Summer Solstice

Location:  Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico (Paradise Village Marina)

We moved into our home for the summer, Paradise Village Marina, on Monday, May 26.  Paradise Village is a luxury hotel/resort with lots of amenities including four swimming pools, a spa with massages, hot tubs, saunas and work-out facilities, tennis courts, a golf course and a nice beach.  Check out their web site at www.paradisevillage.com.  This place is definitely at the other end of the spectrum from where we spent last summer in Panama.  We have been taking advantage of the facilities and have enjoyed a massage and we go to the beach or the pool every other day.  

Man cutting down coconuts.
At some of the resorts, they cut down the
coconuts so that they don't fall
on people's heads.

They also have a local yacht club, which we got free access to for two weeks, so we took advantage and had a few drinks and meals up there and used their free internet.  Most of the people that come here for vacation only come for a week, so they have a welcome ceremony every Sunday night, with native dancers, games, prizes and they offer discounts for spa treatments, golf and some of the adventure trips.  There are so many things to do that I can’t imagine only staying here for one week.  The only downside is that it is like living in the suburbs.  We are isolated from the Mexican culture and don’t have easy access to local restaurants or watering holes.  The good news is there are plenty of buses and taxis available if we want to do any exploring.

Pelicans following a local fisherman
in the estuary near our slip.  Guess it's
easier to get a fish from him instead
of diving for their own.

Speaking of exploring, the local buses are very easy to use and don’t cost much ($0.50 to $1.50) so we have been learning the system and riding the buses to Puerto Vallarta and to the major nearby shopping centers.  You can decipher the bus routes and stops by reading the writing on the front windshield of each bus and by checking with the driver when you first get on.  The first time we went into town, we asked the bus driver to let us off at the Marina Vallarta near the hotel district.  Apparently he forgot, so we rode the bus all the way to the bus station and then had to walk about two blocks away to get a bus going back in the other direction.  Another time, we were waiting at the bus stop to come back to our marina, but none of the buses for Nuevo Vallarta were stopping at our bus stop.  We hopped on another bus with “Wal-mart” on the windshield thinking that we could catch a transfer once we got to Wal-mart.  We ended up riding the bus through the streets of Ixtapa, a small town just north of here and then got off, transferred to another bus, went back the way we came and got off at the airport, where we knew we could cross the road and catch a bus home.  Turns out the original bus we were on does go to Wal-mart, it just happens to be the one about two stops before we got on the bus and not the one near our marina.  We learned later that the buses to our location “Nuevo Vallarta” only stop at the airport, at the other Wal-mart and then at the bus station at the other end of the line.  So now we use the airport as our transfer station to get to other places we want to go.  Needless to say, we have been able to “tour” some of the countryside and the local villages.

Tree blooming near the golf course.  This is Dave's
favorite tropical tree.  We tried to grow some in
Alabama but the winters are too cold.

We’ve been walking for an hour every morning, which is nice.  It is cool and there is usually a light breeze and there are always lots of birds and iguanas to enjoy along the way.

Iguana sunning himself in a tree.

Iguana sunning on a rock

Woodpecker atop a light pole.
He was sitting up there tapping away.

Looking north up the estuary

And of course, there are always boat chores to keep us busy.  Dave has been up north in the land of free air-conditioning, so I have been doing inventory of all the spare parts we have on the boat.  

Now that we have the new shelves in the lazarette and the shelves in the steering flat it is much easier to store and organize our stuff.  Except for a few odds and ends, everything is counted and cataloged.  We have also completed computerizing our maintenance tasks.  The next step is to tie the two together so that when it comes time to do maintenance we will have the parts available and will know where to find them; and, when we need to replenish our inventory, we will have a system that tells us what parts and how many we need to order. 

We are preparing to haul the boat to have the bottom painted next week and we have been meeting with several contractors to discuss other projects including installing sunshades over monkey island and the poop deck and installing solar panels.  Since we are here for the summer and they have good facilities and resources, we are planning to check a few projects off of our list.

Happy  Summer Solstice!  Can you believe the year is almost half over?

Sunrise