Location: Nuevo
Vallarta, Mexico (Paradise Village Marina)
We are finishing up our boat projects, doing maintenance and
preparing to head north to spend the winter in the Sea of Cortez – north of
here, between the Baja Peninsula and mainland Mexico. We went and did some final provisioning this
morning, Dave is finishing up a few more maintenance items and we hope to hit
the high seas tomorrow morning. Our
first stop will be Yelapa, a small village about 12 miles south of Paradise
Village – a short hop so that we can get our sealegs, make sure everything is
working correctly and do some final exploring before we leave Banderas Bay.
Our last blog ended in San Miguel de Allende. Dave left from there to go to New Hampshire
and visit his father, James O. Herndon, who, unfortunately passed away on
October 2. Prior to his father’s death,
Dave, his brother Pete and Pete’s wife Cathy and his sister Julie were able to
spend some quality time with their dad.
All of the grandchildren (Ben, Erin, Heather and Amy) and the great
grandchildren (Mariah, Maggie and Benjamin) were able to visit and tell their Grampy
that they loved him and to share some favorite memories.
From San Miguel, I continued on and spent a week in Ajijic,
on the north shore of Lake Chapala, and then came back to the boat before
flying up to New Hampshire to join the Herndon family.
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| Mural in progress in Ajijic |
While we were in New England, Dave and I did some
leaf-peeping in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. The fall colors were really beautiful. We spent our time driving the mountain roads,
doing day hikes, enjoying the fresh air and exploring the small towns scattered
amongst the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Green Mountains of Vermont,
and the Rangeley Lakes region of Maine.
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| Cog Railway train that climbs to the summit of Mt. Washington, NH (at the bottom) |
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| Cog Railway train at the top of Mt. Washington |
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| View of the surrounding valley and mountains |
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| View - hiking in Vermont |
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| Hiking the ridge of Mt. Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont |
On Saturday October 18, we had an Irish Wake at Pete and
Cathy’s house to honor Dave’s father.
From there, we went into Boston for two days. We stayed at the Mariner’s house in the North
End, within walking distance of the harbor, great restaurants and excellent cannolis. We did
some touristy stuff including the “Duck Tour” which uses an amphibious vehicle
to tour the city and the Charles River.
Tuesday, we headed for Las Vegas to join the annual “Divas
do Las Vegas” trip. This is a group of
girls from Houston who make a trip to Vegas every fall. We’ve missed the trip for the last two years
so it was great to catch-up with everyone.
My mom, Louise, joined us from California. We did a lot of gambling and walking, ate
some good food and went to see Terry Fator at the Mirage. We didn’t win any money, so we will have to
go back next year and try to reclaim what we lost.
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| Getting ready to board the flight - Boston to Las Vegas |
The last week in October, we arrived back in Puerto Vallarta
with my mom in tow. She came to visit us
here on the boat for a week. We did a
mix of fun things like going to the beach, going to happy hour and driving up
to San Sebastian in the mountains south of here, along with chore things like
food inventory and boat cleaning.
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| Traditional dancers at the Paradise Village Welcome Ceremony |
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| Happy Hour by the pool |
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| View of San Sebastian from the mountains above the town |
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| View from our hotel room in San Sebastian |
We
also walked every morning, and, on one morning, saw a baby turtle making its
way down the beach toward the ocean.
Since then, Dave and I have been walking the beach almost every
morning. We’ve seen baby turtles along
with tracks of mother turtles who came ashore during the night to lay their
eggs.
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| Turtle tracks leading to a new nest |
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| Baby turtle making his way from the nest to the ocean |
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| Baby turtle - notice how small he is compared to the bird track |
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| And... he made it... |
We have managed to complete a lot of boat projects this
summer. Our solar panels are mounted and
operational so we now have access to free power when the sun is shining. This will help cut down use of the generator
while we are at anchor and will save us money on fuel and maintenance. We’ve installed a bimini over monkey island so that we have a shady place for happy
hour and had slipcovers made for the interior cushions. We also installed new deck mat on the swim
platform.
We are both looking forward to being back on the ocean and cruising again.
Until next time…
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| B cutting the new deck mat for the swim platform |
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| Installing the deck mat |
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| New slip covers for the interior cushions |
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| Dave installing the solar panels |
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| View of the solar panels from monkey island |
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| New bimini over monkey island |
