Well we left Puerto Vallarta on January 8th, and the safety of the Marina to start our real adventure of anchoring our way around Mexico. Our first destination was La Cruz. A place we stopped for one night before going into Puerto Vallarta.
La Cruz is pretty cool. Well, except for the swell that seems to plague the anchorage. The initial swell is not that bad, but the reflected waves from the beach tend to mix things up a bit. Oh well, at least the price is right to anchor here, aka "free". It's better in the marina, but they still get some surge wrapping around the breakwater. We saw quite a few boats with extra spring lines.
After a little fishing and morning swim call (yeah, the water is still "only" 80 degrees and we know we're not getting any sympathy from our friends up in El Norte.), we spent the last two afternoons wandering around the town. It's definitely more of a small Mexican town than Puerto Vallarta, that's for sure. The old plaza is right out of central casting, complete with the requisite band shell in the middle of the park. The street signs (when you can find them) are enameled or hand-painted. There's a fair bit of construction, both commercial and residential, but it's not clear whether many of the projects will ever be completed. Some of them look like they haven't been touched in years. It's definitely a town of contrasts. Some of the homes are beautiful - they have small private gardens, amazing tropical flowers, and the wrought iron work that you only see in movies. Others buildings are falling down because the cement is crumbling and the chickens wander into the street. A block or two off the main road through town you'll find a few cobblestone streets, but a block or two beyond that and you're as likely to find mud roads. They finished the new marina last year, but there are still a lot of empty slips. Even though they have empty slips, they still haven't lowered the prices. Go figure. There are condos around the edges of town, so I suppose it's only a matter of time before some of the old homes disappear. La Cruz is on the road between Puerto Vallarta and the resorts at Punta Mita, so the town is getting squeezed on both sides.
We also visited one of the world's great crusier hangouts - Philo's - a combination restaurant, bar and recording studio. Philo is a great guy and rides his motorcycle into the restaurant to park it. He caters to the cruisers and the music crowd. They have live music most every night. And the food is pretty good too! Where else can you get a "Mexicana" pizza (complete with chorizo sausage and jalapenos) or a cheeseburger while watching American football via a Canadian satellite feed, all the while accessing the Internet through free WiFi, and then play a game of pool. No wonder the place is legendary. You can spend days in there.
Nothing against Philo's, though, but that would be a shame because there are other great places here. Banana Annie's is another music joint with live music, an open mike on Sunday afternoons, and standing room only after 5 PM. There were a lot of aging American and Canadian ex-pats wandering in with their guitars. (Note to self - if/when you start to go bald, shave it off like Lawn Boy. Admit the truth and do NOT grow a stringy gray ponytail.) Although we didn't get to it, we hear that Ernesto's Great Grub is worth the walk to get there. I guess that will have to wait for the next trip. And don't forget to try the local ice cream treats. Even with my mangled Spanglish, I managed to order frozen strawberries and cream that was amazing.
We ended up having to get fuel at the new marina when we topped off our tank, then we set off across Banderas Bay to Yelapa. The cove looks beautiful, but the anchorage is reported to be so-so. We'll see what it looks like before we drop the hook. If there's no room, we'll just continue around the corner (Cabo Corrientes) and aim for Ipala or Chamela. If we end up heading for Chamela, it'll be about 90 miles to get there.
(Note to reader's of the blog - most of this posting was lifted from an e-mail that Phil composed and sent to his loyal followers.)
Next Stop Yelapa.
- Phil
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Made it to Barra
Well we are finally back in civilization. That means we are hooked up to the wifi, can get our clothes washed, take real showers - instead of the sun showers we've been enjoying for the last month and walk to a store and buy what we need instead of having to take a 40 minute dinghy ride to get food. I'll be updating the blog for what we've done over the last month so stick with me while I try to catch everyone up.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Leaving Paradise Village
January 7, 2009
Today is our last day in Paradise Village. We are checking out tomorrow and heading over to La Cruz to spend a couple of days. Then we will head to the southern end of the bay to visit Yelapa. There is supposed to be a great walk through an old fashioned Mexican village where no one has a car – transportation is by donkey or foot – to a freshwater pool that is fed by a waterfall. We’ll stay there a few days and then head around the point out of Banderas Bay toward Chemala. We’ll stay there a few weeks and then to Tenacatita where we’ll stay at least a week. None of these places have internet cafes so we will probably be out of communicado for a couple of weeks. We will be in Barra in time to meet those of you that are planning to visit during the February break. We may arrive early and anchor in the harbor since everyone is telling us that there is now way we can take a month to get from Banderas Bay to Barra. Everyone who has been here before says that we can probably find places to stop to fill a couple of weeks but not an entire month. So …. as soon as we land somewhere where we can post a blog we will.
We will miss all the great friends we’ve met in Paradise Village, LawnBoy from Washington aboard Wades Away, Anton and Rita aboard Royal Albatross and most of all the Pond family on Qualchan. In some cases we probably will see some of these folks again as we head south. We sure hope so.
Today is our last day in Paradise Village. We are checking out tomorrow and heading over to La Cruz to spend a couple of days. Then we will head to the southern end of the bay to visit Yelapa. There is supposed to be a great walk through an old fashioned Mexican village where no one has a car – transportation is by donkey or foot – to a freshwater pool that is fed by a waterfall. We’ll stay there a few days and then head around the point out of Banderas Bay toward Chemala. We’ll stay there a few weeks and then to Tenacatita where we’ll stay at least a week. None of these places have internet cafes so we will probably be out of communicado for a couple of weeks. We will be in Barra in time to meet those of you that are planning to visit during the February break. We may arrive early and anchor in the harbor since everyone is telling us that there is now way we can take a month to get from Banderas Bay to Barra. Everyone who has been here before says that we can probably find places to stop to fill a couple of weeks but not an entire month. So …. as soon as we land somewhere where we can post a blog we will.
We will miss all the great friends we’ve met in Paradise Village, LawnBoy from Washington aboard Wades Away, Anton and Rita aboard Royal Albatross and most of all the Pond family on Qualchan. In some cases we probably will see some of these folks again as we head south. We sure hope so.
Releasing Sea Turtles
January 4, 2010 – Sundown – We, along with many of our neighbors on the dock, walked down the street here to a condo complex about ½ a mile away to watch the nightly ritual of the release of sea turtles that had hatched that day. We went last night but we got there too late to actually hear the lecture or see very much. So we decided to go back tonight. We all had a great time. Mexico has finally started a non-profit to try and save the sea turtles. Each night three men walk the beach and find all the turtles that have come ashore to lay their eggs. They harvest the eggs and take them back to the hatchery where they are protected until they hatch – which takes about 45 days. Most of the turtles that beach here on this part of the Bay are Olive Ridley turtles. However, during the last two years they have had four leatherback turtles beach and lay eggs.
The kids loved it. They had so much fun watching the little guys try to make it into the surf.
They really are small!
More Sculptures
There are so many sculptures here that I can't post them all but needless to say this was our art lesson for the week.
More Scupture from the Malecon in Puerto Vallarata
I was afraid my time at the local Starbucks would time out so I wanted to post before I went down. Here are some more of our fun "art" impressions.
Ryan doing his best impersonation of one of her kids.
Visiting Old Town Puerto Vallarta
January 4, 2010 That’s the first time I had to write the new date and it sure seems funny.
We decided to take a trip to PV today and explore the City Center. We also had some errands to run. We had to visit the shopping center as the phone we bought two weeks ago has already died. We also had to go to Walmart and get Kelly a DS. As we will be leaving the marina this week Kelly decided she wanted her birthday gift early because we will be out of touch with computers for a few weeks and she needs something to keep her occupied - school work is not enough and she is plowing through books so fast I can't keep up. We also had to go and pick up a package that Alyce Matsui left for us at the hotel where they stayed when they were down here for the holidays which just happened to be around the corner from Walmart. THANK YOU TARYN BINDER AND ALYCE FOR GETTING US THE CARDS AND LETTERS FROM HOME. WE LOVED THEM. ALSO A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT WROTE TO KELLY AND RYAN.
Then after all the “chores” were done – (WE STILL HAVE NO PHONE AS THE WARRANTY TO REPLACE OUR PHONE WAS FOR 14 DAYS AND WE BROUGHT IT BACK ON DAY 16 – IT HAS NOW BEEN SENT TO GUADALAJARA TO BE FIXED) – we went to explore El Centro Puerto Vallarata and the Malecon.
We had a great lunch, walked around and used art on the Malecon to make more art and then we dropped in on the church here which is also named – Our Lady of Guadalupe. We explored the local flea market and finally broke down and bought a hammock. Then we headed back to the marina where he had plans to meet a lot of our neighbors to go and watch the release of sea turtles at sun down.
Browsing through the flea market where Kelly bought a new hammock.
Our Lady of Guadalupe of Puerto Vallarta. You can tell that when it was built there was nothing else around but boy have they encased it since it was first built. You can barely see it from the beach which is only two blocks away. The dome is a silver crown.
This is the alter inside the church it is beautiful and the pictures I took do not give it justice.
A rare family photo of us all with the "mother" in the scupture entitled "In Search of Reason." The next few pictures will tell you why it is called that.
This is the entire sculpture!. Both kids had to climb up on it and try it out.
We decided to take a trip to PV today and explore the City Center. We also had some errands to run. We had to visit the shopping center as the phone we bought two weeks ago has already died. We also had to go to Walmart and get Kelly a DS. As we will be leaving the marina this week Kelly decided she wanted her birthday gift early because we will be out of touch with computers for a few weeks and she needs something to keep her occupied - school work is not enough and she is plowing through books so fast I can't keep up. We also had to go and pick up a package that Alyce Matsui left for us at the hotel where they stayed when they were down here for the holidays which just happened to be around the corner from Walmart. THANK YOU TARYN BINDER AND ALYCE FOR GETTING US THE CARDS AND LETTERS FROM HOME. WE LOVED THEM. ALSO A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT WROTE TO KELLY AND RYAN.
Then after all the “chores” were done – (WE STILL HAVE NO PHONE AS THE WARRANTY TO REPLACE OUR PHONE WAS FOR 14 DAYS AND WE BROUGHT IT BACK ON DAY 16 – IT HAS NOW BEEN SENT TO GUADALAJARA TO BE FIXED) – we went to explore El Centro Puerto Vallarata and the Malecon.
We had a great lunch, walked around and used art on the Malecon to make more art and then we dropped in on the church here which is also named – Our Lady of Guadalupe. We explored the local flea market and finally broke down and bought a hammock. Then we headed back to the marina where he had plans to meet a lot of our neighbors to go and watch the release of sea turtles at sun down.
Browsing through the flea market where Kelly bought a new hammock.
Our Lady of Guadalupe of Puerto Vallarta. You can tell that when it was built there was nothing else around but boy have they encased it since it was first built. You can barely see it from the beach which is only two blocks away. The dome is a silver crown.
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