $150 (pesos) at the restaurant the night before, and second for doing well during that day’s (mis)adventures. Which was nice… I always like to get an attagirl.

We broke into a new box of oreos at Ipala. One side of the cookie sandwich is the traditional chocolate, and the other side is vanilla. So simple. So good. They’re my new favorite.

The most interesting sea life I’ve spied so far has been turtles. I was idly looking toward shore, and noticed something odd in the water not far from the boat… a plastic bag maybe? Then it poked his head up to take a breath, and I could see it was a sea turtle swimming south. I was delighted, never having seen one while sailing. There is life out there! I saw another one later that afternoon. I’ve also seen a few dolphins, much smaller than the ones I’ve seen further north. I’ve heard reports from other cruisers of humpback whales and one lucky boat saw a blue whale breach near them. Very cool. Even cooler was the boat who was sailing along at about a knot (e.g. a slow walk), when a pod of dolphins started playing near the boat. The boat was going slow enough that they both jumped in to have a swim with the dolphins. They said it was really cool. Yeah. So, that’s my new goal. Its good to have goals.

Am happy to hear that “intelligent design” was declared “not science” by the courts.

The Dingy

A bit about everyday life on the boat… Getting Ashore. To get ashore from the boat at anchor to enjoy the liquid delights at the palapa or buy some avocados or get to the lavanderia (laundry mat) or internet cafe or whatever you’re going to do, you have to take a dingy. Dan’s dingy is a Port-a-bote, which is made of spaced aged materials designed by an aeronautical engineer (yes, really) which folds for storage. He’s very proud of it, and talks with other port-a-bote owners about how great they are. Most other folks have an inflatable with a hard bottom. Some mount wheels on the back, which we didn't have and which I really didn’t see the point of at first.

To make things simple, Dan stores the port-a-bote fully assembled and hanging off the back of the boat, on the davits (kind of a frame that holds the dingy). To launch the dingy, I’d lower it into the water from pulleys, Dan would hop in and move it forward a bit. Then I’d unclamp the 3.5 hp outboard engine from the railing, pick it up and over the railing and hand it down to Dan in the dingy, taking care not to drop it in the water. He’d attach it to the dingy, I’d hop in, and we’d take off (rather slowly, as the port-a-bote won’t plane) for shore. As we approached the beach, and it would start to get shallow, Dan would rev the engine for a last burst of speed, and then kill the engine and raise it up so it wouldn’t drag in the sand. Then I’d jump out, grab the rope at the front and drag it up to the beach. Fortunately, there wasn’t much surf at any of the places we’d landed. We needed some practice at timing the landing maneuver with the wave sets. Sometimes Dan would kill the engine a little soon, and a the dingy would start to turn sideways to an incoming wave. So then I’d jump out in a panic, and the wave would push the dingy into me as I’m getting my shorts wetter than I was hoping I would, much to the amusement of spectators on shore. But we never flipped, though I was nervous after we talked to someone at Chamela who had flipped theirs.

Anyway, dingy landing was complicated at La Cruz by a couple of things. First, the little enclosed harbor area where you had to land also happened to be near where the sewer outfall was located. Gross. So I wasn’t really excited about hopping out into that. Second, it wasn’t a beach, it was a single narrow gravel ramp crammed between beached fishing boats that everyone, including fishing boats used. So it wasn’t enough to just drag the dingy a little bit up to clear the high water mark, we had to drag it up past the ramp and over to the side. Dan's on the left there, washing the sand off his feet after dragging our dingy off the ramp. The 'ramp' is the area between Dan and those kids with the fishing pangas (that's what they call those type of boats down here). That fishing boat in the background isn't coming in or going out, its just sitting in the way, and continued to do so for the three days we were there. This is where wheels would have been useful. Other dingies have wheels mounted on legs that fold up when the boat is in the water, and can be extended below the boat when it gets close to shore, so that you can easily roll the boat up the beach. Anyway, the last other about this place that was weird was the bottom contours of this harbor-like-area. It got really shallow in the center. In the picture above, you can see the end of the breakwater which is where we'd be aiming for when we got back in the dingy to get back to the boat. Looks like a straight shot, but it isn't, because of the shallow depth. Instead you have to veer way off to the left and creep around the edge. We cut it a bit close once and hit the 55-gallon drum that was partially submerged, supposedly marking some obstacle (at least when it isn’t submerged). The swell had picked up while we were ashore one day, and there were waves breaking in about three different directions near the ramp. Interesting… but my worst fears of flipping in this foul water were not realized, and we got back to the boat without incident.

Not everyone shared my disdain for this area. One day there were a couple of people riding the waves in kayaks. This pic shows one guy after he flipped. Ick.

La Cruz was otherwise a nice spot. Had a few places that have live music by gringos. Here's a couple of them...

Average Day on Che Bella

The average day on Che Bella was pretty nice. We would generally get up around dawn, pull up the anchor and start motoring. If there was a bit of breeze, we'd put a sail up, too. I'd have breakfast while letting the autohelm steer and Dan would listen to the radio nets on and off until 9 am or so. The radio nets are kind of neat, they're designated times and frequencies that cruisers can tune in their VHF or SSB radios, to hear the weather forecast, who else is around, where they're going, if someone needs something, someone else will generally click in and tell them where they might find it, and near towns, they'll have announcements of parties.



Dan said that making lunch on Che Bella is a “blue job” on Che Bella, so he would take care of that. It usually consisted of PB&J and a bit of fruit (half an apple or an avocado with salt and pepper). When the wind and seas pick up, I'd steer some, because I think its fun. But, for most of the day we'd let the autopilot steer, while reading, catnapping or looking at the passing shoreline. We'd check now and then that we were still going the direction we wanted to go, weren't headed for rocks, etc. We passed amazingly long stretches of EMPTY white sandy beach, backed by palm trees then hills then mountains. An occasional bit of experimental architecture of a coastal getaway for unimaginably wealthy.

We always tried to get to the next anchorage before sunset (around 6 pm during these short winter days). Dropping the anchor sometimes got interesting. After dropping the anchor, it's time for a Corona, maybe a little guacamole, and maybe a swim. Dan was tired of the music he'd been listening to for the last few months, and at least pretended to like Beck, Loretta Lynn, Weezer, the Strokes, Cake, and a few others from my CD collection. I'd generally whip up something for dinner, which we'd eat in the cockpit watching the sunset, or in the salon down below if it was dark by then. Although it doesn't sound like an exhausting day, I was generally sacked out in my bunk by 9 pm or so.

Chacala (December 10)

We attempted to get an early start off I Isabella to San Blas ~ 40 miles away on the mainland. However, the engine starter decided that it didn’t really like being hit with a hammer, and wasn’t going to be starting. Dan had another starter, and swapped it out in less than an hour. Which, we both agreed was a pretty quick fix. Had a 25 knot breeze from an unexpected direction, that had us beating along with a double reef that afternoon. Wooohooo! We avoided bites from the infamous no-see-ums of San Blas, anchoring far enough from the shore in Mantanchen Bay just south of the city.

Dan is on a bit of a schedule and we can’t linger too long anywhere so that we can make sure he meets his daughter in Barra on the 18th. Our next destination, Chacala, is supposed to be a nice little coastal stop. In order to spend some quality time under the palapas, I requested we leave Mantanchen Bay early the next morning to get into Chacala early enough in the afternoon to enjoy it. Dan though that was fine, and in fact liked the place so much we stayed two nights.
The cruisers (that’s what the sail boaters call themselves) were pretty friendly in Chacala. Ray on "Adios" came out in his dingy to help us with our stern anchor. Others organized bocce ball and Mexican train domino games in the afternoons. There were probably 20 of us sipping beer under the palapa by late afternoon, including a few people that I recognized from Mazatlan. As we made our way from anchorage to anchorage down the coast, we’d get to know and cross paths with a number of the other boats also heading south.

Things are starting to look more tropical, palm trees on the shore and more greenery than cactus. The local mosquito repellent is the smoke from burning coconut shells. So, as you’re making your way from the table to the bathroom after sunset, you have to be careful not to step on the burning piles left here and there.

I don't know why I didn't take some pictures of this place. It was nice.

Aboard Che Bella

After I had been in Mazatlan a week, Dan Baker contaced me about crewing for him on a trip down to Barra de Navidad. The 250 mile trip would take about 2 weeks, allowing us to anchor every night but one along the way. I had noticed his boat (Che Bella, a Tayana 37) on the way back from the Deer Island adventure, and thought it looked nice. Sherry, Larry, Don and Judy all met him before I did, and said that this seemed like a great opportunity: good boat, good guy. I learned on meeting him that he is a 65-year old retired phsyicist from San Diego, who had originally planned to sail alone to Barra, but wanted some help for the first day, which would be an overnight sail to Isla Isabella.

So I checked out of the hotel and we left Mazatlan on Tuesday, December 6. Actually, leaving took a little longer than expected, as the starter on the engine was a bit finicky. Nothing a few taps with a small sledgehammer couldnt fix. Then on to destination: Isla Isabella, a small island 85 miles from Mazatlan. We had a nice breeze sailing out of Maz, and I had the afternoon to get familiar with the boat in the daylight before we started the night watch schedule. We took three hour shifts throughout the night. I had 9 pm to midnight and 3am to 6am.

The watches were fairly uneventful. A nearby sailboat was heading the same way we were, so I kept an eye on them and watched out for fishing boats. Around 5 am, I caught a shadowy glimpse of what looked like a pterodactyl flying overhead. What the?! Turns out it was a frigate bird. They´ve got a 5-foot wingspan and kind of an evil siloutte, and they use I. Isabella as a nesting ground. The sky was crowded with them by the time we dropped anchor at the southern cove of the island later that morning.

We took the dingy ashore to have a look around. The island is home to a lot of birds, a couple of grad students, a few fisherman, and not much else. The frigates and boobies (the other predominant bird) seemed to have each claimed part of the island as nesting grounds. The boobies were highly amusing, nesting right on the ground, on the western ridge. It was hard to pick a path without coming within a few feet of a boobie nest. They didn´t seem too fazed by me, but would squak a little if I got too close. In addition to all the adults, I saw a few juveniles, a few eggs, and a newborn. Very cute. To his credit, Dan managed to avoid making any boobie jokes.


The view from the ridge was beautiful. We were one of only three sailboats anchored there.

Went for a swim after the hike. The water was warm, by NorCal standards, 72 F. Good visibility around the anchorage, could see the anchor down about 20 feet. Saw some neat fish, but by the time I was swimming back for the camera, I felt the sting of what I assumed was a jellyfish, and was discouraged from jumping back in again.

Had a steak with avocado, tomato and cucumber salad for dinner while watching a gorgeous sunset.

This is the reason I came down here…

Deer Island (Isla de Los Venados)

On the bus to dinner with the gang, this American guy (Don) started talking to us, and soon realized that I was the same Emily that his friend, Jeremy, had met a couple of days before. Jeremy had come by the boat Tuesday (after Jim left, but before I left) asking if Rita needed more crew. He seemed like a nice guy, 25-ish, from Orleans (north of Willow Creek), and he picked up on Rita’s crazy-vibe quicker than I did. Don said he and Jeremy were taking the boat that Jeremy was staying on out to Deer Island (a short distance out from Mazatlan) to go snorkeling on Saturday, and invited me to come along. I thought it would be a great opportunity to use the snorkeling gear that Larry had been hauling around for me. And we might even get to put up the sails to get there!

After one week into my "sailing adventure" I had yet to sail anywhere. I know the guys hocking rides on the catamarans with the Corona advertisements on the sails don't actually mean to taunt me when they ask, "Do you want to go sailing?" But it is frustrating to be near all these boats and going no where. I called Jeremy on the radio the next day to see if it was ok if I tagged along. He said yes, that he guessed we could all fit into the small dingy. Damn. No sailing.

Then I saw the dingy. We just barely fit ourselves and our fins in. Mexicans, a people who think nothing of crowding 5 people onto a vespa, were looking at us like we were crazy. But, thanks to lack of waves and Jeremy's steady hand on the tiller, we made the half hour ride to Deer Island just fine. We found a good spot with a lot a brightly colored fish, a few puffer fish (dopey looking, but poisonous), sea urchins with 6-inch long spikes (yikes!), and some big blue fish swimming quickly away from me. After a half hour or so, we took a break and warmed up before trying another spot. This time I brought my camera (which works underwater). Of course, it was murkey and there were almost no fish. Oh well. We stopped at the palapa and all had a coconut before heading back. The wind hadn't picked up and we made it back fine in that little boat, even though we stopped in the middle to add more gas to the little engine.
Sure beats the office.

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False start in Mazatlan

I flew down to Mazatan, Mexico, on Saturday November 26^th with plans to help take a three masted schooner named Valkyrie down to Costa Rica over the next few months. Another crewmember named Jim had been on the boat for a week already, and we were waiting for a third to arrive two weeks later before leaving. By the next day, we were both doubtful that we could stand to be around Rita, the skipper, for long enough to get very far. She liked to talk. A lot. Mostly about how stupid other people are and how smart she is. The more I was around her on the boat, I began to doubt that we would really be leaving in a couple weeks. There was a lot that needed to be done, and not a lot getting done.

Jim decided he'd had enough and left Tuesday to stay in a hotel before his flight out the next day. After he'd gone Rita talked about how he didn't "do anything" around the boat or seem to know anything about sailing. Actually, as we were rigging lazy jacks, she kept asking Jim and I what needed to happen next and where should this go, and how does this work, etc. He seemed knowledgeable enough and certainly willing do pull his weight on the chores. When I asked her what her expectations were regarding how much help she wanted from me before we left, and suggested 4 hours a day. She said that an hour a day would be fine. We spent the morning going over the electronics and navigation tools, some of which worked, and she voiced encouraging words about how I was taking initiative and getting into this and this was going to work fine. When I left to have lunch with Jim, she said, "See you this afternoon. Take your time." When I got back to the boat my stuff was packed and on the dock. Hmm… I asked why. She said, "You're outta here. You're a stupid girl and you don't even know that you chose sides and you chose the wrong side." I said that I wasn't choosing sides, and reiterated that I was staying out of her problems with Jim. She responded with an interesting line, "How can you stay out of it when you’re not even here! " Huh? She then ranted a bit about how I don’t know where anything on the boat is, and why wasn’t I spending more time learning the boat. As if she hadn’t just said an hour a day is fine a few hours earlier. But it isn't worth arguing with crazy people. I had been wondering how and when I might leave. This answered those questions for me.

So there I was, four days after I had arrived, on the dock an hour or so before sunset with more stuff than I can easily lift, in a country where I barely speak the language and no friends. I felt rattled, a little sick, and stupid for not catching on BEFORE I left the U.S. that Rita is a nutcase. I went down the dock to ask an American couple I had met a day or so before for a ride to a hotel. They quickly took me aboard, gave me a beer, reassured me that it was best that this happened now and not later, and said that no one really gets along with Rita. Larry and Sherry of "La Burjita" are really great people, without whom I'm really not sure what I would have done. After giving me a ride to a nearby affordably priced hotel (and lifting the heavy bag - thanks Larry!), they let me come to their boat for the daily morning radio "cruisers net", where I could send out a message that I was looking for a boat that needed a hand heading south. Don and Judy on "Force Nothing" in the next slip over also helped, letting me use them as contact for people trying to get a hold of me.

On top of it all, they're all a lot of fun to spend happy hour with. Painted the town Wednesday with them. Tequilla shots led to dancing.


Don and Judy, me and some guy, Sherry and Russ

So I spent the next couple of days between the beach, my hotel and Isla Mazatlan, the marina my new friends are at. Here's a pic of the Isla. There're selling condos there now, if you're in the market for some overpriced Mexican real estate.

Judy's been crewing on boats for three years, after selling her house. She's been with Don for about a week and is in the process of getting his bachelor’s boat whipped into a shape where she can cook as well as she's used to. I was encouraged by her experience that this IS possible. And she had some good advice on finding my next ride. I also owe her a debt of gratitude for packing heavy (all that stuff is very important if you don't know where you might end up). Larry didn’t think my bag was so heavy after carrying Judy's. He swears there’s an outboard motor in there. She was also kind enough to let me borrow her wetsuit for my snorkeling adventure to Deer Island. The water isn't cold. But it isn't bath-like either.

Sherry and Larry have a Hans Christian 34, which looks very similar to the boat I'll be on starting Tuesday the 6th of Dec. The boat I'm on will, however, not have a smart-alec ship's cat named Barney, as theirs does.

Thoughts on Mazatlan

I highly recommend the Bungalos Mar-Sol run by Sra. Miguelina Aguiar Rodriguez. They keep the rooms impeccably clean and are very helpful. My $45/night room has a kitchen, fan and air conditioner, a TV (with cable, Lord of the Rings was on last night), a large shower, and a little private courtyard (good for hanging wet wetsuits). There’s a little grassy area and a palapa where the Canadians hang out to read and play cards. When Sra. R saw my computer she communicated through her broken English and my broken Spanish and some pointing that there is internet access at the hotel's palapa. Not wireless, but an Ethernet cable wrapped around the back post of the palapa. Only in Mexico. Surprisingly, it works perfectly.

The entrance to the hotel was a great place to watch the Marathon that swept through town on Sunday Dec. 5. 6,000 runners from all over the world (mostly Mexicans with a few Kenyans) shut down the main road for most of the day, sweating their little hearts our for 26 miles.

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