We had a great visit in paradise with Paul’s parents at Paradise Village in Puerto Vallarta, well actually in close by Nueva Vallarta which is actually in a different state and time zone but they use Puerto Vallarta time. Paul’s parent stayed at the Resort and we were in their marina so his parent’s room was no more than a five minute walk from our boat. We were a bit far from downtown Puerto Vallarta but did make a couple of trips in to town. Puerto Vallarta is a beautiful city with great older buildings and cobbled streets that must be really hard on car tires. It was wonderful to enjoy the luxury of this beautiful resort with two pools complete with great water slides that are shaped like huge alligators and you came shooting out the alligator’s mouth into the pool. Paul and Suzette had a blast on the water slides with all of the other kids. We took Paul’s parents on a whale watching trip and luckly before long two humpbacked whales found us before we had to go too far out in the bay. They came within 50 feet of the boat and boy are they BIG!!
Things are certainly much warmer now that we are over on the mainland. The vegetation is beginning to look much more tropical, lots more palm trees and jungle settings. We spent a quiet Christmas eve and day in Yelapa, 15 miles from Puerto Vallarta and reachable only by boat. Many people compare Yelapa to the South Pacific, lots of palm trees and thatched roofs.
We stopped at Tenacatita for four nights and actually had a day of steady rain the first full day we were there. Weren’t sure where we were when we woke up to the sound of rain on the decks. We quickly had to stick our heads out of the hatch to be sure it wasn’t all just a dream, but yes we were in Mexico and not Seattle. The rain certainly gave the boat a good wash. As a rainy day activity, one boat organized a cribbage tournament at the French restaurant on the beach (Paris Tropical) and other people played dominoes at the palapa restaurant down the beach. There were 18 boats at anchor, 15 dinghies on the beach and 200 pelicans fishing between them in the surf as we played games. It was nice to meet all the other cruisers the first afternoon, plus we both enjoyed the chance to talk with others, not that we don’t like each other, but…... Paris Tropical inhabits a building that was part of the set from the filming of the movie McHale’s Navy so you can rent the movie if you want to see where we were December 28, 2000.
Tenacatita is a bit north of Manzanillo and is a fairly big bay with five beaches around its’ edges. Lots of people go there to camp and as we were there the week between Christmas and New Years the place was packed. There were a lot of wet campers due to the rain but no one seemed to really mind too much, lots of cloths out to dry when the sun came out however. It was fun to be in a place where the Mexicans go for holiday.
There is a river that winds a few miles inland from the beach where we were anchored. You can take your dinghy up the river through the mangroves to a lagoon behind the first beach in the bay. It was a fun ride as the mangroves closed in over the water way the further up the river we went. There were also exciting moments when we would meet pangas head on taking visitors through the mangoves, frequently at high speeds along this one way water way. The beach this route takes you to has all of the palapa restaurants and their specialty is Rollo del Mar – Fish Rolls. They wrap fish around shrimp, then wrap with bacon, deep fry and finally top with an almond cream sauce. Very delicious! Another tasty thing we have tried is lime and chili powder sprinkled on slices of cucumber.
On another note we have gotten out the star charts and located a number of stars which has been really fun. In addition during the end of November-first part of December when we were in the Sea of Cortez, Jupiter and Saturn were very prominent in the sky and were supposed to brightest they have been in about 200 years. It all made for stunning skies and great star gazing. We are pleased that we have finally found a number of stars and constellations that we have been looking for including the star Altair and the constellations for our two astrological signs – Aries and Gemini. “North Star to Southern Cross” is a great book that shows you what the sky will look like during each month of the year and this helped point us in the right direction so to speak.
We finally made it to Zihuatanejo and it is all as good as the people say, friendly and inexpensive. We spent a week here and relaxed, did boat projects, met lots of other cruisers and caught up with our friends Wendy and Garth that left Seattle around the same time we did. We will all be heading to the South Pacific this spring. Great cruising community here and it was easy to feel right at home after just a day which also made it hard to leave. There is a great cruiser bar, Rick’s, where you can stop in for a beverage, have a shower, trade books, drop off your propane tanks to be filled or laundry to be done, do email, etc. He also organizes a potluck on Fridays and Mexican Dancing performance on Saturdays. What more can you ask for?
We are now in The Big City, Acapulco. It is a bit like old home week as Paul spent four months here in 1984 on a previous adventure. This is a real taxi town with lots of taxis all painted white with blue fenders and most are VW Bugs. At times it seems that the streets are filled with just VW taxis. Some also have some special paint and neon lights that make them look very fancy at night. We are not used to being so far from town and are taking buses more often which can be a unique experience. The cost is 3.50 pesos (about US$0.35) no matter the length of the trip. You give the money to the driver and he puts it in a wooden change tray on the dashboard, giving you any necessary change, all while he is driving down the street and shifting gears multiple times. No automatic transmissions here. So far we have been doing really well and have only gotten on the wrong bus once.
We are staying at the Club de Yates de Acapulco which has a wonderful simple elegance to it and a great pool that is very refreshing especially after a day of doing errands in the heat. Corinthian Yacht Club membership gets us a 25% discount here at the club so we come out about even as we do not have to pay the US$7 per day anchorage charge plus fees to land your dinghy. There is a new tonnage fee in Mexico that started the first of the year that we need to pay when we check in and out of any port. We are fortunate as we are a small boat and only pay about US$14 in and another US$14 out, larger boats pay more. It will be interesting to see if this new tax will last. Some cruisers are up in arms and are going to try to get the new fees rescinded.
This is a wild town. There are discos along the beach that don’t get going until midnight (way past our bed time) and a place downtown in the same strip where you can bungee jump. We had watched two people jump and decided to watch a third before we moved on and he was naked! Gravity must have been tough on the “privates.” All of these discos and bars are open air and have waist high walls on the outside so it is easy to look in and see what is going on in a place. There were lots of people out side the bungee jumping place.
Email has been really easy to find everywhere we have been, Zihuatanejo was the best with a place on every corner, but has been hard to find here which has surprised us as this is such a big city. But we have found a few places downtown but at 50 pesos and hour and a bus ride away as compared to Zihuatanejo where we walked a few blocks and paid 25 pesos an hour. One dollar US is about 10 pesos so this is still cheaper than Kinko’s in the states.
We will leave here Tuesday 16 January and sail to Huatulco (a 2-3 day trip) to wait for a window of good weather to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec. This is an area that can have high winds on a regular basis, they actually funnel over from the Caribbean, but there are periods of lulls or lighter winds and we will wait for one of those. Not for too long a time hopefully. We plan to head straight to Panama with no stops along the way in Central America and the trip from Huatulco to Panama will take about 7-10 days. We will be in touch after we reach Panama. Hope everyone is having a good start to the new year.
Paul and Suzette S/V Altair