Change in Plans

Location:  La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Mexico

We have changed our plans for the summer season and decided not to continue our journey north.  As we were making our voyage plan to cross the Sea of Cortez and move up the Baja Peninsula, we were also watching the weather.  Hurricane season starts May 15^th on this side of Mexico and there was a potential storm system brewing just south of here.  With no waiting on weather days and just a few rest stops, it would take us 15 days to make it to San Diego.  Then, we reminded ourselves that we are retired, not in a hurry and not on a schedule.  So we decided to stay in the Puerto Vallarta area for the summer and to do some inland trips to the mountain towns in order to soak up the culture and escape the summer heat.  We were trying to get to San Diego because of our insurance requirement to be north of Ensenada by June 1, but Puerto Vallarta (Banderas Bay) is a hurricane hole and we were able to get insurance with storm coverage and no huge storm deductible as long as we stay in this area. We are just north of Puerto Vallarta in a small fishing village called La Cruz de Huanacaxtle (La Cruz).  There is a nice marina here, plenty of small restaurants and street taco stands and a good music scene.  On Monday, we are going to move to Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta, where we will have access to their resort amenities and, since it is in an estuary, better protection if a storm does occur.



Wind Festival - La Cruz, Saturday, May 17. 
There were at least 75 kite surfers
plus at least 20 wind surfers.



Kite surfers on the beach,
preparing to launch.



Kite surfers waiting for the
race to start.

On the journey up from Ixtapa, we made a few stops.  One in Manzanillo Bay near the Las Hadas Resort.  They filmed the movie “10”, with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek, here in 1979.  Even though we were at anchor, for a small fee the marina allowed you to come ashore in the dinghy and use the resort amenities, swimming pool, restaurants, trash drop-off, etc.  The Paradise Restaurant near the marina had yummy blackberry margaritas.  Next stop was at Chamela for an overnight and then on into the La Cruz marina.

View of Manzanillo from the anchorage.

 

View of Manzanillo, 
Notice all the bougainvillas.

Sunset, Manzanillo Bay.

We have been keeping busy with boat projects.  We had the outside of the boat cleaned and detailed, including removal of the rust stains and waxing of the stainless steel.  We had the teak decks cleaned, stained and sealed.  We installed the old shelves from the lazarette in the steering flat, stowed all of the loose items and took a few things up to the dumpster.  We’re also working on routine maintenance items and getting our inventory system up and running.

In addition to the chores, we’ve also managed to have some fun.  There are many brands of Mexican beer and we were having a hard time deciding which we liked the best so we decided to have a beer tasting contest.  We assembled ten different beers, filled a bowl with peanuts to cleanse our palates between tastes and found a blindfold.  It turned out that Dave and I have very different beer taste buds.  He liked the heavier beers best with Bohemia being his favorite and I liked the medium beers with XX lager being my favorite.  We’ve also been walking for an hour every morning trying to work off our beer bellies.

Dave finishing off his favorite.



B beer tasting.



The ten beers included in the contest.

We’re looking forward to having visitors this summer and to doing some fishing offshore and more exploring. 

Until next time…