From La Paz to Puerto Vallarta

We finally departed La Paz (January 11, 2006) on the Baja Penninsula after
two months there. We love La Paz and kept searching for excuses to stay
which was not too difficult. We ran into many of our old friends and made
lots of new friends there which made it especially hard to leave. On
Christmas day Joe spent 4 hours at the very top of our mast working on
installing a new wind instrument. Then we had a very nice Christmas potluck
dinner with about 12 other boaters. We planned to leave a few days after
Christmas but Joe developed a pinched nerve in his back and was laid up for
close to two weeks. When he was better we began once again to get motivated
to head out. Our first stop was Puerto Ballandra just north of La Paz. It
was an extremely quiet anchorage and we were the only boat there for a
while.

Muertos was our next stop where we spent two days. Muertos is a small
anchorage about 50 miles from La Paz and is a common first stop to rest
and/or wait for weather for those crossing over to the mainland. Friday,
January 13th...two things happened of worthy note. The first was that our
aft toilet plugged up and the toilet pump cracked from the pressure of
trying to pump it. The second - we tried to install our emergency tiller as
that is what our windvane uses to steer under sail and it wouldn't go on.
It is also what one would use if their steering failed so it is an important
piece of equipment to have installed. Our plan upon leaving Muertos had
been to head straight to Chamela but we decided we needed to divert to
Puerto Vallarta to have the emergency tiller worked on. On January 14th
after listening to Don's weather we departed Muertos headed for the mainland
(approx. 270 miles).

The morning that we were leaving we listened to the Amigo SSB radio net and
heard from another boater clear across on the mainland that a 65 foot brand
new powerboat anchored 50 yards away from us in this anchorage had called a
mayday the day before because his anchor windlass had failed which let out
chain and he thought that was sending him onto the rocks. We were quite
surprised to hear this as they never even tried to get our attention to
help. Unfortunately we had a 'radio free' day that day and never heard if
he tried to call us. It was a bit of over doing it to call a mayday in their
situation and we could have helped in any case if they had honked their horn
at us. We think they didn't believe a lowly sailboat could help them so
they asked for the Mexican Navy to do it. In the end two locals came to
help and got their problem fixed without tools in about 10 minutes. This
was the same powerboat that ran aground going 8 knots entering La Paz
harbor.

The next day we left for Chamela Bay and were about 25 miles across when we
again listened to Don's weather forcast which was for 35 knot winds and 10
foot seas. We decided that we didn't want to deal with that for the next
two days so turned around and went into an anchorage called Frailes which
was over three hours in the wrong direction.

Frailes is a national park and breeding ground for manta rays. We came in
after dark with the assistance of radar and all around us were these little
manta rays jumping out of the water. It was really quite magical. The
wind didn't pick up for several days but when it did.......it really came on
strong. For several days solid we had winds gusting up to 38 knots in this
supposedly protected anchorage. Our anchor chain was straining so hard we
thought it was going to break off. The wind was too strong to get the
dinghy off the boat so we were boat bound. A boat next to us called Ceilidh
(pronounced kay-lee) has a dog which they regularly take to shore so they
had their dinghy already in the water and offered to go to shore on the day
the vegetable truck comes in and buy everyone in the anchorage whatever they
needed. Joe spent 3 days working on the toilet and let me tell you - he was
not a happy boy. For those of you that are non-boaters you may find it
humerous to hear that boaters spend a considerable amount of time talking
about toilets and their problems. And nothing is sacred - we discuss it at
dinner even. Every boater has a toilet horror story and none of them have
enough shame to keep it to themselves.

We departed Frailes on January 18th. Wind was forcasted for 15-25 knots
which would slowly decrease during the day. We had a great sail for about
10 hours when the wind just died and we started to motor. We arrived in the
Punta Mita anchorage at 4:30 a.m. (in the dark again, of course) on January
20th. Later that day we went over to Marina Vallarta. On the way over we
saw several pods of whales flopping their tails in the water and blowing
their spouts.

So we are back in a marina but Joe got the emergency tiller fixed without
outside help (9 hard hours) and we had North Sails rigging replace our
sheaves (pulleys to you landlubbers) at the top of our mainmast. And, we
have been doing other minor projects in between visiting with old friends,
including Steve and Linda from S/V Linda and Phil from S/V In the Mood, both
from Anacortes. Madeline, Phil's wife, was in Spanish class so we missed
her but they are both in the Anacortes Yacht Club where we are still
members. It was fun to see them. They both came down on this year's Baja
Ha-Ha which we came down on last season.

We plan to leave here as soon as the rigging work is complete. Joe checked
in and out of the Port Captains office today. We will head south again for
Bahia Chamela and then Bahia Tenacatita, Barra de Navidad, Manzanillo and
finally Zihuatanejo where we will jump off from to go to the South Pacific.
That is, unless we change our minds again and go some place else. It's
looking like we will though. We will try to do more updates more frequently
- at least we intend to.