Back in Barra de Navidad (March 9-14)

At the end of a long bus ride, I was back in Barra de Navidad. This is the marina Dan and I had sailed to in December, and also where I had left Floyd a few weeks earlier. It felt a little weird being on Dan's boat without Dan, but after the chaos of living with 5 people, a little solitude was welcome. I love this boat and I love this marina… or really the hotel, it's gorgeous, plenty of roads winding through the hills to go running on, pools connected by waterslides, lush tropical vegetation, free towels, and decent books at book exchange. Its located across the channel from the town of Barra, and you need to take a water taxi or dinghy to get back and forth from town. A bit inconvienent, but makes for a more relaxed atmosphere than if it was connected to town.

The Grand Bay Hotel, as seen from the water taxi.

And its the only place in Mexico I know of where a French Baker comes around to the docks by panga with sweet treats and fresh bread every morning. My new plan was to stay on Che Bella, when Dan gets back at the end of the month, I will crew for him up to the Sea of Cortez. Until then, I'll get some work going on the house in La Manzanilla, start looking for housing in SF on Craig's list for the summer, finalize my summer job, sample the local selection of pirated DVDs, and put in some time by the pool.

The boat had been "put away" and I needed to do some things to make it more livable. As I was changing the prop on the outboard and assembling the porta-bote so that I could get to town without taking the water taxi, I fully appreciated how much harder it is to do this stuff alone. I don't know how singlehanders do it. But I managed. After getting the dinghy up and running, I did a victory lap into town to pick up laundry and check email. While at the internet cafe, John of the sailboat Pelagic walked in and sat at the computer next to me. We had been emailing since November about me possibly crewing for him and we had met down in Zihuatenejo, but the timing had never worked out quite right. He was planning to head north to Puerto Vallarta in the next week, and wanted to know if I'd like to crew for him. A week sailing north sounded good, and I told him I'd join him.

John wasn't the only familiar face I saw in the marina. Rita was there for a couple days. Guess she didn't make it to Costa Rica. Floyd was still there, also. Someone had told me that after looking for and not finding crew to help him go to PV, that he'd taken off on his own after refueling. But somehow he damaged his rudder at the fuel dock, and had no steerage, so he was sitting in the marina until that got fixed. He was gone before we ran into each other to say hi and catch up... just as well.