From: Barbara and Rick and Lyra.
SailKirin@aol.com SailKirin@aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999
Hola December 11, 1999 below
Hiding out in Los Muertos
Meanwhile, Back In Sunny Mexico ...
December 7: Weather permitting we are hoping to leave La Paz on Saturday the 11th. Our plans are to head south the way we came to Los Muertos, spend the night at anchor there and then head across the Sea of Cortes toward Isla Isabela. This is the bird sanctuary island that so many cruisers have told us about. Again, weather and space permitting, this is a rolly and small anchorage, we will stay the night there or, plan B, continue on to the coast at a small bay just south of San Blas. Here we will rest up and enjoy the beginning of the more tropical climate of the southern mainland for a couple of days, then on to Chacala for a couple more days.
We have imposed a schedule of sorts upon ourselves by my desire to fly home to spend Christmas and my parent’s 50th anniversary with my family so I have reservations out of Puerto Vallarta for Seattle on December 22nd. Once we get the boat as far as San Blas, I can bus to P.V. from either there or Chacala, or La Crux. If the weather and our energy level allows, though, we will probably get the boat as far as La Crux or even Puerto Vallarta before I jump ship. Rick can then hang out in the Bay of Banderas for Christmas. His lower lip is starting to tremble at being left alone for the holiday, but I know there will be lots of great folks there who will take care of him just as the folks on Log On took care of me last time he went home. And my trip north is going to be a short one since I really want to spend the big New Year’s Eve in Mexico. Not sure where we will be for that but anywhere in Mexico will be a beautiful, memorable experience.
Just about every day in Mexico is beautiful and memorable. As many cruisers discover, La Paz is a very comfortable place. We have discovered about a week’s worth of cheap eats, some great day cruising, wonderful walks ... One could, and of course many do, settle in here and never leave. Perhaps this is one reason we feel the need to push on and head south. Mazatlan has the same effect of closing in around you like a great overstuffed chair. A large chunk of those who manage to escape the cozy claws of La Paz get mired down in the semi-tropical comfort of Mazatlan. Partly for this reason, we are heading across the sea at a heading that will take us south of Mazatlan to start with.
December 8: Well, the winds are back. We are more used to them this time and more sure of our moorings but they still complicate life. The marina has put in a couple of new mooring anchors and another boat, Quest, has decided to try them out while they head north for a month or so. Yesterday was a beautiful day but by the time Quest pulled up anchor around 4:00 in the afternoon the wind was picking up. This made the whole procedure of them picking up the moorings, right next to us, a little dicey. After half an hour of fending off and manipulating anchor lines and mooring lines we are both settled back in, but the positioning of the moorings is way too close for my liking. I’ll be glad to leave. The boats are so close in this wind we couldn’t row our dinghy between them. It will be interesting getting away from here.
Speaking of the dinghy, after we got the boats situated we rowed over to Terry’s boat, Secret O’ Life. Rick took the job of jumping up all the time to check on Lyra to make sure all looked OK there but when we got ready to leave, the wind now up to a steady 20 knots, our dinghy was gone. All that remained was the knot I had tied in the painter. Fortunately the wind was blowing toward shore so the worst scenario we could think of was that it might have worked it’s way around the docks at Marina La Paz and might have ended up in the Navy area. Our luck held, though, and the best case scenario was actually what happened. We jumped in Terry’s dinghy and headed toward shore where the night guard for the marina waved us down and told us he had seen our dinghy sailing loose and had caught it as it bumped up against the seawall. He had pulled it up on the malecon and there it sat, waiting for us. No harm and Rick’s sandals were even still inside. Lucky once again.
December 10: Winds are calm today. Yesterday the bay was still rough. The raft the marina built with a metal rack and plywood on barrels broke loose sometime in the night and broke apart on the seawall. Ed was in the water up to his waist with Don trying to help from shore and then from the dinghy. They finally got the pieces all up on the sandy beach at the end of the malecon and were welding things back together by afternoon.
We will miss La Paz and the folks at the marina. We bought some Christmas ornaments for the office tree that Ana Luisa has been decorating and they gave us a card good for one week’s moorage in the new marina when it is actually built. I am baking cookies this morning, in a cake pan in the pressure cooker, for all the guys who have been so nice to us. But it is time to move on, way too cold here, low fifties this morning! And we have work to do. Yesterday we got propane and some of the groceries, today will be water, fuel and the rest of the food, and ice. We hope to get some help getting out of this tight spot we are in today, Quest was barely a foot away from us at low tide yesterday, with some help from the marina folks and then anchor out for the night a few yards back in the anchorage. This will make an early getaway tomorrow MUCH easier.
Hope you are all staying inside, malls or houses, and are spending time with friends and family. Next message will be from the mainland.