[First an update on Jim’s Blog #7 of December 12 at Matanchen Bay and San Blas! Our son-in-law, Hayden Metz, did some research on Longfellow’s poem on the Bells of San Blas and included two references in his response to that blog, which can be accessed on the web. Apparently Longfellow never visited San Blas and the bells he was talking about were on a church on the coast used to warn sailors of the nearness of shore – no relation to the old church on the San Blas town square that quotes a verse of the poem on a plaque attached to it. And Longfellow was not commemorating a battle nor something like the midnight ride of Paul Revere in which a poor peasant sees the enemy coming and risks his own life to ring the bells for the townsfolk. No, nothing so dramatic!
Longfellow was merely romanticizing something he must have read about and had no direct knowledge of. Those Romantic Poets did that a lot (I was an English major in college and had to take a course with that name), and few of them actually lived so close to nature that they got dirty. It’s difficult to glorify real nature, once you’ve hiked into the mountains, gotten your boots and socks wet in a stream, couldn’t light a fire with the wet wood lying about, and squirmed all night on the hard ground in a sleeping bag that didn’t keep the cold out. I leave it to you to read the poem and draw your own conclusions.]
We left Chacala on the morning of the 15th after retrieving our anchor that had been all tied up in fish netting and line that had probably been sitting at the bottom of the bay for some time. Thankfully I didn’t have to dive on it to pry it up, because 25’ is a little too deep for the simple snorkel I have, or even for the hookaw that I described in an earlier blog. We made it to La Cruz on the same day, after motor-sailing most of the way (using both the engine and the sails) because the wind was fairly light.
One of the problems we had to deal with were some sea mounts, identified on the charts as a hazard but not necessarily accurately charted, that rose to within 3’ of the surface of the water when entering Banderas Bay from the North, which was our destination and approach. Since our draft (the depth of our boat in the water) is 6’, those sea mounts could cause us to shipwreck if we encountered one. Therefore we had to steer way around the area where they were located. We use our electronic GPS (Global Positioning System) systems in addition to our paper charts to show where we are. GPS shows accurate positions on the globe, but the computer display of the land masses often use old charts that have not been updated in many years – some as old as the 1800’s. So we can be sure of where we are on the globe, but the little-visited bay of Chacala showed us at anchor 2 miles inland from the shore. As a result we make sure we keep our eyes open during the day and our radar on at night, as we approach any sort of land. So there was no way we were going to trust it to locate the sea mounts for us. As it was, we took about a 2-hour detour into the bay to insure we wouldn’t run aground.
During the last two hours, however, the wind picked up and we shut down the engine and sailed on a beam reach (wind perpendicular to the boat) in 17-20 knots of wind, making nearly 7 knots of speed over the water. We encountered several dolphins during the trip that swam and played in our bow wave long enough for Sheilagh to get a short movie of it.
You have now heard Sheilagh's famous "wahoo!" at the end of the clip, along with her attempt to communicate with them using her conversational English. They did not respond in kind.
We also saw a squadron of small manta rays swimming in formation just under the surface of the water. Sheilagh put out her fishing line behind the boat to see if she could catch any kind of fish, but didn’t get a nibble.
We are now in the La Cruz Marina just 5 miles north of Puerto Vallarta, where we plan to spend the Christmas holidays. We spent the first day cleaning the boat from top to bottom, including shining up most of the stainless steel on the boat. Even though stainless steel is not supposed to rust, rust develops anyway, and we take a variety of cleaners and a toothbrush to keep it at bay. A lady on another boat heard us talking about trying to get up a few really tough rust marks; so she offered us something she called “toxic waste” that is apparently available in Mexico, but would not be a “politically correct” cleaning solvent in the U.S. She warned us not to touch it with our bare hands, which gave us some pause. We tried some on the rust spots that develop between the stainless steel stanchions and the fiberglass of the boat. The rust came right up, but we noticed that it started stripping the stainless steel of its shine; so we suddenly developed a politically correct attitude about the stuff.
The marina we are in is a brand new one that was supposed to be completed by December 15th, the date of our arrival. Unfortunately, like a lot of projects I have personally been part of in my career, the project is not on time, and it may be over budget as well. The day after we arrived was Sunday; so there was very little work being done. However, on Monday the place looked like an anthill with workers everywhere – some dredging up the bottom, some laying concrete, some building fences, some wiring the electricity to the docks, some even laying thatch on the roof (thatched roofs are everywhere around here and supposedly they keep the rain off during the rainy season, but we won’t be around to see it). Suddenly we have hot water in the showers. I notice the dredging activity is going around the clock; so that must be one task that is further behind than the others.
One thing I have noticed here is that, unlike building activities I have observed in the U.S., everyone here is working, and working diligently – in other words, there are no groups of supervisors standing around talking, while one or two men do the work. Naturally there are fewer pieces of heavy equipment being used, and more labor intensive activities, but it seems they are progressing as quickly as they would with the machinery – and probably at less cost.
And it’s not just the marina being constructed. We took a walk the next day and noticed dozens of structures being built including homes, apartments, condominiums, timeshares, golf and tennis clubs and more. Apparently La Cruz is just a few years behind Puerto Vallarta in being developed. We were told in San Blas that a lot of the residents there were driven out of their homes in Puerto Vallarta to make way for the new development there. We also noticed a lot of beautiful homes set into the hills on the way down the coast; so it won’t be long until there may not be too many small villages left.
We went into Puerto Vallarta today by bus – a distance of 8-10 miles that took 45 minutes by bus. We stopped in a mall and got our weekly dose of McDonald’s hamburgers. We also noted dozens of high-end restaurants that would destroy our daily budget with one meal. The city itself, and the outlying areas around it, are copying the look and feel of any typical U.S. tourist city. We decided we much prefer the smaller towns and villages we have been visiting. The problem at the moment is that we need parts for our autopilot, something for one of our sails, and some canvas shade covers that need to be shipped here from the U.S.; so we will have to cool our heels until the shipments arrive.
La Cruz and Puerto Vallarta are just two towns/cities that lie along the edge of Banderas Bay, supposedly the second largest bay in North America – probably after the Chesapeake. It is a full 15 miles across, which means a 2-3-hour sail just to cross it. Tomorrow we intend to do a day-sail in the bay to see if we can spot some of the hundreds of whales and manta rays that are entering the bay just at this time of year to propagate the species and thrill the tourists. We’ll let you know how that turns out. More later . . .
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