More stuff from Banderas Bay 02-20 to 02-27

02-20, Mon. – Off we went to Paradise Village Marina with “Journey”, which is all of about 1 ½ hours by boat at 5.5 to 6.0 knots . It is located between La Cruz and Puerto Vallarta in Nuevo Vallarta. The marina runs along the back side of the resort, the Vallarta Yacht club, a shopping mall and some condos.

Our slip ended up being right under an outdoor restaurant and a wall of windows from one of the resort towers, woo hoo. The buildings are between the docks and the Bay, so the wind doesn’t get to you very well in this estuary and hence it is warmer.

Across the estuary from us is an estate with a villa on it, which you can’t see due to the foliage on the grounds. The estuary is quite busy with charter business for everything from small go-fast boats to fishing boats and sailing charters , Oh and jet skis too. All are heading out to the Bay. So, it is a bit noisy during the day with that activity and at night with the band, restaurant and resort noises. It wasn’t too bad though. There is also a surge in the marina that really causes the boat to woggle around in the slip. Almost feels like you’re at anchor ( except nosier = D). Anyway, this is home for the next three days. We walked around the place again and scoped out a place for dinner (and later had a delicious dinner in one of the resort restaurants – D). The sunset was beautiful. With all the moisture that has been in the air, it has made for beautiful sunrises & sunsets.

Tues. – We hopped on a bus and headed to the cruise ship docks in PV and the little restaurant we had picked to meet the folks. They were on the lovely Sapphire Princess ship, which my Dad says was just completely renovated inside and beautiful! We all hopped on a bus and went back to our Marina/Resort. We showed them all round the beautiful grounds, including the tigers & birds. We had a lovely time sitting in the cockpit chatting, opening my birthday presents (early) and watching all the activity that goes on in this area. Then, we had lunch at the Vallarta Yacht Club, which overlooks the estuary and the marina. We had a lovely time, but had to send them back to get on the ship. Both my Mom & I forgot to take pictures we were so busy catching up. Got some pictures of the ship though :--), even got pictures of the ship leaving the bay, from the breakwater wall at the entrance to the estuary and from our beach at the resort. We met two really nice couples that were vacationing at the resort together while we were on the breakwater wall. After talking with them for a while, they were interested in taking a tour of Journey, so we had them over for some snacks, beverages and a tour. We’ve been eating out so much, we decided to eat simple aboard tonight.

(The bus trips with Mom and Dad remind me that I wanted to say a few things about the buses down here. The short and sweet of it is that they are a wonderful, inexpensive and efficient way to get around. They come in all sizes from vans to big highway buses, ages and states of repair, colors and personalities. Most common are the medium size – about a small school bus size. Everybody and their grandma rides the bus. It’s a wonderful tapestry of people. Occasionally, musicians get on and play for tips, sometimes just for fun.
Fares here in the Banderas Bay area are based loosely on distance and range for a short trip – 6 pesos { $.50} to the longest – 16 pesos {$1.35}. Taxis for the same trips would range from $15 to $40. The driver decides the fare, I’ve had the same trip range from 8 to 13 pesos. They drive with great zest and at times with what seems like wild abandon. My personal favorite is going completely into the oncoming lane to avoid the speed bump on their side of the road. Tailgating, sudden lane changes and rapid start/stops are the norm. Stand up at your own risk. They stop anywhere along their route to let you on or off.

By the way, they love their speed bumps down here. They are everywhere, from highways to dirt roads. Made from steel domes, concrete, heavy ropes and wood they will pop up at you at any moment, sometimes singularly but many time in groups as high as a dozen or more.

It took us a while to get into the buses, never used them in La Paz, got slowly introduced to them in Mazatlan and have embraced them fully here in Banderas Bay. We seldom use any other form transportation, including for picking up the parents, bringing them to the marina and their return to the ship. They are that reliable and timely. Reliability and timeliness comes from frequency, we have seldom had to wait more than 5 minutes for a bus and if one dies you just hop off and get on the next one. – D)

Wed. – Since this is a resort and we can use it, we decided to “do in Rome as the Romans”. We spent a lovely day at the pool reading and swimming. Nice and relaxing! We had been told about this restaurant in the mall called the Brasil Steakhouse. There really wasn’t a menu here, which we were confused by at first, until we experienced the service. They put bowls of various condiments & salads on the table with an empty plate in front of you. Then they come around with hunks of meats of different kinds on skewers (chicken, sirloin, filet, ribs, arracherra and more - with a new one showing up every few minutes - D) and slice off a hunk for you to eat. What an interesting concept which, we were told was quite common in Brazil, but since we’ve never been to Brazil we haven’t experienced. Super yummy!

Thurs. – Back to La Cruz anchorage for us today. Yay! We love the anchorage here. After being at “the dock” for a couple weeks, it is nice to be back out here. It is much quieter, peaceful, cooler with the afternoon winds and more private. We got situated here within the fleet of boats, had some dinner and waited for the afternoon winds to die down to take the dinghy into town. Tonight is karaoke night at Café de Huanacaxtle! You know what that means ;--)………….. Yes, I got to sing! Oh Boy! Oh! I won the contest this week! I get some kind of light I have to go back and pick up later. Woo Hoo!

Fri. – Oh Boy! My birthday! Dick is studying for his General Ham license test which comes this Sunday, so I spent the day alternating between cleaning the boat, reading, playing computer games, talking to friends and family on the phone, responding to e-mails & Facebooks well-wishes, and getting ready for my dinner celebration tonight. I had a nice surprise from my Sissy Yvonne & her husband Tom, who gave a gift to Dick in November when they visited to give me on my birthday. So, I got to open that and two cards from them while I was on the phone with Yvonne. I will wear the beautiful amethyst necklace and ring to dinner tonight. We got together with our friends on “ShantiAna”, Bill, Keene & Shanti, to go back to the restaurant we went to on Valentines Day, Pacifica. When we got there Mizzy & Brian, the brother & sister couple from the boat “Alegria”, were sitting at the bar waiting for us and wanted to “crash” the dinner party. So, we were a party of seven for yet another FABULOUS dinner. Shanti made a cake for the occasion too, so the restaurant was kind enough to serve us all pieces of it with a candle to blow out. The same fabulous trio of guys was playing beautiful flamenco music too! We stopped by “Anna Bananas” to see if they were having decent music, but it wasn’t that great, so we went on back out to the boat. It was late anyway. It was a lovely birthday.

Sat. – Dick is studying furiously for his test, which is tomorrow. So, another day of various tasks and self-entertainment for me. Really, a nice quiet day on the boat.

Sun. – Today is the big day for testing and Dick is sharing a ride in a van to the Vallarta Yacht Club with a few other folks who are also taking their tests. I took him to the marina on the dinghy at 7:50 a.m. to catch the van at 8:00. So, I had one of those rare mornings on the boat to myself. I also am going to visit the Sunday market again so I can get some more of that Peach jalapeno jelly!! I had to return the cake pan to Shanti, so I took the dingy over to their boat at the dock. They are preparing to go back to Seattle for a week on this coming Tues. We will miss them! Dick got back from his testing and passed with an almost perfect score! Congratulations to him! He is now an official hamster! (Yeah – D) We chatted with the “ShantiAna” folks for a bit and then went to the market. We also made reservations for next Sunday to take an overnight tour to a small, old mountain mining town called San Sebastian, with about 600 inhabitants. We’re going with a group from Philo’s, at this point about 85 people and includes the house band. They take over the town. The trip includes lodging, dinner and breakfast and a fire light jam session with the band. Should be great fun! Stay tuned…….

02-12, Sunday to 02-19, Sunday :-)

02-12, Sun. 02-19, Sun. – Sunday is Market Day here in La Cruz Marina. We hadn’t yet made it there yet, so today was the day! We wandered through the lovely booths with beautiful art and …… yes.,….. FOODS to eat and buy.

I found some peach-jalapeño jelly to pour over cream cheese and serve with chips/crackers. Yummy! Also found some mango chutney!

The rain has stopped for now, so it is lovely and just the right temperature, with the clouds covering the sun. It is supposed to be this way all week.

My parents are coming into PV on a cruise ship on 2-21, so we needed to find a place to meet them and get the info to them before they leave this coming Saturday. We took a bus into PV to scope it out. We found out which gate they would be coming to and found the perfect little restaurant to meet at. Of course as is usual in Mexico, this took all day. With the pace of life down here, we are lucky to get more than one thing done in the day.

When we returned, we found that our shore power cord had a melt-down, so Dick is going to have to fix that right away. We’ll live on battery power for now.

Our friends from “ShantiAna”, Bill & Shanti, came over on Monday night for hors d’oeuvres and we were having such a good time that they went back to their boat and brought over the spaghetti &meatball sauce they had made earlier. That, with some garlic bread, was a perfect dinner.

Tuesday was Valentines Day. Dick had to go to Zarragosa Marine in PV (hour bus ride each way – D) again to get the parts necessary to fix the power cord. (All the necessary parts were available - not a given – a straight forward fix, YEAH – D) We made reservations for this evening at a restaurant that we had not yet tried by the name of “Pacifica”. WHAT A DELICIOUS MEAL!! Was the best meal we’ve had yet. A four-course meal: 1) Tuna Tartare for me & Beet Carpaccio for Dick, 2) Cream of Pumpkin/Cauliflower Soup for Dick & Bruschetta with Caramelized Onion, Apple & Veggies for me, 3) Roasted Chicken for Dick & Mushroom Risotto for me, 4) Chocolate Madeline Cookie with small scoop of ice cream and valentine candy. Since it is Tues., I got to sing again at the Britannia Pub! Lots of fun there and a late night. (A great time was had by all – another good food, good music, good friends kind of night – D)

Wed. was another rain-off-and-on kind of day. Clean the boat, tidy up and get ready for dinner guests, do oil and filter change, fill the boat with water, etc. etc. We had Shanti, Bill and Keene over for dinner as a thanks for the spaghetti dinner they brought over and I fixed my first arracherra tacos. They turned out terrific! Nice day and nice evening.

We are also looking to get our FM3 Visas going and were told that a lady here in town does them for a small fee. So we went to see her on Thurs. and got instructions from her as to what she needed from us, which we will take care of tomorrow. She will get with us tomorrow evening to put everything together. It is worth every penny to not have to spend hours in immigration and fill out forms and letters in Spanish.

So, Friday we took the bus to Bucerias to get our pictures taken for the FM3s, had lunch in town, took another two buses to Paradise Marina Village so we could make reservations for “Journey” to be there Mon to Wed next week, took another two buses back to the Mega market for provisions and then a bus back to La Cruz!! Busy little day. We then had to sit with the lady regarding the FM3’s and help her fill out & sign the forms, letters, and drop off the pictures.

OH forgot one thing that was pretty funny and will have to go back to the bank on the bus today because of it. I went to the bank to change money yesterday and after standing in line for quite some time was told that the system for changing dollars to pesos had “crashed”. The gentleman told me that “It is very busy on Fridays and the system usually crashes about this time. Welcome to Mexico.” Funny! It is just like when we were waiting for the bus yesterday, the man who was organizing people getting on and off the bus (which they do at busy bus stops so people get on the right buses) told us “the next bus will be coming in 5 Mexican minutes”.

So, Saturday was another lovely day in paradise. Had to go back to the bank at Mega, so Dick went to the local swap meet in the marina. We hooked up with our friends Dave and Leianne on “Cricket” for dinner at the FABULOUS La Cava restaurant in town. This is our 3rd time eating there because they have an excellent menu of Mexican food at super reasonable prices.

Sunday we prepared the boat to leave the dock and go to Paradise Village tomorrow and attended a farewell party for our friends Nancy & Nick on “Jessie Marie”. They are heading north tomorrow for the Sea of Cortez. (It’s taking some getting used to – the constant making of new friends and then the departure of new friends, with in between a couple of weeks or months great memories. And then the joy of meeting them again weeks or months later. – D) Here are some various pictures from La Cruz.

01-30 to 02-11, La Cruz

01-30, Mon to 02-11, Sat. -- Today is actually Saturday 02-11 and it is RAINING! Yes…raining. However, we are sitting here in sundress & t-shirt/shorts. A nice change actually and a nice day to catch you all up with our blog.

On Monday the 30th we went with our friends Bill & Brenda on “Tahnoo” to a local rodeo.(the 1st National Charro Championship – D) We shared the ride in a taxi to a brand new stadium up by Las Palmas. It was a lovely ride through the countryside and little villages. Then, the driver turned off on this dirt road out into the middle of nowhere!! He kept going & going & going, and we realized we would have to have him come pick us up afterwards because there was no way we were walking all the way back out to the road to get a bus back. Here in the middle of nowhere was this brand new rodeo stadium!! Go figure! It was interesting, to say the least. There weren’t that many people there and I have to say, they weren’t terribly skilled cowboys. Everybody was having a good time though. They took a break after about an hour and the break lasted for over an hour. The cowboys were mingling with their families in the stands and drinking LOTS of tequila. (The gentleman in the seats in front of us insisted on sharing his with us -D) This was the last day of the rodeo and I think they were more performing and having fun than competing. (I more than think – D) They had their kids riding on horses around the ring and the young boys playing with their lariats. Aside from that the food was great :-). Our taxi driver, Oscar, came to pick us up perfectly. Yay! (Our camara batts were dead, so unfortunately didn’t get any pics.)

We moved into the marina here in La Cruz on Sunday, before the Super Bowl started, to do some things on the boat and take some day trips on land without worrying about Journey going “walk about”.

We enjoyed the Super Bowl at the restaurant here in the marina with all you can eat tacos and all you could drink beers & margaritas for 140 pesos each (wow) (About $12 - D). A great time was had by all. We called our friends, Don & Amanda, whom we have been going to their home for super bowl party every year until now ( It seems like forever, great memories – D), and talked to all our friends there. That was fun!

I got to sing with a band at a restaurant called “The Britannia Pub” last Tuesday night and will get to sing with them again. There is another restaurant in town that does karaoke, so have been having fun with that too.

We took the bus to Nuevo Vallarta to visit the Paradise Village Marina to see what it would mean to bring Journey over there. It is really nice. It is very touristy and full of resorts and condos. The marina is part of the Paradise Village Resort. You get to use the resort and all its amenities when you stay there. It will be fun to stay there for a while.

As it is with cruising, you keep running across folks that you’ve gotten to know. We were coming back from a bus trip and saw some folks waiving at us on the street. As we got closer, we saw that it was our friends from the boat “Shanti Ana”, Bill, Shanti & Keene. If you remember our stories from La Paz of Keene playing guitar in “The Shack” restaurant, that’s them. Anyway, they finally made it here and had just arrived. So, it is nice to get back together with them. Keene & I are going to work on a couple songs to perform together.

We also got together with some friends, John & Gilly, whom we met through Yvonne years ago. They left for Mexico on their boat “Destiny” in 2007 with the “Ha-Ha” and we had met them at the HMBYC that Labor Day. I had also met Gilly with Yvonne on our boat that year before they left. They were on the “Ha-Ha” this year after having spent the summer in San Diego, so we got to chat with them then. They have a condominium here in Punta de Mita (which is just south of La Cruz). So we took a bus over there and met them at their place. (The buses here are an ongoing source of adventure, entertainment and occasional white knuckle experience. Like crossing over to the wrong side of the road to avoid a speed bump in heavy traffic and they do love speed bumps here, they come in all sizes, shapes and colors – D) We walked down to the main road there in Punta de Mita and had a lovely lunch. They had plans in La Cruz that evening and their boat is in the La Cruz harbor, so they drove us back over here. They are going to be staying on their boat and cruising around the Banderas Bay and participating in the Regatta here in March.

(We also continued to eat our way through La Cruz, there is a lot of great food here. More on this in the next blog –D)

We had the stainless steel on the boat cleaned and treated by some locals for only $120 US dollars (THE WHOLE BOAT)! (A team of five all day – well worth it – did a great job – D)

I got to talk to my Ya Ya Sisters last night, Fri. night, on the phone at their get together. What a treat! Thanks ladies for the early “Happy Birthday” serenade! Love you all.

Back to our rainy day here on Saturday, 2-11. The rain is actually quite nice and was perfect for cooking on the boat. We had John & Gilly over for a delightful brunch this morning and are now relaxing.

We are going to stay here in the marina for the next week at the most and then move back out to the anchorage. Stay Tuned…….