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.