Mazatlan

We arrived in Mazatlan after experiencing some great head winds that were actually coming from a direction that allowed us swift sailing up the coastline. We also got in some good fishing, unfortunately, a dorado, a yellow tail or yellow fin remain as elusive as ever. On a good note, our streak for Jacks remains unbroken. (sarcasm) 

Why does the picture bring to mind the refrain from the theme song of "Team America"? For the record, yours truly reeled in that Crevalle Jack. :) We were wooping when it came up to the surface, thinking we had a yellow fin... nope.

The last time I had been in Mazatlan, was our Senior Spring Fling in the mid-80's. (By the way, what the hell were our parents thinking by sending a bunch of unchaperoned 17-year-olds to a beach resort south of the border? Crazy.) From that time, I only recall the three hotels (offered by the degree to which your parents wanted to shovel out money for the package) and the beach. I am glad I can say that I know Mazatlan much better today. Back then we took the overnight train from Nogales to Mazatlan. It was sad to learn that the train stopped running years ago, but that does not seem to have impacted the tourist industry by any means. Mazatlan is sprawling from its northern most coastal properties to its southern with seemingly countless hotel properties. But, behind this beach facade, lies an old city with a colorful culture and rich history. 

The beautiful Mazatlan Catedral

A pretty street makes for an enjoyable stroll in Old Town Mazatlan

One of many amazing sculptures along the Malecon. 

Unfortunately, Mazatlan has another history... up until his capture in February of this year, Mazatlan was a favorite hangout of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and his Sinaloa Cartel. As a result, there had been a rise in some petty crimes with sporadic violent breakouts over the past several years. The resulting bad press in the US led to a steep decline in tourism for the city and the impact of this decline is very evident. Many of the resorts appear to be in neglect of needed updates and maintenance. Many plots of land are half developed with some utilities, perhaps a pad for a new condo laid here or there and then not touched for several years and now overgrown with weeds and mud. But, things are definitely changing for the better. There is a very strong police presence on the malecon and the resort strips. The taxi drivers all told us that the tourists are back and dead projects are being resurrected and new development and investment has begun again. We see a great deal of tourists in Mazatlan and feel very safe walking anywhere on the malecon or in the old town area of the city. There are a few expansive, dark and empty lots outside the marina that we traverse quite often to get to the supermercado or escape the heat by visiting the awesome theater in the galeria. (Those that know us well, know that we are complete movie hags. So, believe me when I say, this is quite possibly the nicest movie theater we have ever attended. Sorry Landmark (Denver) and Esplanade (Biltmore area)! And for $4 per person - Yes, please!)

Dining with cruiser friends on the Malecon

Cruising kids make fast friends

Taking the truck taxi home, we all pile into the pickup bed for a fast ride back to the Marina

We have spent entirely too much time here, as beautiful as it is, waiting for parts and getting maintenance work executed on Mangas. We want so much to be back on the open water and we look forward to mid-July when we will be returning to the north of the Sea of Cortez for the following 5 months. One of our to-dos was getting our visas renewed, which required a trip to the border. The interstate bus transportation in Mexico is wonderful. Clean and modern, they are pennies compared to airfares. When we looked to get the family from Mazatlan to Arizona, we could not find roundtrip airfares under $800 dollars. Unbelievable. In comparison, our roundtrip bus fares on a premier bus line were around $170 per person. 

The Tufesa bus took us all to the border in Nogales where we crossed by foot and grabbed a taxi to a rental. We had an appointment the following day with the US passport office in Tucson and hoped that they would expedite, even though we did not have the requisite flight itinerary showing a departure to Mexico within 2 weeks.  In Nogales, we saw our first sprinkles of rain since January. 

The following morning, we went to the passport office, hoping the agent would allow for a 5 day expedite on the passport renewal. Imagine our delight and surprise when she told us to come back at 2 PM that day to pick up the new passport. Yay!

We then went on to ship out parts for repair and travel north to visit family in Phoenix who had received other parts and items that we had ordered for Mangas online. A few days later, the girls and I got back on a bus and took the 14 hour overnight bus ride from Nogales back to Mazatlan. Mike and Reid remained behind in Arizona to wait on the return of our rebuilt Navtec boom vang. (Thank you Rigworks, Inc. for the great job and the speedy return of the vang!)

The girls and I had a week of girls-only time on the boat and we took the opportunity to visit the Mazatlan Aquarium. The aquarium, like many of the zoological and marine life institutions we have visited in Mexico, is inexpensive, but not anything to write home about. The staff is very nice and knowledgeable, there are some exhibits that are cool and many where you are feeling pretty bad about the poor animal they have cooped up in a much too small environment. Tovara comes to mind. The three of us traveled throughout the city without any incident. There are certainly some great deals to be had in Mazatlan if you are thinking of going. As a place to live and hangout, this city has been very good to us. As a place to be on the beach or relax under a palapa and enjoy fine food and beautiful views, Mazatlan would not be on my top list. Zihuatanejo or Barre de Navidad would be my preference for a relaxing, do nothing indulgent seaside vacation. 

Our next stop... Guadalajara to see an old friend and then on to the state of Morelos where the family will take a Spanish immersion class before we depart for the Sea.

Punta Mita for Mother's Day

We left Barre de Navidad and our little private paradise. We headed north to Punta Mita, which is a small anchorage on the northern tip on the entrance to Banderas Bay.  When we left Barre, the weather was predicted to be pretty calm with some winds up to 10 knots. What we found, were 20+ knot winds and 10 to 15 foot sea swells. Five hours into our departure found us only about 10 kilometers from our origination. Arrgh. We decided to head into a small cove and sit this out until the following day that promised better winds. 

The anchorage site at Tenacatita provided only minimal protection so that Mangas was rolling from starboard to port throughout the night. Even so, it allowed some much needed rest and the opportunity to get a fresh perspective on starting out again. The following day we tried again and this time we had better winds and better luck. We used the 12 to 16 knot winds to get us moving pretty fast up the coast. We averaged about 7 knots per hour during the day. On the evening of day two we approached Cabo Corrientes and found ourselves in high wind and swell yet again. Some of the swells during our trip north from Zihuatanejo were literally a couple of stories high. We had seas that rolled towards Mangas with the tips many times our height and we hi-centered on more than a few waves where a backward glance over the stern revealed that our sugar scoop was actually out about 15 feet over the water before we would begin to surf Mangas down the other side. Meanwhile, the kids are hooping and hollering. Splash Mountain in the open seas. Otherwise, the kids are pretty much just watching movies or reading. When we are out on the water for overnight passages, Mike and I simply do not have the energy to keep up on the kids with homework. So passage days they are left to entertain themselves or join whoever is on duty in the cockpit. They actually do pretty well, but I am sure if we were to do a long passage of a week or more, we would want to incorporate more homework structure.

Speaking of passages and the navigating that accompanies them, one thing that I absolutely hate is our Garmin charting system on the boat. It has a special upload of charts for this region, but they are so off. We will be anchored and it shows that we are 2 kilometers inland. You pass a large rock / small islet jutting out of the water, and it shows nothing but 600 foot depth with no obstructions. Couple this with a depth finder (Another fine product from Autohelm) that starts to go haywire with any chop and so is completely useless, outside of a lagoon.   

In the early morning hours of the second night, I took over helmsman's duty from Mike and he went below. At 2 AM, you are really just waking up and you need to get your bearings. I looked at the radar and just saw a long black swipe that represented the coast to our starboard about 7 kilometers away. I did not see any other vessels on radar. Then I looked at the Garmin. It showed several small islets surrounding us and 25 feet of water. Quickly I looked at the depth and it read 21 feet. Aaaaacckkkkk!! We were motoring at this point, due to lack of wind, so at least I was free to navigate in any direction without fear of jibing our changing sails. I picked up our cruiser guide and it showed nothing in the water. 

Long and short of it is that this was 15 minutes of sheer terror worrying that we would strike a rock at any moment. During which time, I shouted to Mike and he unrolled the paper charts (after having to get out of our bunk - sorry!) to compare with the cruiser guide book and the Garmin to find that the guide book was correct and we were in no danger. Can I tell you what we paid for the cruiser guide book, compared to the Garmin?  Unbelievable. (PS - Thank you Heather and Shawn!)

Later that morning, as the sun came up over the coastline, just as with our exit out of Banderas, we had quite the escort of dolphins coming across the mouth of the bay. I counted 6 different pods surrounding us at one point with around 6-8 dolphins in each pod. Beautiful.

We passed the sprawling grounds of the Four Seasons resort and pulled in to an anchorage on the northwest tip of the bay called Punta Mita. There were about 5 other boats already anchored and plenty of room. The shore was dotted with restaurants  and palapas. 

You can probably guess this is not my picture (thank you Virtual Vallarta). This is Punta Mita looking from the northwest with our anchorage in the upper left corner past the Four Seasons.

About this time, I was not feeling well at all. I had a fever and muscle aches...aka La Gripa! (Flu in Mexico) It was Mother's Day, but I just wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep. Mike and the kids convinced me to go out and we found a restaurant on the beach that had good fish tacos and complimentary wooden hand fans for all the moms. Nice!

Because of how incredibly crappy I was feeling, I did not take any photos in Punta Minta. 

Punta Mita - Northwest tip of Bahia de Banderas

Barre de Navidad

Keira enjoying the view of the "hidden cove"

Our first anchorage north of Zihuatanejo was "Hidden Anchorage" at the further most northern tip of Manzanillo. A very nice little place that we had all to ourselves with the exception of a little floating fisherman's hut and a fish pen. After a quick one night rest, we continued on.

We approached Barre de Navidad with the plan to stay for a bit before continuing north into the sea. Barre de Navidad is a good halfway point between Zihuatanejo and Banderas Bay (Puerto Vallarta).
It is dry season when we arrive and the hillsides are very brown and extremely thirsty. But the grounds of hotels and resorts like the Grand Bay are lush and green - of course.

You can anchor in a small bay at the seaside town of Melaque. Unfortunately, we were seeing heavy swells and wind coming from the Southwest, which would have made such an anchorage extremely rolly-polly. Fortunately, there is a beautiful resort marina in Barre de Navidad, the Grand Bay Hotel, that has great summer rates of .28 cents per foot per day for marina slips. The equivalent for us is about $420 per month and that comes with full use of the hotels amenities. So compare $420/month with $300/night in the hotel, and you begin to appreciate the bargain. 

The approach to the marina at Grand Bay Hotel in Barre de Navidad

The holy week activities of Easter had wrapped and the Mexican tourists had headed back to school and work so the hotel was virtually empty when we arrived. We splurged on one breakfast in the hotel dining room and literally saw only 10 other people. The resort is a Wyndham property and I have seen mixed reviews of its service prior to the Wyndham purchase, but I can tell you that thoroughly enjoyed the pool and food and the service was very courteous and welcoming.

A nearly empty and VERY clean marina with the Grand Bay in the background.

We lucked out to find another cruising family from Ensenada, Baja California were in the marina with their two young sons, making for great playmates with the kids. The wife of another Mexican couple also took the time to show the kids and Mike where the ripe mangos were falling so that they could collect dozens. Great treat and so tasty. It is not usual to find Mexican sailing families. We have met many that are on motor vessels (like the majority that you see posted above) but not on sailing boats.

The hotel has two slides that connect the terraced pools and our kids could be found here most days.

A deserted lagoon all to ourselves at the hotel

We ventured into Melaque a few times, taking the water taxi from the hotel property to the town of Barre de Navidad and then a taxi into the larger town of Melaque. We had learned that there was a national immigration office in Melaque and we hoped that we might get our 6-month tourist visas renewed there, rather than making the long trek back to the border at Nogales.

We met with the very nice officials, who informed us, very nicely, that we were completely SOL. We began to make plans for getting back to the US.

Around this same time, Mike was noticing that we were leaking hydraulic fluid from out boom vang. He contacted the manufacturer and we learned that we would have to ship it to San Diego for a likely rebuild. One thing that we have learned here is that you do not want to ship anything that is of value down to Mexico. Not because we have had anything stolen or lost, but because of the high import tariffs. We have an Temporary (10 yr) Import Permit (TIP) for the boat which allows us to import parts for her without additional tariff. But, unless you are right there with the permit talking to customs officials, they have a tendency to ignore the TIP copy that is plastered to the boat part.

It looked like we were destined to make a turn-around at the border to get new visas and to get our parts fixed. Also, Mike's passport was expiring in November, so we needed him to do an expedited renewal from the states.

The decision was made to hi-tail it to either La Cruz at the entrance of Banderas Bay, or on to Mazatlan. The official hurricane season appeared to hit a week early with a storm depression that came in from the southwest, making for some rain by the time it reached us, but not much wind. After 7 days at the marina, we headed north to our next stop.