This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Wow! How the time flies. Deidre and I have already reached Mazatlan. We’re currently motoring up to the marina area of this sprawling Mexican city so we can fill our tanks with fuel and water and start the 230 mile crossing of the Sea of Cortez to La Paz.
A week ago, Deidre arrived back in Puerto Vallarta after spending a month up in the cold snowy north. After doing a major restocking of the boat, we hurried out of Paradise Village Marina excited to get out in the open and back on the hook. Not having enough time to make it out to our favorite Banderas Bay anchorage, Punta de Mita, we spent Monday night out in La Cruz anchorage. There we were able to hook up with our dear friends from s/v Convivia. We met Convivia in the Baja Haha, yet never really hung out until, my kids, Georgie and Beo, came down for two weeks in La Paz in November. Convivia has two kids on board, Ruby (7&1/2) and Miles (4), so as you can imagine, we hung out with them as much as possible. Now, we were saying our goodbyes as Convivia and crew were preparing for their journey across the Pacific and beyond. Goodbyes are always hard, but in this new world of cruising, it felt good that we at least got to bid them farewell. Some of the most amazing people ever met, enter and exit our lives as readily as the rising and falling tides.
Ok, with that goodbye dealt with, next stop…Punta de Mita! Deidre and I absolutely love Punta de Mita. It is a nice, breezy, large anchorage with the potential for great surfing directly off the bow of the boat. We had an amazing sail out there from La Cruz, catching and passing another “Haha” boat, s/v Deep Playa, who left La Cruz several hours before us. Later that evening we heard all about how slow, but comfortable Deep Playa is, however that didn’t stop the “ass-kicking” feeling that I get every time Cat2Fold overtakes another vessel.
Arriving in the Punta de Mita anchorage, and dropping anchor under sail, we were a bit disappointed to find Jack and Monica from s/v BellaVia were no longer around. However, that feeling waned quickly when we saw s/v Lightspeed, s/v Red Witch, s/v Kiora, and s/v Wings of the Dawn joining the fleet of other “Haha” boats hogging up the entire anchorage. Apparently, we had just missed a doozy of a party the night before we arrived, but we were quickly informed that tonight was to be a birthday party for kiwi Rob (66) from s/v Red Witch. We all gathered aboard s/v Kiora (a beautiful and sleek, 55’er. With about 20 people on board, we ate, drank, and played music into the wee hours of the night. It became apparent that I had had my fair share of booze when it came time to leave aboard our trusty paddle boards. Let’s just say that I got wet a few times, but finally made it back to the safety of Cat2Fold with everything intact. Luckily falling in 70 degree water doesn’t hurt at all.
The next morning, I think I woke up still drunk, because my hangover never really happened til later that afternoon. That is when 3 out of 4 of the crew from Lightspeed came over to Cat2Fold to go on a spirited day sail. With the winds blowing between 15 and 20 knots, we raised the anchor and scooted across the bay. The sailing was spectacular, and Dave, who owns Lightspeed (a Chris White, Atlantic 42) was very excited about the sailing characteristics of Cat2Fold. We sailed around “racing” any other vessel that happened to be out sailing that afternoon. And we “won” every battle! Unfortunately our friends Winston, Cate, and Indigo from Teton Valley, Idaho did not make it out for the sail. They had just arrived in Punta de Mita, where they just bought a condo. Hopefully next year we will find ourselves back there at the same as them and we can go sailing then.
Shortly after dropping the anchor, it was time for another birthday celebration. This time it was John from s/v Michaela’s 50th birthday. I took it a little easier on the booze this time, but we still stayed up well past “cruisers midnight” (which is anywhere between 7 and 10 pm) playing music once again. John has a collection of ukuleles on board Michaela, and he really does the instrument justice.
As sad as it was to make the decision to leave, the next day we pulled the hook and said goodbye to Banderas Bay for the final time of this trip. We had some good strong winds for the first part of the day, but as the day wore on, the winds lightened and we pulled into an anchorage in Bahia Jaltemba, which was 10 miles short of our planned anchorage. The next day we motor sailed with no winds up to Matachen Bay, just south of San Blas. Just as we were reaching the bay, we caught the perfect sized Sierra Mackerel. Immediately after dinner for two was procured, and filleted, to our surprise we hooked on to another fish. This time it was some sort of Sea Catfish. Since it was not in our fish identification book, and we already had dinner caught, we decided to release this interesting looking fish. Once in Matachen Bay, we were able to pull Cat2Fold into shallow enough water where we could stand on the sea floor and scrub her very dirty hull bottoms very well.
It seems as though every single day of sailing, our plans change as to where we are going and when. We initially had spoke of leaving Matachen the next morning and heading to Isla Isabel some 40 miles away, hanging here for the afternoon, then continuing through the night to Mazatlan, another 93 miles North. I can’t remember why we decided to change our plan again, but we found ourselves raising the anchor at 8pm with the goal of reaching Mazatlan before nightfall the next day. Although we had to motor sail more than I care to, we reached our destination as dusk was settling in. Now we needed to resupply on fuel and water and try to get across the 230 mile passage of the Sea of Cortez while our weather window was looking good.
…stay tuned for more about our crossing!
23.208086
-106.441460
cat2fold 