March 27th (2009) – Matanchen Bay – Jim’s Blog #85

Current Location – Matanchen Bay – Lat: 21°30.95’ N / Long: 105°14.16’ W

Always a good move to start the blog with the picture of a gorgeous woman - Sheilagh in La Cruz

I finished up my last blog describing two nights of music that Sheilagh and I had enjoyed: “open mike night” at Philo’s Restaurant on Thursday and the flamenco guitarists, Latcho and Andrea, on Friday. Saturday we continued our music fiesta with the group called Tatawari, four young men playing flamenco-like music with two lead guitars, a bass guitar and a drummer. This group exhibited a tremendous amount of energy and pure enjoyment of the music they were playing – music that was highly intricate and extremely quick. Although their songs were quite long, they kept the audience enthralled. Those who chose to eat dinner during the performance carried on very little conversation at the table.

We had heard of another restaurant, Ana Bananas, which held an “open mike night” on Sunday afternoon; so we joined other cruisers in attendance there, too. We had never been to the restaurant before and were surprised to see that all the seating was outdoors, with just the kitchen and bar housed in the building. This restaurant owner was a U.S. citizen who had married the Mexican woman, Ana, and was able to purchase the restaurant in her name. Otherwise he would have had to form a Mexican corporation in order to buy property here. Imagine if we denied property ownership in the U.S. to anyone who wasn’t a citizen unless they formed a U.S. corporation. Even the legal Mexican aliens would be out-of-luck.

We had attended the performance with no thought of eating out that night, but gradually the air was filled with the scent of roasting pork ribs, and Sheilagh began drooling down the front of her top. I was smart enough to order a slab, knowing that it was a way to win points and stop her slobbering. Then I just had to point out where she was dribbling barbecue sauce down her front. I guess I should have taken her out more often; so she could practice her manners. The music moved from folk to rock and roll, gaining in volume through the afternoon. There is probably a different “open mike night” every day of the week in the vicinity of La Cruz or the next town over, Bucerias.

We were commenting on the fact that we had been in isolated anchorages for the past several weeks, saving money by having no restaurants nearby, and suddenly we have eaten out several times and attended four music venues in less than a week. That’s what cruising is about, I guess. You learn to take advantage of opportunities when they occur, since there is no telling when other opportunities will arise. We probably should have done more of that when we were engaged in making a living and raising a family.

I still remember passing up attending the Rose Bowl when our oldest daughter, Melissa, was on the dance team for UCLA, which represented the Pac-10 one year. Then we passed up going some two years later, when our daughter, Stephanie, was attending the University of Oregon, which represented the Pac-10 that year. I’m not sure when I thought the opportunity would roll around again. Certainly not with Megan’s University of Alaska, nor Kimberley’s San Diego State, neither of which plays in the Pac-10. Maybe Sheilagh and I should just spend the money on scalper tickets and attend the Rose Bowl just for the sake of attending it.

Monday we cleaned the green, sticky fringe of seaweed growing around our boat at water level and encountered the first of several very cloudy afternoons. Although it seemed as if we could be rained on at any time, it was really just a phenomenon called the “Pineapple Express,” which is a flow of warm moist air from the south west (from the direction of Hawaii) that develops into a deep and dark overcast sky. We partially closed our hatches, fearing rain, but got no raindrops all afternoon.

The next day we went into town early to get groceries and what turned out to be a very close haircut (for me) and then pulled up our anchor to motor over to Punta de Mita, as the stepping off point for heading north to San Blas and ultimately to Mazatlan. It’s a very short 2-hour trip, but it set us up to get around the point early the next morning. Since points of land dividing two bodies of water are notorious for dubious weather when the wind has had a chance to develop, we try to pass most of the big points of land early in the morning.

We dropped anchor and read all afternoon as the sky again became dark and the air a bit cool. As the sky darkened, Sheilagh reminded me that this would be ideal weather to be dressed warmly in our condo with a fire in the fireplace and a good book to curl up with. She had the book, a warm place to curl up, and the right kind of weather, but not having a fireplace and being subject to wind and waves on a boat spoiled her feeling of security.

The next day we were up early and around the point fairly quickly. Our GPS in the cockpit had failed earlier in the trip, and our radar suddenly stopped showing contacts on our way up to La Cruz; so we had some tricky sailing to do around the point. There are two plotted sea mounts that stick up to just three feet below the water on the way around the point, and a third that is known to be 2.25 miles from the point in a southwesterly direction. When we passed it coming south we used our radar to stay just 1.5 miles off the point so as to miss all three sea mounts. This time we had no radar so we used the GPS to stay south of the three problem areas, and waited until we had crossed a line of longitude that would keep us clear on the west. We had no problems whatever in avoiding the hazards.

Just as we settled down for the northwesterly trip, I noted a black shape rise from the water almost directly in front of us. It was the back of a fin-back whale just 20’ to our right. I yelled for Sheilagh and we scrambled to get the camera out, turned on, and focused in time to get a shot of the whale. We must have gone just over his tail as he submerged directly beside our boat. Thankfully he didn’t raise his tail out of the water as he went down or our boat might have been lifted a few feet in the air. Naturally we missed the shot, but kept the camera ready for the rest of the day. Someday we’ll have the camera ready at the start of a trip to make sure we capture sights like that.

The trip to Matanchén Bay was a good 10 hours ahead, and it was unlikely that we would get there before dark. So we contacted our friends, Jim and Susan on “Windward Bound,” who told us they were anchored near a small island, Isla de Peña (Lat: 21°03.16’ N / Long: 105°16.38’ W), in Guayabitos Cove, just about 4 hours away from us on the way to San Blas. We decided to take the slight detour and found a lovely bay and the resort town of Guayabitos, which is seldom visited by cruisers. The town and beach were crowded with Canadian vacationers, who had apparently discovered it some time ago and haven’t shared the secret with us United States citizens.

A hotel entrance in Guayabitos with a weapon around the corner - to keep order?

Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” invited us and the only other boat in the anchorage to a cocktail hour on their boat; so we were able to meet Frank and Stephanie of “Endless Summer,” who came down this year on the Baja Ha Ha with dozens of other first-time cruisers, as we did last year. Like us they had retired just a short time before starting the trip, but unlike us, they were newly married at about the same time. He was a confirmed, never-married bachelor in his fifties, and she already had grown children; so it is an adventure in more ways than one for this cruising couple.

Isla de Pena - a small island that protects against the northwest wind and swells with a small beach that is covered at high tide

The small island which shielded us from the northwest swells sits a ways off the beach and is similar to Isla Isabela in that it is coated white with bird guano on the western side, has a bit of an odor, and had birds circling above it nearly all the time. In a blog from a year ago I mentioned how bad the smell was at Isla Isabela – so bad in fact that everything I tried to eat smelled like bird droppings to me and I couldn’t keep anything down. This, thankfully, was not so bad, but we did experience a lot of white and gray bird droppings suddenly coating the deck of our boat. Thank goodness for the bimini, which protected us in the cockpit.

The birds wheeling above the anchorage, depositing whitewash on the boat


We went into Guayabitos the next day with Jim and Susan, who showed us where to land on the beach – just in front of a mini-brewery, The Backstreet Brewery & Restaurant, where we introduced ourselves and tried some of the products. I had the Amber, the other Jim had the Pale Ale, and the two ladies tried the Hefewiezen. The room reserved for the making of beer had full stainless steel equipment, although on a much smaller scale than one sees in a Gordon Biersch mini-brewery. The restaurant had been recommended by another cruiser, who was friends with the owner, and the owner immediately showed us the operation and refused to take payment for the beer we drank.

A vegetable stand along the street and a Toucan in captivity - they are not native to Mexico

We wandered around the town, finding another restaurant at the other end of the beach when lunch time rolled around. After a very inexpensive lunch ($10 including drinks for two), we did some sight-seeing, noting the usual Mexican paraphernalia available in resort towns along the coast – all of it apparently manufactured inland and shipped to the various resort towns. We got the impression that some of the people who sell merchandise on the beach actually purchase their products at wholesale prices, and it is up to them to recoup their costs and profits by selling their inventory. Nothing like true capitalism keeping the sellers plying the beaches all day!

The "Blue-Footed Booby" himself - preparing to clean the boat while staying warm

While at anchor near Isla la Peña, I took the opportunity to fully clean the bottom of our boat in preparation for the last 24-hour sail to Mazatlan, where we will put the boat in a marina for a couple of months. I found mostly green fuzz all over the bottom with some hard-shelled barnacles that had managed to get a foothold (or whatever it is that joins barnacles to other objects). Since I had been getting somewhat chilled in the past after spending an hour-and-a-half under water, I decided to try my wet suit that I had purchased some 10 year ago, when I was a bit thinner. I could actually get it on and zipped up, and I am furnishing a picture to prove it.

On the long way back from the beach we ran out of fuel in our dinghy, while Jim and Susan had already returned to their boat in a much faster dinghy. As we sat there contemplating the full effort to row back to the boat, where we had a backup gas can stored, we opened the fuel tank and noted that there was still some gas in the tank, but not enough to be sucked up by the take-up hose. We found a tilted position for the tank, where gas could be kept under the take-up hose, and we were able to get the engine started again. Then it was up to Sheilagh to keep the tank tipped at just the right angle until we could make it back to the boat, which we did.


Sheilagh thinks I look like a blue-footed booby with the fins on, and I can’t exactly deny the resemblance. I also had to add an extra 10 pounds to the weight belt I wear to offset the buoyancy of the wet suit itself. Normally I wear a 40 lb. weight belt to help keep my normally buoyant body submerged. As I was peeling undergrowth from the bottom I attracted a school of fish, each about a foot-and-a-half long. They darted all around me to capture the best tidbits as soon as I scraped them off the boat. I also noticed about three yellow-tail tuna joining the crowd; so I had Sheilagh hand me my Hawaiian Sling fish spear when I was done cleaning the bottom.
I managed to get one of the three prongs into one of the regular fish, and one prong into one of the yellow-tails, but they flipped off the spear immediately. If I had managed to get all three points into a fish, it would have had a difficult time getting off the spear, because the points separate a bit, keeping the fish on. As it was, my compressor was running out of air and the fish noted the lack of fish food coming off the bottom of the boat; so hunter and hunted bid each other goodbye.

Today we left the anchorage at Isla de Peña, and motor-sailed north to Matanchén Bay, which is very near San Blas. The tide was low when we got near San Blas, which is not the time to enter the estuary next to the town. Therefore we anchored in the large bay for the afternoon to wait until high tide on Saturday. More later . . .

March 20th (2009) – La Cruz de Huanacaxtle – Jim’s Blog #84

[Don’t forget to go back and read my blog #83 for last Friday. I posted this blog and that one on Sunday, the 22nd, because we have been away from internet access for the past 10 days or so.]

Current Location – La Cruz de Huanacaxtle – Lat: 20°44.89’ N / Long: 105°22.42’ W

As we left the blog last week we were in the poorly protected anchorage of Chamela – where we never did attempt a beach landing during the three days we were there. I took my kayak in to check out the waves, and was so intimidated that I backed off and spent an hour paddling around the edges of the bay, way back from any crashing waves.

Our choices for going north were to 1) spend a 10-hour day ending at Ipala and then heading around the dreaded Cabo Corrientes the next day, which is 3 hours north of Ipala and then another 6 hours to La Cruz or 2) head straight for La Cruz at dusk and get there 19 hours later. The weather forecast suggested that Cabo Corrientes would be in a “flat calm” condition, which would be a wonderful event, since the wind usually always blows from the northwest and directly opposing a boat going north. We decided to start out at dusk and plan to duck into Ipala in the morning if the weather got difficult. Otherwise we would continue on through Cabo Corrientes by 10AM in the morning to capitalize on the expected calm conditions there.

Sunrise on our way to Cabo Corrientes with a look at the sea state

As it turned out we had 2’ to 4’ waves with an occasional 6’ one coming from a variety of directions with 10-15 knots coming directly on the nose. That slowed us down quite a bit at the start, but it leveled out for about 4 hours in the middle of the night, allowing us to catch up to our planned time. Just at dawn we passed Ipala and decided to continue around the cape. The weather was back to what we started out with on the previous night and did not calm down as predicted. However, once we got beyond the cape, we were able to turn off the engine and sail across Banderas Bay at a brisk 5-6 knots, arriving at 3PM in the afternoon.

We didn’t sleep very well as we slogged north all night; so we arrived nearly exhausted. Apparently it takes about three days of continuous sailing to get acclimated to the watches and actually get some rest – at least that’s what we’re told by those heading across the Pacific to the Marquesas. Since we didn’t feel like cooking, we joined Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” and Dave and Marsha of “Juniata” for dinner at a local restaurant in La Cruz. Both of them had arrived about a week before us and we got caught up on the local news.

The next morning we rounded up all our laundry and dropped it by the “Lavanderia” in La Cruz. Then we headed to the Mega Store to resupply the boat with food. We took a bus ride from La Cruz to the Mega Store (a combination store similar to a Safeway, a Sears, and a Thrifty drug store all together. The bus ride was about 45 minutes and about 15 stops for $.75 apiece at the current conversion rate. Once we have a stack of groceries we hire a taxi for $7 to get us back to our dinghy. Then we transfer the groceries to the dinghy, motor the dinghy out to the boat, unload the dinghy onto the boat, and then transfer everything down the companionway. I have repeated this sequence before, but I just want to let any land-based readers to understand how easy it is for them to just drive to the market.


This was the week for eating out. We decided that we hadn’t been near a good restaurant in about two weeks; so we splurged a bit. Due to the conversion rate of the peso with the dollar, we are paying about 70% of what we paid last year for the same dinners. A 140-peso dinner was $14 last year, and this year it is only about $10. La Cruz is loaded with good restaurants, which almost makes it a crime not to dine out when possible.

On Thursday night we dined on pizza at Philo’s Restaurant where it was “open mike” night – meaning a number of bands showed up to take a turn in the spotlight. It’s a chance to hear some good music for a very reasonable cost of dinner and a couple of drinks. On Friday we went into Puerto Vallarta with Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” to stroll along the Malecon next to the bay and observe the locals, the tourists, and the interactions between the two. We stopped at a couple of places for appetizers and cool drinks and needed to get back by 6:30 for dinner at The Black Forest, a German that features a husband and wife flamenco guitar team.

Just as we got to the bus stop, Sheilagh noted a fabric shop nearby where she could get some sticky-backed velcro. We waited 30 minutes for her to buy 3 meters of velcro, and I decided that I hadn't mellowed as much as I thought I had in Mexico. During my early career I was an efficiency consultant, and it still drives me nuts to see time being wasted business situations. Sheilagh had to stand in line for about 10 minutes to wait her turn to have her spool of velcro cut into a 3-meter length. There were three ladies behind the customer service counter, one of whom had to go back to the rack to measure the length, since she had no measuring device behind the counter. Then Sheilagh had to leave her purchase and go to a payment location to pay $2 for the material, while another lady took her purchase from the first counter to a third counter for pickup. Naturally Sheilagh had to wait in line at each counter. She showed her payment slip at the third counter where the lady compared the actual merchandise with the merchandise listed on the receipt. I should mention that these three counters were in a sort of triangle arrangement with about 15' between each one.

I mentioned to Sheilagh that I could have reduced their labor costs by at least half and significantly improved profitability without losing security control of the process. Sheilagh suggested that maybe their goal was providing necessary jobs to people who needed them. I couldn't argue with that, but I was still frustrated because of a career spent in helping clients reduce their costs and improve their productivity. I just need to spend more time in Mexico to start seeing this work-duplication process as a normal and preferred one.

Another sunrise showing the flattened sea, the lack of wind, and our mop draped over the aft lifelines. We use the mop to swab the deck with the fresh dew we get nearly every night, which helps us remove some of the salt from a passage.

At the Black Forest German restaurant we saw Latcho and Andrea that night - the husband and wife flamenco guitar team I mentioned earlier. We invited Joel and Chris of “40-Love” to join us. Yes, they are tennis aficionados, having met on a tennis court. They are from Minneapolis, Minnesota and seem to be happy to be in Mexico for the winter. Although Chris misses the snow, Joel does not have the same fond memories. The entertainment was very good, but we had a couple of racing boat crews in the restaurant who had been drinking all afternoon. As it was there were some loud individuals from those groups who made it difficult for the rest of us to hear well.

As part of flamenco rhythm the performers do some very precise clapping at different times, usually for a very short time. On this night the more potted of the guests took that as a sign that they should start clapping in rhythm along with the performer. Not only were most of them off the rhythm, but the rhythm usually changed as soon as the performer stopped his or her clapping. Soon the clapping was completely out of synch with the performers. I can't imagine being a musician and playing for a bunch of people talking at the dinner table and generally trying to show by clapping and dancing that they have rhythm too. I guess I just hadn't had enough to drink to appreciate the talents of the audience.

I see that the seaweed is again starting to grow around the bottom of our boat; so I need to get out there with a good brush and scraper. It’s almost as bad as having to mow the lawn every week. This week I worked on shining stainless steel and lubricating the wind vane. Don’t worry, I don’t work more than about an hour a day; so I can still say I’m retired.

Sheilagh is reading about one book a day and rating them for me. Based on the number of books we have read together lately, she is very knowledgeable on what kind of writing I like. That way I don’t waste time reading books she knows I won’t like very well. I don’t read as much as she does, because I am still developing my expertise as a Sudoku Master, and that takes a certain amount of mental training every day. Sheilagh can’t imagine a more inane thing to do unless it might be Solitaire, which her mother and mine played incessantly after retirement. I think I’m a level above that.

We should be in San Blas by next Friday, where I hope to get some kayak surfing in on the famous surfing waves there. It was at San Blas where I initially started surfing with the kayak and I took a lot of spills there. Now I want to go back there with my new-found knowledge on how to surf a kayak based on a year of experience. If I survive I’ll be updating you in a week.

More later . . .

March 13th (2009) – Bahía Chamela – Jim’s Blog #83

[Sorry to be so late with this. We have not had good internet access since before the 13th.]

Current Location – Pasavera Cove in Bahía Chamela – Lat: 19°33.53’ N / Long: 105°06.64’ W

Sheilagh in the cockpit on the way to Chamela

Ah, Friday the 13th, definitely a day to stay anchored! We motor-sailed north from Tenacatita to Pasavera Cove in Bahía Chamela yesterday. It was only a 30 mile distance with winds from varying directions of less than 15 knots and pleasant rolling swells of no more than 4’ in height on the nose. It was a pleasant sail in general, although we needed the engine to keep us going at a decent rate with the variable winds. The daily weather report for the Mexican Riviera (Puerto Vallarta to Acapulco) always seems to include the phrases: “Chamber of Commerce weather” and ”light winds along the coast due to differences in the temperature on the land and water.” That's it for weather here during the winter, which is why we spend time here.

We spent most of the week in the Tenacatita anchorage, relaxing as usual. On the occasion of our return to the town of Tenacatita for some groceries, I took along my snorkeling gear and did some underwater viewing in “The Aquarium.” This is a small body of water surrounded by large rocks that keep the surf out and is covered with sand and coral. This is not the scraggly pieces of coral that one sees in gift shops, but large mounds of coral that seem almost smooth on top with striations across the mounds where food either is (or was) captured by the coral for their growth. This coral is very hard to the touch; so it seems dead, but I don’t know that much about what living coral looks like versus dead coral. This “Aquarium” is protected from fishermen and contains an amazing variety of colorful fish, all of whom spend their time in the coral canyons.

The tide was going out at the time, leaving just a couple of feet of water over the top of the coral, reduced to a foot when the swells passed by. Therefore I had to find paths through the coral rather than over the top, or I might have grounded my body on sharp coral whenever a swell went past. One has to keep an exit path open to make sure to get back to deep water. Normally as I swim my eyes are focused downward. Once, as I looked up at the surface, I found I was surrounded by a school of needlefish about 2 feet long, the kind that can go airborne along the surface of the water and stay up for dozens of yards with just their tales submerged. I splashed around vigorously to get them started, but I didn’t see any reaction. Sheilagh was watching from shore and said a number of them took off above the water to escape me.

It's difficult to see the "baby" jellyfish in the first photo, but the parent is easy to see on the right

As I approached the outer end of the reef I suddenly felt a small sting on my lip and realized that I was feeling the same stings on my arms and torso. As I looked up, I saw I was in the midst of floating pieces of white strands of cotton, which were actually small jellyfish. I quickly turned around and got out of the area as quickly as possible. The stings were somewhat like being poked with a needle – an instantaneous bit of pain that didn’t endure. Nevertheless, I spent a bit more time keeping track of the surface organisms for the rest of my swim.

Sunday we took the dinghy 3 miles across the bay to La Mazanilla for some internet availability, some shopping and some visiting with Dave and Suzi of “Sidewinder” and John and Sharon of “Sunsation.” Both of those couples have hard-bottomed dinghies which can get up on plane and travel much faster than our dinghy. We started across the bay 15 minutes before they did and 30 minutes later they passed us just as we were approaching the beach. The benefit of a “soft-bottom dinghy” is that it can be rolled up and either strapped down or stuffed in the hold when large waves are expected. Most of the cruisers who have hard-bottomed dinghies also have davits on the back of their boats to hold them. We have a steering vane instead on the back of our boat; so we opted for the more compact dinghy.

When we got to the internet restaurant, the “techie” who assigns the passwords was taking a break; so we couldn’t get onto the internet just then. We took the time to walk down to the lagoon to view some of the very large crocodiles lazing about there. There’s a wire fence between the lagoon and the streets of the town to keep the crocodiles from wandering into the shopping area, but we noticed that in several places the wire fence had been bent over in the direction of town. Could it be that some of the crocodiles disregarded that flimsy fence?

We drifted off to a well-recommended restaurant and spent the next 2+ hours getting to know our new friends. The service was extremely slow, but the food was delicious and we didn’t really have a lot to do other than visit. Usually we complete lunch in half an hour and get on with errands, but this offered a unique opportunity to really get to know the other couples. Maybe this is what the Europeans are so good at doing with their long lunches and dinners.

One of the larger powerboats to sit in the anchorage with us in Tenacatita. Note the helicopter on the top deck. We got to watch it take off and land in very mild conditions.

On Monday a man and woman from the newly arrived boat, “Jake,” appeared at the palapa on the beach where I was sitting with a cold one (Sheilagh was relaxing on the boat) and stood just underneath the thatch edge as they let their eyes adjust to the shade. This was not the boat, “Jake,” owned by Jake and Sharon, whom we had gotten to know last year. I could swear I had met the man before; so I extended my hand and introduced myself as “Jim from the sailing vessel, Aurora,” hoping he would identify himself in the same way before I had to ask him his name. Instead the man said, “I know who you are. You’re Jim Goetsch and you told me once that you were trying to establish a family connection with Bill Gates and his millions, because it was rumored that some of the Goetsches [and Goetzes] who came over from Europe changed their name to Gates.”

That blew me away because I usually mention that little story only to people I have become quite familiar with. He then introduced himself as Robert, who had met me at Downwind Marine in San Diego, where he was working at the time. He had helped Sheilagh and me outfit our boat over several months’ time, and now he had finally broken away from work there and come south with his wife, Annette, to enjoy the cruising life. Robert had been cruising for several years earlier, stopping occasionally to work at marine supply stores to build up the cruising kitty. They invited Sheilagh and me over to their boat the next evening for cocktail hour to include Sheilagh in our catching up together.

We went over to their boat the next evening with our cheese and cracker offering, only to find a full layout of snacks and wine that didn’t need our paltry contribution. It turns out that Annette had been a catering manager for years with a variety of hotels, and certainly knew how to put out a spread. They had purchased a fairly inexpensive boat and outfitted it with the reduced-cost marine items that Robert got as a result of working in a marine store, with Annette working as the catering manager for Coronado Hotel in San Diego.

They had elected to carry no insurance on the boat, because the cost of insurance for ten years would exceed the cost of the boat, and the loss of the boat would not be that great a disaster on their finances. We did just the opposite – purchased a high-cost boat and can’t afford not to cover with insurance, but the alternative seems interesting. The benefit of our approach is that we very seldom have any difficulty with our boat or equipment, particularly in comparison with those cruisers who elected to follow the low-budget approach.

I spent much of the week practicing wave surfing in the kayak and managed to have many more successful rides than dumps. I have a pair of sunglasses with a strap holding them to my head, and a hat with a strap under my chin. I have sailing gloves strapped around my wrists (to avoid blisters), the paddle attached to my right wrist with bungee cord, and my swimming suit tied tightly to my middle. When the kayak rolls in a wave, I keep one hand clutching the kayak, and everything else stays attached to my body automatically.

By the end of an afternoon of kayak-surfing my sunglasses are coated with salt water, but it’s not as if I need to use them for reading. When I get back to the boat, Sheilagh passes up the soap, shampoo, and towel to allow me to wash up in fresh water on the side of the boat. This lets me wash my hat, gloves, glasses, and swimming suit in fresh water as I wash myself. One of these days I’m likely to fall off the boat as I’m washing up, but so far I’ve managed to keep my balance.

On Thursday we discovered that our holding tank had one inch of space left at the top; so we knew it was time to move on. Instead of waiting until Saturday, which had been our original plan, we hoisted the anchor and left for Chamela, dumping the holding tank as soon as we had gotten beyond three miles out. We’ve decided that 12 days is our limit for staying anywhere until we need to move on. I guess it’s similar to the way primitive people have to travel from place to place when either the game runs out or the latrines are overwhelmed.

Sunrise in Chamela

Chamela is an extremely rocky anchorage - meaning the boat rocks due to the lack of protection from the swells in the anchorage. We put out our “flopper stopper,” a device we hang from the whisker pole off the side of the boat that tends to smooth out the sideways rocking of the boat. It turns out that a storm to the south has sent very large swells north along the Mexican Riviera Coast. Chamela is one of the anchorages on this coast that is not well protected from the south. We’re watching huge swells coming in from the sea, raising our boat several feet as they pass, and then crashing onto the beach with a ferocious sound and fury. Some of the fishing pangas have been waiting over 15 minutes to find a weaker wave that will let them get clear onto the beach to unload their catch without being caught in the surf. We have elected to refrain from going ashore during our stay here because of the problems with trying to get back out through the surf.

More later . . .

March 6th (2009) – Tenacatita – Jim’s Blog #82

Current Location – Tenacatita – Lat: 19°17.87’ N / Long: 104°50.35’ W

Today, March 6th, marks the 500th day that Sheilagh and I have been “on vacation,” as one of our daughters put it. That’s closer to the truth than we’d like to admit because the economic situation is causing us both to reconsider “being retired.” We will be heading up to California in April to set up our condominium for our own use, and Sheilagh will be looking for work in the area of therapy for children – to help straighten them and their parents out before bad habits are firmly established.

I will be flying back to Mazatlan to stay with the boat during the month of May. Then in June two Navy buddies, Jim and Craig, will be flying down to help me take the boat north to San Diego. When we get there I am hoping to live as a kept husband, but I may have to be a Wal-Mart greeter or a McDonald's hamburger flipper to make up for the 50% of our retirement that has disappeared in the last year. The one bright note is that I did the math for our estimated tax next year, and we will be paying less than I used to pay over 35 years ago. I wonder how the economy will handle millions of baby-boomers like us who will no longer be supporting the government with high taxes as we have been doing for many years now.

We really like Tenacatita because it is a quiet bay away from any sort of urban life, with no reason to wear anything but a swimming suit all day. We took the boat up the river on what is called “the jungle ride” to get to the small town of Tenacatita, where we had lunch with Archie and Beverly of “Sea-Tacean,” John and Patricia of “Paloma,” and Louis, Frank and Boudreaux on “Cirque.” None of us saw anything other than birds and crabs; so it was a far cry from a real ride through a jungle. Nevertheless the mangroves get quite thick, casting cool shade and a mysterious sense of being in the middle of nature as we twist our dinghies through the narrow channel cut through the mangroves.

Coming back later in the day Sheilagh decided she wanted to get out of the boat at the beach and walk to the hotel down the beach to get on the internet. I advised her that we had groceries onboard and I needed her help to get back out through the surf safely. I even offered to bring her in again afterwards. Imagine my amazement when she hopped out of the boat, despite knowing that her actions involved mutiny, a maritime offense with a penalty calling for her to be hanged from the yardarm. She said she didn’t care, and how would I find any other crew to do the cooking and other crewing duties she currently does. I was trying to figure out where there is a yardarm on the boat to carry out the sentence as she walked away.

Then I had a heck of a time getting out through the surf on my own. There was a low tide at the time, and the water at the mouth of the river was too shallow to use the engine. So I hoisted the prop out of the water and relied on the oars to get over the shallow area. For several minutes I rowed toward the surf, being bumped up into the air when it passed under, and eventually there was sufficient depth to put the prop down and start the engine. I saw a slight break in the surf, moved to the back of the boat and tried to start the engine. Just as I got it started one of the oars fell overboard; so I had to back up toward the shore to fish it out. I grabbed the oar, flipped the transmission lever to “forward,” and the engine immediately died.

By then the boat had slewed around sideways to t he surf just as a sizable wave hit the dinghy and started to tip it over. The boat nearly flipped, until I leaned on the high side, preventing a capsize but spilling about six inches of water into the boat and into the bags of groceries. I jumped back to the rowing position, cursing the lack of a crew and sending a dark glance at Sheilagh who was now watching from the beach. It was then that I decided to use the boom as the yardarm for punishing her mutiny – that is if I ever let her get back onboard. I quickly rowed through several more lines of surf, got the engine started without losing an oar this time, and powered past the next few breakers. I bailed the boat out with a cut-down bleach bottle we keep in the boat for that purpose, as I motored back to the boat. When I got there, I dumped the salt water out of the grocery bags, wiped off the bread and chips bags, and left everything out to dry.

For the next hour I went through a number of thoughts as to how to punish my crew, then how to punish my crew without losing a cook and plumber in the process, and finally how to ignore the whole thing without losing my sense of control over my crew. After a beer and a nap I realized that I had never really had any control over my crew anyway; so I gave it up.

Two sets of close cruising friends (Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” and Dave and Marsha of “Juniata”) came into the anchorage and we met another couple, Dave and Suzi of “Sidewinder” on the same day. We used the opportunity to host a cocktail party for all of them on our boat, which was a bit crowded in the cockpit. Most of the attendees brought their own drinks and snacks, along with books and movies to swap. It was a good mix of people and we had a great time swapping stories and ideas. The next day Juniata invited all of us over to their boat where we ate the fish that Dave had caught that morning. We were also entertained by Dave with his imitations of birds landing on various parts of the boat and taking the opportunity to relieve themselves in the process. He seems to have bird psychology and their thought processes down pat. Since “bird brains” are notoriously small, Dave may be giving more of his own thought processes away than he should.

On Thursday I spent the morning cleaning the green fringe from around the bottom of the boat, which is not an easy job. It’s easiest to do it in the water rather than leaning over the side of the dinghy, but it’s also pretty messy as the green stuff floats by and sticks to one’s suit and T-shirt. In the process my scraper dropped off my lanyard as I was using the brush, and I was unable to find it on the bottom, even though the bottom was only 16’ deep without any growth to hide it. I’ll have to try diving for it on a clearer day. In the afternoon I attacked the waves with my kayak with a newer technique I had developed earlier, and I found I was able to surf the larger waves quite easily, but I often got rolled over as the surf caught up to my kayak at the end. Now I have to figure out a way to handle that problem, but I did get a number of good rides and only got dumped about three times for the 15 rides I got.

We went back over to the town of Tenacatita on Friday, when the produce comes in every week, and got some great veggies and an essential case of beer. Thankfully Jim and Susan of “Windward Bound” followed us over there, because our outboard refused to start for the trip home. They gave us a tow through the mangroves all the way back to the anchorage area. Sheilagh and I were using oars to keep our dinghy from running into the mangrove branches on either side of the narrow channel. At the end of the river we unhitched and finished the trip by rowing through the shallow bar and out to the boat.

Dave of “Juniata” noticed we had been rowing and came by to see what our problem might be. We were exhausted and not ready to fix anything at that moment; so he suggested we check our spark plug when we had the chance. Right after a shower and a nap we replaced the spark plug and the engine started right up. A piece of metal had connected across the gap on the old spark plug; so it hadn’t been generating a spark. Now we have to decide if we want to carry a 5/16” wrench with us everywhere we go in order to be able to check the spark plug on the fly in a similar situation in the future. That’s why cruisers often carry more and more stuff in their dinghies.

On Friday we had the weekly Tenacatita raft-up of most of the cruisers in the anchorage. The leader sets an anchor and each dinghy ties sideways bow to bow and stern to stern of the dinghy that was tied in before. Eventually the circle is closed with all bows pointing to the center. At that time the boat cards (identifying the boats and owners) along with used books are passed around clockwise. We always pass on the romance novels but usually pick up a good action or spy novel, as we unload the books we have read. When that exercise is complete, the food that everyone brought is also passed around clockwise. As the food comes by it might be dessert, or an appetizer, or a side dish, or an entree depending on the order of the boats. On Friday we had some 20 dinghies; so it was critical to eat as the food was being passed around or else one’s plate would fill up and it would be necessary to pass on some very good dishes.

Everyone brings his or her own drinks, which means there is little sharing of beverages. After the dishes make it around the circle once, they are continued on if there is any food left on the plate. Often the great-looking dish from the dinghy on your left will be empty by the time it finally reaches you. But usually everyone gets plenty to eat and there is seldom anything left over. After eating we all take turns telling a bit about ourselves, our boats, and our intentions for the next couple of weeks. Several cruisers mentioned that they would be returning to the U.S. or Canada for the summer to get temporary jobs to replace some of the losses from their “cruising kitties” occasioned by the bleak economic situation to the north of us.

Since many have sold their homes, they have to find a place to stay while they work up north, if they aren’t ready to take their boats north with them. It's against the law to work in Mexico unless you get a permit, just as its unlawful to sell anything you own to someone else for cash or any other mode of payment. A couple of cruisers mentioned in a more private discussion that they can’t afford to live outside of Mexico for the near future, because their boat is all they have to live on and they can stretch their dollars much better down here. Thankfully we kept the condominium in San Diego; so we have a lot more flexibility.

Many non-cruisers have the belief that we cruisers are living the “good life,” but they aren’t seeing the whole picture. I think a lot of people never really pursue their dreams because they suspect they’ll find that dreams are a mixture of good and not-so-good experiences (as in daily life); so it is better to maintain an unreal vision of the dream and never find out that scum actually grows on the underside of the “dreamboat.”

More later . . .