April 20th – Yorba Linda, California – Jim’s Blog #39

Our visit to California has continued from San Jose down to Yorba Linda to visit my sister and her husband, Lisa and Bob. My last blog ended with a potluck in San Jose for old friends on Sunday evening at the home of my daughter and her husband, Stephanie and Hayden. On Monday we went shopping for image-stabilized binoculars because we are tired of not being able to hold our current binoculars steady enough to read boat names or focus on landmarks – no, we don’t think the shaky hands are part of our getting old, but that would still be a good reason for getting this type of binocular. We checked a couple of marine stores and found no demonstration models to test. The next step was the internet where we did some research, selected a set of Canon binoculars, and ordered them online. I was surprised that the largest marine supplier in the country didn’t have anything to test.

Perhaps the stores think we are only doing our tire-kicking in their locations and then proceeding to the internet to place the order. In this case we would probably have purchased at the store, because we wanted to make sure we got the item in hand before going back to Mexico. We also considered waiting until the boat show on Wednesday, but decided the vendors there probably wouldn’t have high-end items like image-stabilized binoculars, if their stores didn’t have them. As it turned out, the show didn’t have any; so it was a good thing we ordered on the internet and paid to have it delivered to my daughter Melissa’s house in Newport Beach, which will be our last stop before returning to Mexico.

Our plans called for attending the Strictly Sail boat show in Oakland on Wednesday, the first day of the show, because we were heading down to LA on Thursday. We met up for lunch with Dan and Kim of Noelani, whose Valiant 39 sailboat was in the slip next to ours when we were berthed in Alameda. Dan and Kim run a business in England, but come over for a month of sailing their boat in San Francisco Bay about twice a year. Dan has my enthusiasm for going cruising, while Kim has many of the same concerns that Sheilagh had when we first started out. Hopefully our input was helpful regarding our experiences and we will see them in a foreign port one of these years.

We had a number of items we were interested in looking at including inflatable fenders, some spring tension devices known as Shockles to take some of the load off mooring and anchor lines, a possible replacement for our anemometer that has ceased to function, and an inflatable kayak of some sort. The latter item, the kayak, has been the source of some heated discussions (okay, maybe just lukewarm) between Sheilagh and me. She thinks I don’t need another toy, and I think I do! I wanted something I could use for exercise as well as for surfing the waves a bit. Sheilagh wanted nothing to do with a new possession that might require exercise of any sort. And she certainly didn’t want a kayak with two seats unless there was only one paddle that she would never have to use.

Our solution was a compromise: I would get a kayak and she would get a small laptop computer to replace her larger one that was too cumbersome on the boat. It turned out that I found an ideal inflatable kayak that is extremely rigid, and Sheilagh later found a laptop she liked – both priced about the same. My toy weighs about 22 pounds; hers, 3 pounds. My toy takes up about 30 times the volume of hers. Now I’ll have to put up with her comments such as “Why aren’t you using your kayak more often?” and “Where are you going to keep it when it is inflated, or not inflated?” I plan to have so much fun with it that she’ll beg me to use it. As if her wanting to use it would ever happen!

After a great visit with Stephanie, Hayden, and their son, Evan, for a few days, we flew from San Jose to Ontario airport to stay with Lisa and Bob here in Yorba Linda. Lisa and Bob are both into Porsche autocross racing (on a course with timed runs racing against the clock) along with their grown up kids, Kris (and his wife Rebekah), Karen, and Lorri. They do this racing every other week or so, and now have two Porsches devoted exclusively to racing, with several others between them for daily errands. Bob and Lisa are both retired; so the Porsches are no longer used for commuting. Bob took Sheilagh and me out separately to show us what the race car could do, and to give us a chance to drive it. I was very impressed with the acceleration which reminded me of the force of gravity one experiences when pulling up into a loop in a glider. The cornering was a weird sensation for a pilot, since we always bank into turns while the Porsche just seemed to settle closer to the ground and hugged the corner while the force tended to push me out to one side.

Bob and Lisa's racing porsche




Sheilagh loves a stick shift anyway, but she came back from her short lesson with Bob with a very clear “need for speed.” Bob and Lisa lent us the Porsche 911 that they use for errands for a few days, and Sheilagh has pretty much monopolized the driver’s seat ever since. Now she accelerates out of stops as if she were a drag racer, and she can’t wait to stomp on the accelerator as she rounds every corner. She is beginning to cuss at drivers who get in her way when she wants to accelerate. It may well be that she is prepared to abandon sailing (at a speed of 5 knots) for racing cars at much higher speeds. She says she plans to keep our agreement to cruise for one year and see how we feel about it at the end of that time. When the year is up in October, I intend to have Bob enlighten her on the cost of maintaining a racing car and replacing worn tires. For now I’ll let her enjoy the driving experience in the Porsche we’re borrowing.

We on the West Coast are blessed to live so far apart that we only have to get together infrequently, and then, to paraphrase an expression, “absence has made the heart grow fonder.” I’ve heard plenty of stories from friends on the East Coast whose families live so close together that they are expected to get together every other weekend or so. These friends have the “golden handcuffs” of not being as free as they might want to be on any given weekend, but are glad to be near to so many close relatives. I think Bob and Lisa have solved the problem very well by including the entire family in their Porsche racing interest; so that every other weekend they all want to get together for a common interest.

What does all this have to do with cruising, which was and is the subject of this blog generally? This is a short break from what we’ve been doing, and it has given us a new appreciation for the cruising we have been doing for the past five months. We’ve noticed that the pace here is quicker, and we appreciate even more the laid-back lifestyle we’ve been living on the boat. It is also a fabulous opportunity to appreciate U.S. stores (marine supply stores, supermarkets, hardware stores) with so much to choose from and so well arranged. In a Mexican hardware store (ferreteria), the proprietor often has to use a hook to remove items hanging high on the wall to get at the item we are interested in looking at. Everything there is jumbled together, while here in a typical hardware store everything is neatly displayed in rows of like items. We now really appreciate what we had taken for granted for all the years prior.

On Friday my brother, Paul, flew down from Bainbridge Island in Washington to visit with Lisa and Bob and Sheilagh and me. Paul was the fifth of ten children in our family and the fourth of eight boys. He has a sense of humor that never seems to quit, but a horrible tendency (ability?) to make puns at every opportunity. He has tempered his use of puns over time, but is still arguably the best joke teller in the family. The visit was enjoyable, and now if I could only remember the set up and punch lines of the jokes he told.

My first of two sisters, Linda, and her husband, Barry, also flew into the LA area this week, but for a better reason than seeing Sheilagh and me. They came to visit their first grandchild, a granddaughter named Adelaide Skye Llewellyn (and that’s not including her last name) born a few days earlier to their son, Ben, and his wife, Alexia. We all trooped over to Pasadena to visit them on Sunday, and got a chance to marvel again at the small size of newborn babies. The newcomer is as cute as newborns all seem to be, although I couldn’t see which side of the family was favored in the facial features – I guess I’m just not as sensitive as men are supposed to be these days. Frankly I expressed my concern with saddling such a small person with such a long name, but was reassured that the child could pick the name she liked as she got older.

We ended the day with an appearance at a birthday party for a three-year-old grandniece named Allison, who is the daughter of Kris and Rebekah (Bob and Lisa’s son and daughter-in-law). One of the problems of being from a big family is simply remembering the many children and grandchildren produced by my siblings, and the problem with mentioning even one of them in a blog is the need to mention all of them. Well, I have now done my duty and can get on with the blog.

Next week we visit my daughter and her husband, Melissa and Tim, and their daughters, Delaney, Riley, and Paige. There we will celebrate birthdays for both Delaney and Tim, but that will be grist for the next blog. More later . . .

April 13th – San Jose, California – Jim’s Blog #38

We’ve done a lot this week to buy needed equipment to continue our cruising in Mexico and to visit friends while we’re in California. On Monday we flew on Alaska Airlines (what are they doing flying anywhere near Mexico with that name?) from Puerto Vallarta to LAX after a last-minute excursion to pick up a part at the airport prior to leaving. About two hours before our planned departure for the airport we got a message from our forwarder that our stern seat had arrived at the Puerto Vallarta airport and had to be picked up immediately. As we were discussing what to do, we were overheard by Steve and Jamie of Reba, who volunteered to use their car to take me to the airport to pick it up. With the car we easily got that done in an hour, when it would have taken us at least a couple of hours by bus, if not more. Thanks to Steve and Jamie for that help.

We were able to use airline miles to pay for our flight and for some reason we got to fly First Class with them. After more than two years of business travel without an airline meal, we actually got to eat a very good chicken Caesar Salad during the 3+ hours of the flight. The big effort when we got to LAX was finding the fastest moving Customs line from the three we were herded into. After a few minutes I noticed that our line was being serviced by one slow-moving customs agent, while the line next to ours was being serviced by four agents. By that time another flight had come in and filled up the faster line, while we had progressed very little at all. I grabbed Sheilagh and moved to the faster line, rather than continue to stew over the inadequate supervision that had set up the inequity in the lines. As it was we got through the longer line faster than if we had stayed where we were.

Sheilagh thinks I have a long way to go before I get into such a relaxed retirement state of mind that I will no longer care that one line takes four times as long as another to go through. Having spent most of my life involved in making work more efficient, I am still very frustrated when I see most bureaucratic operations where there is no motivation on the part of management to streamline anything and improve the service to the taxpaying customers – us. Checking in to the various Port Captains as we go from place to place in Mexico (where we deal with office members who often don’t speak much English) is still more efficient than dealing with the customs agents we encountered at LAX. After passing the main agent we had to go through another line, where an agent checked to make sure our stamp from the first agent was present, and then we waited in another line to surrender the customs declaration form itself. I still can’t figure out why the first or second agent couldn’t have collected the form while reviewing it.

We grabbed a car and drove down to Newport Beach to stay with our daughter, Melissa, on our way down to San Diego. We dropped by the next morning to have breakfast with Kristi (the other grandmother) who had kept our granddaughters, Delaney, Riley, and Paige for the night. Then it was on to San Diego where we hit several stores to buy impeller blades and oil filters for the engine, diet cola syrup for our Soda Club machine on the boat (that injects carbon dioxide into our self-made sodas), screening material for our hatches to keep out no-see-um bugs, any movie that happens to be on sale, a variety of stainless steel screws and nuts, extra line for the Monitor wind vane – let’s just say enough stuff to fill up the largest number and sizes of bag that the airlines permit. We left that bag in the back of our car at the condo and will go back to retrieve it when we are back in Melissa’s vicinity in LA.

Then we hopped a plane for Sacramento, where we rented a car, did more shopping at REI for a body harness to be used by either of us when going up the mast, and had dinner with our daughter, Megan and her boyfriend Rob at a Chicago deep-dish pizza place called The Chicago Fire. That night we dropped in on Chuck and Rene at Lake of the Pines, where we stayed for three days as we did more shopping and visiting. Sheilagh found some summer clothing to replace the overused and many-times washed clothing she has been wearing for the past 5 months. We also found a sale on DVDs at WalMart where we picked up about 30 DVDs at $5 apiece – our entertainment for the long hot summer ahead in the Sea of Cortez. We also got a collapsible hand cart, some clothing for me, and a DVD player to take the place of our computers as the source for movies.

During this time frame I got a sore throat and stuffed up sinuses that we finally decided were caused by pollen in the air – another reason for living on the water near the desert, as in the Sea of Cortez. We got some medication and began fighting it, but my voice gradually deteriorated so I had a difficult time communicating during our visits with friends such as Roger and Jeanette, Chuck and Nancy, and Gary and Bonny. Then on Friday evening we met with old sailing friends at the clubhouse to talk over our journey so far and to catch up on what they’ve been doing. These friends include Mitch and Lori who own a 25’ sailboat and a Millimeter, Allan and Kym with a Laser II, Tom with a fast catamaran, Lori and her son Zale (her husband Mark is in Australia helping to prepare a boat for the next around-the-world sailboat race – Mark owns a Prindle catamaran), and Ken with numerous small sailboats at any given time and who (with Mitch) started the laser sailing school at Lake of the Pines. Everyone seems to be doing fairly well and looking forward to sailing on Lake of the Pines in the not-too-distant future – still a little too cold in early spring at 2000'.

For dinner we joined Bill and Colleen, whom we have known for a while and who recently purchased a 57’ power boat for cruising in the Pacific Northwest. These two seem to be my most avid blog readers (besides Mitch), since they quoted my blogs to ask about specifics on certain stories rather than ask about the stories themselves. It’s nice to be appreciated! They are outfitting their boat with all the modern cruising amenities including satellite TV, air-conditioning, bow and stern thrusters (that allow them to sidestep into and away from a dock), and even an automatic man-overboard system that brings the boat back around to the point at which someone pressed the man-overboard button on the GPS (assuming someone was still aboard to press the button). It sounds like a very comfortable boat that would allow one to live in luxury while cruising. Nevertheless they are embarked on being trained in all the things that everyone needs to know on the ocean including boat handling, rules of the road, and the many systems the boat has that will need maintenance. No need to feel guilty about making life easy; but the downside is there are more systems to keep operable!

On Saturday we met our daughter Megan at the Hertz lot at the Sacramento Airport, moved all of our stuff into her car and drove down to San Jose to visit our daughter and her family, Stephanie, Hayden, and little Evan James (Jimmy to me). On Sunday evening Stephanie and Hayden hosted a potluck party for friends and family in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the house was full. We went through about a fifth and a half of Tequila and a lot of salt in the Margaritas we handed out, not to mention lots of sodas, beer, and wine. We also consumed two complete tri-tips, the famous Goetsch German Potato Salad (made with a Betty Crocker recipe), several other salads, and three deserts consisting of a chocolate cake, a cheese cake, and a berry pie. Everyone went home stuffed and we had a chance to show everyone the map of our journey over the past five months, first down and then up the coast of Mexico. Looked at on the map, we are even impressed with the cruising we have done.

I had a chance to compare my tanned leg to my brother Brian’s white one, and I liked the tan one better. Brian had just returned from a one-week sales reward trip to Maui, but one week of tanning can’t compare with five months of Mexican sun. We extended numerous invitations for folks to join us for a week or so of cruising throughout our trip, but most have a hard time conceiving of life on a boat. There seems to be a big worry about sea sickness, squeezing into a small shower, getting hot under the summer sun, etc. There are always patches for sea sickness, we can always shower off on the side of the boat to avoid the small shower, and we don’t know how hot it will be in the Sea of Cortez this summer. But my feeling is that anyone can survive a one-week adventure; so let us know if you are interested. This invitation only pertains to friends or family (after all, we’re not sure who is reading this and we don’t want to be inviting serial killers).

That’s enough for now. More Later . . .

April 6th – Paradise Village – Jim’s Blog #37

Well, here we’ve been in Paradise Village for a week, and I haven’t written a single line of blog until just now. It appears that a completely paradise-like existence gets in the way of getting anything done in the real world for the benefit of others. When one has achieved paradise, what more is there to do? I now have greater respect for those spiritual masters who have achieved perfection and yet take the time to teach those who have not yet reached nirvana. I suppose I would have to include myself in their ranks now that I am taking the time to step down from paradise to help the rest of you achieve your paradisiacal aspirations.

This past week has been filled with enjoying life: getting up late every morning, deciding on a single task to accomplish for the day (nothing over an hour or two in length), getting started with that task by 10AM at the earliest, knocking off for the day at lunch time, taking a nap after lunch, swimming some laps in the lap pool to get some exercise and to cool off, reading by the pool with a cold drink to enhance our winter tans, settling in for a quiet night on the boat with the Horatio Hornblower movie series, or attending some social event, and finally capping it all off with reading in bed before turning out the lights at 10PM at the latest. It’s a soft life, but we understand someone has to do it; so we’ve thrown ourselves into the task with gusto.

On Sunday last we attended a potluck dinner at the Vallarta Yacht Club (of which we are now members) and met an interesting couple, John and Heidi of Raven, who are in the process of selling their boat and living as CLODs (cruisers living on dirt) in Puerto Vallarta. They split their year up into winters in Mexico and summers in France where they own an 85’ canal barge with which they travel over Europe. I was unaware of it, but apparently there are canals everywhere in Europe from one end to the other and crosswise as well. John said there is almost no place in Europe that one cannot go by barge, except perhaps some areas in the higher Alps. I don’t ever remember reading any history of Europe that included the use of canals to transport freight and troops in the many wars that took place there over the years.

An interesting point that John mentioned is that Napoleon had a lot to do with building and expanding the canals in France to assist in his establishment of an empire. In so doing he built low bridges over the canals in France so the larger barges used by other countries in Europe couldn’t use the canals in France. Apparently this helped him protect against the influx of opposing troops by canal, and required that goods from other parts of Europe had to be offloaded onto French barges, thereby assisting the French economy. Sheilagh and I are planning to look into a trip through Europe by barge someday, hopefully when the dollar is a little stronger against the Euro.

This week we erected our “Shade-Tree” canopy over the boat to see how it fit. Sheilagh had to make some adjustments to one of the panels to fit our particular boat configuration; so on that day she actually worked 5 hours (instead of the normal 1-2 hours) to sew Velcro flaps into the material. You would have thought she’d put in a week of work from her moans and groans, but the attached picture shows the outcome.


The shade-tree panels covering the boat - they allow us to walk nearly upright underneath - it's a little difficult to cover the mast; so one panel covers the boom and back aft, while the other covers the front section of the boat





These panels will keep the sun off the deck while allowing the wind to pass over the boat from the bow (which is normally held into the wind by the anchor). We understand that these will make the hot summer in the Sea of Cortez a bit more bearable, but we’re not sure how effective they will be. So far the Paradise Village Marina doesn’t allow a lot of wind to circulate; so we haven’t experienced the cooling effects of the wind that we would while anchoring. However, one of the days this past week was quite hot, and not only were our decks kept cool by the awnings, but we could also leave our hatches open to what breeze there was without having sunlight pour through the opening. These panels are supported by heavy-duty folding fiberglass rods with elastic through the center, just like the ones used for supporting modern tents. Naturally we will be taking these awnings down when we sail from place to place.

This week we had a mechanic come in to perform a 1000-hour service on our diesel engine. In the course of 2+ hours we learned a lot about the engine and now have pieces of it being cleaned and adjusted while we go on our trip to California. It should be all back together when we return in three weeks and good for another thousand hours with minimal servicing. When we return we will also have the boat cleaned and waxed all over and the bottom cleaned prior to starting north again. Hopefully we will be in clean, clear water within a week or two after leaving Paradise Village; so I can do my own bottom cleaning in the future. We’re both looking forward to the absolutely clear water we have heard about in the Sea of Cortez.

Speaking of water, as part of getting our money’s worth at Paradise Village, we have been taking a lot of showers in their supplied shower facility nearby and I have been swimming in the lap pool every day. We also bought and hooked up a coaxial cable to the cable outlet provided at our boat slip. It was quite a shock to see TV again after 5 months without it. I was struck by the shallowness of most of the programming, particularly the news, and by the constant barrage of commercials. Maybe the slower pace of life that we have been leading just makes it seem as if everything on TV is moving at a frantic pace – squeezing as much as possible into a 30-second time frame.

The positives are that I was able to see some of the March Madness basketball playoffs, and Sheilagh has been able to find “Law and Order,” her favorite show, or I should say shows, since there are so many different versions. I see no problem with giving up TV again, when the time comes.

We have been having trouble with our internet connection on the boat – a large steel power boat has blocked our signal from the yacht club. I was looking up possible solutions on the net, when I ran across plans for a home-made parabolic reflector made from some cardboard and a Pringles potato chip can. I built one, aimed it at the yacht club, and got no better reception. Then I positioned it accidentally facing a building across the marina and suddenly picked up a stronger signal – evidently bouncing off a building across the way. The only drawback is that the Pringle’s can looks fine from the inside metallic side, but it looks a bit “clatty Irish (low class)” according to my Irish wife; so I sprayed it with some white paint and it doesn’t look so bad to me. See what you think.


My new internet signal strength amplifier antenna - I don't think I'll go into business with this until I can prove it works a bit better than at present


We are looking forward now to our trip to California starting tomorrow, April 7th until April 28th, when we will visit Chuck and Rene at LOP along with a number of other friends, our daughter Megan and her friend Rob in Sacramento, our daughter Stephanie and her husband Hayden (and son Evan) in San Jose, my sister Lisa and her husband Bob in Yorba Linda, and our daughter Melissa and her husband Tim (and daughters Delaney, Riley and Paige) in Newport Beach. We also plan to get some shopping done for equipment and supplies that can’t be found in Mexico and a visit to the Sailboat Show at Jack London Square in Oakland. It should be a great three weeks, and I will keep you informed from the perspective of a cruiser going back to his roots.

That’s enough for now. More Later . . .

March 30th – Paradise Village – Jim’s Blog #36

This blog has been a little bit longer in coming due to our transition from the anchorage at La Cruz to the marina at Paradise Village. You have to see this place to believe it, so we will be including some pictures of the place. Essentially the marina residents have access to all the benefits of the guests who are staying in the five-star Paradise Village Hotel. We have been anchoring out away from a dock now for about three months since our last stay in a marina, and we are rediscovering the joys of the marina life – like drinkable water out of a faucet, a holding tank emptying service, electricity from shore that doesn’t require the running of the solar panels or the engine to keep the batteries charged and the icebox cold.

This is where the virgins are supposed to be sacrificed, but there has been a decrease in their number over the years - actually the indians often sacrificed their best warriors to appease the gods, possibly to make sure these individuals didn't kill the priests first


Why has this blog been delayed a week instead of the usual three to four days? The main reason is that the availability of fresh water (and a dock area) has given us the opportunity to really clean up the boat. We have now stretched out our jib and staysails and washed the salt spray off them, as well as removed the salt and dirt from the jib and staysail sheets (the lines that control them). We have laid out our dinghy on the dock beside the boat, thoroughly washed it down, and applied a preservative to the Hypalon material from which it is made. This dinghy should last us about 10 years, if we take care of it. Since we don’t need it in the marina, we have deflated it, wrapped it up in a protective cover, and stowed it in straps on the top of our boat in front of the mast. We have also washed down the entire exterior of the boat, swabbed the deck, and cleaned the bird droppings off the bimini that covers the cockpit area. The only reason I am able to get catch up on this blog is that Sheilagh has given me Sunday off as a day of rest, but my dedication to our readers keeps me working nonetheless.

Paradise Village maintains a number of animals in cages in several different locations with double fencing to keep small hands and arms from becoming appetizers


During the coming week we will be washing down the mainsail and its mainsheet, waxing the exterior, cleaning the stainless steel (a weekly effort regardless of where we are), and repairing some electrical connections that are not working quite right. We are also making some shopping trips to get as many marine items as possible down here to lighten the load of items we will be bringing back with us from our trip to the states (April 7th-28th). Sheilagh has now reorganized the icebox for the umpteenth time, along with the cupboards devoted to food supplies. I’m sure she will need to rearrange them another time or two before we leave. On Thursday we have an appointment with an engine mechanic to have him perform a 1000-hour service on our diesel engine while we observe the process. Yes, keeping up a boat is very similar to keeping up a house or condominium, but it requires even more effort to resist the damaging effects of salt spray, wind, and waves. Thankfully we have a respite from the elements for the next few days to get on top of some of our maintenance jobs.

This is the smaller, more-relaxed pool of the three pools at Paradise Village - this is for those who aren't trying to connect with someone new or who are too lazy for the sporting activities of the major pool


Other advantages of a marina: in an anchorage we have to put our dinghy into the water to go anywhere and take it up again on a hoist at night to keep the bottom clean and prevent theft. In the marina we just step off the side of the boat onto a dock and walk where we please. During the last few months while anchoring we have noticed that a strong wind usually starts blowing in the afternoon and churns up the sea state; so our return to the boat from the shore is usually a very wet affair – for that reason we have been carrying a couple of black trash bags with holes for the head and arms so we can get back to the boat without soaking our clothing. When our clothing gets soaked we have to wring it out in fresh water and hang it up to dry, because the salt water prevents drying and is itchy if it ever does dry. In the marina we don’t even need to think about the wind and waves when returning to the boat.

This is the adult end of the active pool with a supervised water-volleyball game going on - this is where those who want to be noticed will stand thirty to a side for hours on end to touch a beach ball every 15 minutes or so while keeping an eye on romantic possibilities


We also have access to showers and all the hot water we want – no more wetting down in our tight shower, turning off the water, soaping up, and then turning the water back on to rinse off. I realize these are things that all of our readers are used to; so the natural question is “Why deprive yourselves by anchoring away from a marina?” Marinas have some downsides, too. We have to put the covers on our hatches and the curtains on our windows to shut out the marina lights and the inquisitive gazes of passers-by every night. Most boats in a marina are moored together in a u-shaped dock arrangement, where there is no buffer with your next-door neighbor – each of us is tied to a finger dock on one side only. This neighbor could damage our boat when they are arriving or departing – at the present time we have a vacationing family keeping their ski boat and four wave-runners loosely tied up beside us; so we try to be present when they are arriving or departing to help them keep their water craft from bumping into our boat.

This is the young persons' end of the active pool with two long slides, a swinging bridge, and plenty of space to play


Because marinas are protected from the wind and waves, they offer very little wind circulation, making them fairly hot places to be on hot days. One of our friends is moored between two large motor vessels with high sides, which gives them very little visibility except to the front and rear, along with very poor internet service and minimal fresh air. Marinas can be expensive, since they charge by the foot by the day or month, and they include surcharges for electricity and holding tank pump-out services. We are here during the expensive winter season and are paying about $25 a day to stay here for our 42’ boat. That’s about $750 a month to have access to all the hotel facilities, which is a bargain when one considers that hotel guests are paying at least $150 a night, which averages out to $4,500 a month. The major drawback is that we don’t have daily maid service and Sheilagh makes me clean up my own area of the boat.
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I should mention that there are a number of former cruisers who have their boats permanently moored here in the marina year round (at a cost of about $500 a month during the summer season). They figure that an annual cost of about $7,500 for winter and summer combined is a small price to pay for a winter home in Puerto Vallarta with none of the hassle of buying and keeping a house or condo here. They still need to get the bottom cleaned periodically if they intend to go anywhere; so there is the natural upkeep of a boat that needs to be added in. My perception is that a condo in Puerto Vallarta would run a lot more than the cost of the marina moorage and the boat upkeep cost. If you happen to be looking for a cost-effective winter home in Mexico, this might be a viable solution.

We also took the liberty of joining the Puerto Vallarta Yacht Club, which makes us full-fledged “yachties.” We had never joined a yacht club in the States, but were interested in joining the Southwestern Yacht Club in San Diego, where a number of our cruiser friends were members. These friends offered to sponsor us, but we found out that the initiation fee was in the several thousands of dollars – more expensive the older we were, because they wanted to encourage younger members with lower prices and let us older members subsidize the operation. We would also have been held to monthly fees whether we were there or not. At the Puerto Vallarta Yacht Club the initiation is in the hundreds of dollars and a reasonable monthly fee only when we are at the marina and using their services.

Why be in a yacht club at all? I wondered that myself until I found that our cruising friends (who were members of a yacht club in the San Francisco Bay Area) stopped in at other yacht clubs where reciprocal privileges were in place with their own yacht club as they ventured down to San Diego. This meant that they were offered temporary dockside moorings, access to the local yacht club for food and beverages, and an immediate connection to the local yachting information network. Now, as members of the Puerto Vallarta Yacht Club, we can stop in at the St. Francis Yacht Club (very exclusive) in San Francisco, show our membership badges and use their facilities for a fraction of the cost to their own members. Works for me!

Let me tell you a bit more about the Paradise Village lifestyle for cruisers like us. We have access to a wide sandy beach with small individually-covered palapas and lounge chairs, where waiters are only too glad to take our drink orders as long as we decide to sit there. We also have access to three separate swimming pools – one very active with large water slides for the younger set, one less active with more emphasis on adults, and an out-of-the-way lap pool where we can swim laps, sun bathe, and read with very little commotion. Although I like the solitude of the lap pool, it is a poor location for checking out the best looking bikinis and their wearers, and there is no waiter service there. Tough choice as to which pool to sit beside!

Paradise Village also has a fairly extensive mall with a McDonald’s, a Subway, and a Dominoes Pizza at one end, dozens of other restaurants and clubs, shops of every sort (where, unfortunately a set of flip-flops costs $23), and a bookstore where English books and magazines can be found. Although Sheilagh and I have made an effort to learn Spanish over the past several months, we are not yet prepared to read books and magazines in that language yet. The problem is that there are no stores that sell English books or magazines in any of the small villages near where we have anchored over the past several months. We do a lot of book trading in cruiser hangouts, but magazines seem to be less available for trading. USA Today is just about the only newspaper available, but it costs $3.60 per issue for something that costs $.75 in the States.

That’s one of the reason we are so tied to the internet. We do a lot of reading of newspapers on the internet, when it is available, and so far we have attempted to spend only a few days in anchorages where there is no internet. This summer we plan to cruise up to the Sea of Cortez, where there are hundreds of small anchorages with no internet availability. At that time we really will be cut off from internet browsing, although we can still send and receive email messages over our HAM radio. We’ll see what that is like. I am attempting to find a way to update our blog using the HAM radio access, but I have not been able to set that up as yet. I may have to send my blogs to a friend or relative and have them update the blog for me. More later . . .