San Blas, Mexico

The trip to San Blas was more of a pain than anything.  It had potential to be a really nice day sail.  We set off from Isla Isabel about 7:00 am and were doing a nice, comfortable 4 1/2 knots when I heard a certain explicative come from Andy in the cockpit.  We had just sailed over a fishing net and it got hooked on our rudder.  These nets go for miles and are marked by coke bottles.  If you're lucky, you may see a flag instead of a coke bottle, but those are few and far between.  You don't want to hook these things with your engines on as it could seriously foul your prop.  We took the sails down and after several unsuccessful attempts at using the gaff to get loose, Andy jumped in and dove down to free it.  Back up the sails went and we were on our way.  A few minutes later we saw some more so we turned to follow them parallel hoping to find an opening.  Eventually a panga with some fisherman came and offered us a path over them (by putting an anchor on the net for us), but not before our jib shackle busted and the jib came tumbling down.  Down went the main, on went the motor.

This is not where the jib is supposed to be.

We were up front trying to decipher what happened and how to fix it when I looked up and said "What's that!?"  We were 50 feet away from a black flag.  I ran back and eased up on the throttle while turning to our port side.  We followed this net for well over a mile until finally deciding to go over it on purpose.  I turned off the motor, we drifted over the net, we snagged it, Andy jumped in and unhooked it.  He got back on the boat, I turned the motors on again, back on course.  For now.  We did this two more times before finally being clear of all the nets.  They had me so paranoid that I was putting the boat into neutral everytime we saw a piece of trash.  We finally arrived at the entrance to the San Blas Estuary about 2:00.

After calling the port captain and conversing in really bad spanish, we got permission to enter the estuary.  This was a tight squeeze.  At the lowest point we had 6 feet under our rudders.  We planned on anchoring in the area right in front of the marina.  After looking further and talking to the marina on the radio, we determined that the anchorage was deep enough, but there was a sand bar between the channel and the anchorage, therefore no way to enter.  So that meant we either had to go back out and anchor in the bay or stay at the marina.  After seeing the prices, we opted to stay in the marina.  This is the cheapest marina in Mexico and the cleanest...no one is here to mess it up!  We're staying here for about $100 for the week and it's within walking distance of everything.

Andy at the top of the mast

Yesterday morning Andy went up the mast to begin the repairs on the jib.  I won't get into all of the details (mainly because I would have to call him in here to ask him the name of everything), but basically he reattached the jib with a new shackle to the thingy on the front and we pulled it back up and wa-la, good as new.  That left us free to explore town after lunch.

San Blas is a sleepy little mexican town unlike most we've been to.  It's pretty much famous for it's bugs so we really didn't know what to expect other than that (although they haven't been as bad as we expected..yet).  We walked through the town and went up to an old fort and the ruins of an old church.  It was a very cool walk and we saw lots of things we wanted to come back and do (and will today, like eat smoked fish!).

The ruins of the Templo de la Virgen del Rosario

Inside the church, looking up.

Super cool with the cannon at the old fort (La Contaduria)

We ended our night in the town plaza and a nice dinner under the shade.  We've decided the food on the mainland side is hands down better than the baja, and the people are nicer too (just my opinion).  The lady serving us didn't have any change and she spent 30 minutes walking all over the plaza (even after I told her to just keep it) trying to find me change.  I finally introduced myself and got her name as it looked like we were going to be spending a lot of time together!   After dinner Jake played foosball with the local kids right there in the plaza.  He had a blast and we promised to bring him back another night.

Jake with his new friends playing foosball in the plaza.

The kids were more than pleased to have their picture taken with Jake.

Today we're off to the market and back for some of that yummy looking and smelling smoked fish!

11/28/2010 - Isla Isabel - part 2

The water filled crater at the top of Isla Isabel

Today we hiked up to the caldera on Isla Isabel.  It was a very nice hike.  We had a little trouble finding the entrance but we asked one of the local fisherman and they were able to direct us the right way (for those of you coming here, it's to the right of the little lake behind the fishing camp.  You'll know you found it when you see some cement stairs).  It was a little long for Jake but he’s getting to where he really enjoys these hikes.  There was a good bit of climbing and tons of wildlife so he was distracted from the distance enough not to complain.

Taking a rest

On this island there are frigate birds, blue-footed boobies, brown boobies, red-footed boobies, brown pelicans, white tailed tropic birds, Heerman’s gulls, sooty terns, and brown noddies.  There are also some reptiles to include green iguanas and the Mexican milk snake.  We saw tons and tons of frigate birds, blue footed booies, white tailed tropic birds, and green iguanas.  We also got a brief glimpse at the Mexican milk snake.  We don’t have a bird identification book so I can’t really say as to whether we saw some of the others that I’m not so familiar with but I can tell you that this place is covered with birds (and bird poop).  I’ll let Andy’s pictures speak for themselves…

Male frigate bird trying to impress

Blue footed boobie guarding her egg

Jake petting a lizard

Brown boobie bird with her chick

Local fishermen sorting out their sailboat catchers, I mean nets.

Savannah and other boats anchored on the southern side of the island

Jake had a time keeping his hands off these things

After getting back to the boat, Jake and I did a little further research on the frigate bird.  We found out that the male frigate bird puffs up his air sack to look like a giant red balloon.  He does this to attract the females.  They feed on fish but get their fish from robbing gulls, gannets, and terns.  When they steal from the gannet birds they first ask/demand politely for their fish…if they fail to respond, they grab their tails and shake vigorously.  When the gannets drop the fish, the frigate bird swoops down and catches it before it hits the water.  Jake got to see this first hand on the beach with his dad.  Sounds like dinner on our boat when we have sushi.

Just before sundown we hiked the west side of the island to see what we could see.  Not a ton to look at (comparatively speaking) but it was a great place to have a light saber battle.

Jake posing with boobie bird

Trying his best to open this rotten coconut with a stick

Andy was able to make a few dives and produce some pretty decent photos there, too…. Enjoy.

Some sort of blenny

Lots of eels on the east side of the island.

Finally, for those thinking about anchoring here, it's a little rolly but worth the stop.  We thought we were tight with 3 boats in here but by the time we left, there were six all together.  It's a rocky bottom with a few patches of sand.  Andy didn't sleep very good while we were here but we would both stop here again if given the chance.  And if you're wondering, nope, by some sort of miracle, we never got pooped on.

11/27/2010 - Isla Isabel

We pulled anchor about 1:30 yesterday from Stone Island to head for Isla Isabel.  It was an 89 mile passage so we knew we would have an overnighter.  All was going great until about 7:00 when we almost got ran over by a shrimp boat.  I was on watch and saw that it was heading for us.  It’s hard to tell sometimes out here because they have so many lights on them that it confuses the navigational rules.  If a boat’s port side (left) is showing to you then you will see a red light.  If her starboard side (right) is showing you will see a green light.  If both lights are showing then she’s probably heading straight for you.  From my chair, I could see both lights but they were on the wrong side.  It looked more like she was heading away from us.  But if that were the case, then I would just see her stern light.  Later we were to find out the shrimp boat had a triangle of red lights, some orange lights, green lights, white lights, a little bit of everything.  Christmas is getting close…. So I woke Andy up (he was trying to rest up for his late night watch).  Well, it turns out to be a good thing.  Andy altered our course slightly but the ship kept coming toward us.  After a few hair raising moments we finally saw her pass in front of our bow about 300 yards out, never slowing down or altering course at all.  Another important reason to keep good watches…

BIG FISH... not so flattering of me, but remember, it's 7:00 am

The rest of the night was uneventful until I hauled in a 25 pound Dorado this morning!!!  I saw the line zip all the way across the stern of the boat and when I went to pull it in it tried to take off.  I hollered at Andy to come help…while I pulled it in, he gaffed it and then it promptly dropped into the cockpit and went crazy.  According to my husband and son, I did the same thing.  I took the baseball bat and made every attempt at a humane one shot kill but it turned into more of a close my eyes and swat at the fish kind of game.  I made a serious mess and when it looked like the fish might actually land in the cabin, Andy stepped in and gave the final blow.  Holy cow this thing was big!!! 

The "kill zone"

Everything was calm after that and we arrived at Isla Isabel about 11:00 this morning.  The anchorage here is over a very rocky bottom and can make you a bit nervous.  But Andy dove on it and it appears that were in there tight (but not so tight we can’t get out).  We’re here with two other boats and it feels pretty close.  We saw a fourth sailboat try to come in but ended up moving out to the east anchorage.  We’re thinking of staying here another day or so depending on the weather and then heading out to San Blas. 

Isla Isabel

Here’s what the guidebook says about the island…  “Isla Isabel is an isolated volcanic island lying approximately 18 miles off the mainland coast, and 40 miles northwest of San Blas.  This very unique island has been nicknamed the ’Galapagos of Mexico,’ due to its enormous number of nesting birds and resident iguanas.  Like the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador, the Isla Isabel is isolated in the Pacific Ocean and relatively free of natural predators.”

Tomorrow we’re going to wake up and go for a hike to the top of the hill.  The caldera of this extinct volcano is filled with water so you can imagine my little volcano loving son can’t wait to see it.  Andy will do a dive in the afternoon (waves permitting) and we’ll probably head out Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our second Thanksgiving on the boat…while we did miss our families, we had a very nice time by ourselves.  We were invited to various different restaurants with different couples but we preferred to do it the more traditional way with cooking our dinner ourselves and finishing the day with sleeping and being lazy.  So we did. 

We were able to find some turkey legs and wings and what we thought was a breast but turned out to be a gigantic thigh.  Andy grilled them while I made dressing, cabbage and potatoes.  For desert, Jake and I made a pecan pie which turned out to be one of my all time best.

We watched a few movies, went up to Benji’s to pick up our shrimp and drop off some trash, then back to the boat for one last movie before Jake’s bed time.

Jake and I making a pecan pie

Jake and I did a lot of preparation for Thanksgiving this year.  He really got into the whole story about the pilgrims and indians and the idea of being thankful for everything.  So we started with making turkey napkin holders – I give myself an A+ for heading up this craft.  They actually turned out to look like turkeys.  We attempted to make a candle out of crayons but our wick wasn’t very good so it didn’t actually light.  But Jake had a blast during the process.  Finally, we made a Thanksgiving tree where we all wrote down what we’re thankful for on some cut out leaves and then we taped them to our tree.  Our tree had a lot of leaves!

We’re heading out today for Isla Isabel.  The weather looks good and we’re ready to go.  We hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a good one and ate so much you had trouble staying awake during the football games!  

We had a fourth guest for our lunch one day.

11/24/2020 - Stone Island - Mazatlan

We didn’t make it far from the marina but we’re really enjoying being on the hook again.  We dropped our anchor at Stone Island just outside the old harbor in Mazatlan.  It’s very pretty here with just a few boats.  There appears to be a lot of tourist activity on shore but we haven’t made it to that side yet. 

Our guidebook told us about a place called Benji’s Pizza.  It’s located on the opposite side of the anchorage as the tourist area and it’s supposed to be the best place to land the dinghy, so we gave it a shot. 

I’m trying to think of a good way to describe this place without offending anyone (Andy gave them our blog address so you never know who’s going to read this).  I’ll try it this way.  At first you walk in and you think, this place is a dump.  After thirty minutes, half a margarita and a chat with Eli (the guy that runs the place) you think, this place has character.  After finishing your margarita and devouring a garlic shrimp pizza you think, I’d like to hang out here every day. 

Benji’s is run by an American, Eli who came down and fell in love with a local girl.  After a long pursuit and finally getting her family’s blessing (it’s a tight nit group here on the island), they married and live here full time.  There are all sorts of characters here and the cool thing is that they are all very friendly and it’s not uncommon for them to pull up a chair and make you feel like you’re part of the group.  We met Mark, a guy who was backpacking to his friend’s wedding and got side tracked and is now working on one of the charter boats here.  He keeps his tent at Benji’s for a very reasonable price (free) while he decides whether to continue on to Rio or go with the charter boat to Hawaii next summer.  Tough decisions.  There’s the guy that chops up the coconuts with the great sense of humor. He’s from England and is currently making his way around the world without using any kind of air travel.  He works at Benji’s and keeps his tent there as well.

Aside from the people, the food is delicious and the drinks are even better.  We had a garlic shrimp pizza (the best pizza in Mexico so far) and Jake had a huge plate of fish (which he tried his best to finish).  We came back the next day for the fantastic margaritas and tried out the ceviche.  All of which did not disappoint. 

Before lunch...

After lunch.

Today we’re going into town to get some $$ to drop off for Eli as he’s going to get us some of the freshest shrimp around so we can stock our freezer.   His father in law is a shrimp boat captain…very convenient for us J.

We also did a beautiful hike yesterday up the hill behind Benji’s.  It’s covered with goats (and goat poop) and when you get to the top you can see all of Mazatlan.  Jake was a trooper and was insistent on going all the way to the “tippy top” despite my nervous nature.  He thinks I’m nervous for myself so he keeps telling me “you can do it mommy.”  But every mom out there knows I’m really nervous for him!  The kid is a walking disaster and he insists on looking back while walking forward and I can just picture him going straight over the side.  I’m considering one of those leashes for our next hike…

One of MANY goats on the hill.

We’re still planning on having Thanksgiving here tomorrow and heading out on Friday for Isla Isabel.  The wind is supposed to die down Saturday and pick back up Monday so maybe we’ll at least get a good 2-3 days there.  It’s said to be the Galapagos of Mexico with the various different critters and underwater life.

More exploring in Mazatlan

Our last couple of days have been spent exploring more of the town and marina area.  We went to the Mazatlan aquarium the other day.  It's supposed to be the biggest aquarium in Mexico.  I think after having a pass at Sea World, visiting the GA Aquarium, and spending the summer in the Sea of Cortez, we might have been a little desensitized.  It was impressive for down here though. They had sting rays, sharks, turtles and crocodiles.  There were tons of kids there on field trips from various different schools and I thought it a little sad that most of them are so close to seeing these things in the wild right in their backyard and yet they never get the opportunity.  They have to squint their eyes through a dirty old tank to see a shadow of a sting ray while we have to poke sticks in the water to shoo them away before going to the beach.

Andy and Jake posing with King Neptune in front of the Aquarium

There have been a few cruiser parties that we've attended.  They had the potential to be fun but once again, Andy and I are not the most outgoing folks and we didn't really make any connections with anyone so we drank our free beer and headed back to the boat.  Don't get me wrong, there are very nice people out here but we just have trouble with crowds.  Not that we can't mingle and make small talk, we do that very well... we just don't enjoy it.  I would rather sit down one on one with someone and get to know them than work a room and just gather a bunch of names.

So...when we're not out socializing, we take dinghy rides.  There are tons of little canals here to explore with beautiful houses, mangroves and quite a few iquanas.  It's one of our favorite things to do here that doesn't cost us any money!

View from the canal of one of many beautiful homes dotting the golf course

Speaking of money, we're spending a fortune on marina fees so we're heading out today.  The weather doesn't seem to want to allow us to make the 90 mile trek to Isla Isabel yet (it's supposed to be blowing 25-35 knots by mid week - would make for a very uncomfortable anchorage) so we're going to go anchor out near old town in a place called Stone Island and will probably be there through Thanksgiving.  I doubt there will be any wifi signal there so this may be my last post for a while.

We stocked up on groceries yesterday in the Mega (HUGE grocery store that would rival any Albertson's) and even found some turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner.  Not just turkey slices :).  We found a turkey breast for me and wings and legs for Andy and Jake so it looks like we'll be able to have somewhat of a traditional meal after all (I was all prepared to have our first fish thanksgiving...the pilgrims ate fish too you know).  I even found pecans for pecan pie.

While we miss our families and friends terribly, we're very thankful that we've been able to spend all of this time together.  It's definitely brought us closer (literally, I can't even begin to describe the close proximity of two people in our bathroom together).  We would like to wish everyone back home a Happy Thanksgiving!  We miss you and will be thinking of you!

By the way, I got a good response from my lime tip I posted a few days ago....Here's another one: Wrap your cabbage heads in paper (butcher paper, newspaper, whatever)...they last longer out of the fridge that way.

Who are cruisers anyway?

Savannah at sunset in Mazatlan

So who does this kind of thing?  Well, it's your teachers (lots of teachers), retired military, your real estate agent that sold you your house.... the grocery store clerk at your local Publix, your air conditioning repairman... the guy down the street foreclosing on his house (or boat)...all walks of life.  Everyone has a dream, right?  While your dream may not be sailing around the world (although don't let not knowing how to sail stop you), after seven months, we can honestly say, do whatever you can to achieve that dream...sooner than later.  It really is worth every minute of hard work.

We meet all kinds of people with all different kinds of skills and levels of income.  The only difference between these people and the majority of the world out there is that they took some sort of action.  Sure it's a little scary (ok, a lot scary...terrifying)...but you'll never know if you don't try.

Too sappy for me?  Sorry...it was one of those days.