Provisioning for Fruits and Veggies...check

Last on my list is provisioning for fruits and vegetables.  Thanks to Diane on Ceilydh and all of those puddle jumpers before us, I have hit the mother load.  One of my worries has been how I was going to get vegetables that would last more than a few days.  The tiendas here always sell good veggies, but they need to be eaten within a day or two of buying them.  Where was I going to find green tomatoes? 

It turns out, there is a warehouse in town that opens its doors twice a week at 6:00 pm to supply all of the local restaurants.  It is filled with green veggies and fruits.  And I mean FILLED.

For those of you in LaCruz (or possibly doing the jump next year), as you walk to Philo’s you’ll see some red tables always set out at night for tacos.  Turn right at the road right before those tables.  On the left you’ll see some warehouse doors.  They open on Sunday night and Wednesday or Thursday night (there’s debate about that and I personally haven’t checked it out on those nights) and you can buy as much as you want.

So today was the day…  I started off my day visiting the Sunday market close to the marina here and bought up the smoked mozzarella and smoked cheddar.  I made my way to the pesto stand and bought a few containers of some of the best pesto I’ve ever eaten.  It freezes well and goes great over pasta, so I’m planning on that being one of our easier dinners within the first few days while we’re getting acclimated.

Andy took some friends to Mega (we still have our rental car) to buy their groceries while Jake and I stayed on the boat and watched movies.  He was up sick all night and I thought it was best to keep his cooties on the boat today. 

This evening, I took our neighbors who are leaving the same day as us to the warehouse to get our vegetables.  I can’t believe I didn’t take my camera.  It was so much fun to go through the bags and bags of beautiful produce.  For about $100, I got apples, oranges, limes, lemons, peppers of all kinds, watermelon, lettuce, grapes, chayote, onions, potatoes, and the list goes on and on…hopefully, enough for the next three weeks.  (Now the trick is to figure out how to store all this stuff and keep it from going bad.)  The night was going so beautifully until it was time to leave. 

“Where are the keys?” someone asked.

“I gave them to Jobie when he started loading the car” I responded

“Jobie?”

“Yes”

“Jobie?”

“Yes”

“SH#&^@” and someone took off running.

Apparently, Jobie was on his way to Sayulita to see his wife, not to return until tomorrow.

I was sitting on our neighbor’s boat using their phone to call the rental company to try to get a new key when I heard Jobie outside our boat talking to Andy.  He had gotten as far as Bucerias and reached in his pocket for change and found the key. 

No harm done.  The veggies are resting and we are heading that way ourselves.  Tomorrow is our last day to do the last minute things before checking out with the port captain on Tuesday.

2 more days…

2/28/2011 - Whale Watching and New Friends

In the midst of busily preparing for our trip across the pond, we managed to take some time out and go for a nice sail around the bay on Sunday and do a little whale watching.  When we were in Yelapa we met a nice French Canadian couple with two kids and they had never been sailing on a Catamaran.  They are doing a bit of traveling of their own and made their way to LaCruz this past week so we asked them if they wanted to bring the kids and head out for the day.

They have a really neat story.  They’re from Quebec and have been traveling in Mexico for about two months.  They have varied backgrounds but the purpose of their travel (aside from getting reacquainted with their adorable family) is to make a pilot for a TV series about family travel.  They take their cameras with them everywhere and film their kids as they interact with the local folks, learning their culture, history and just making new friends.  They’re having such a great time and making such good headway on their project that they’ve decided to stay in Mexico a bit longer and finish their pilot.  You can check out their website at www.yudeetlola.com (but you need to brush up on your French J ).

Lola driving the boat.  She didn't want my help at all.

We had a great day on the bay.  The weather was questionable so we went out with low expectations, but as soon as we got out of the channel we saw a mama humpback and her baby.  We spent about 20 minutes just drifting and watching the whales.  Then the wind picked up so we were able to have a nice lazy sail for most of the afternoon.  The kids had a great time.  The youngest, Lola, took right to it and even helped me steer the boat.  Yude and Jake just enjoyed each other’s company playing legos and Hero Factory, occasionally coming outside to see what all the hubbub was about.

Yude

Sailing is really exhausting!

Lola, after seeing a whale!

We’re not the most outgoing people in the world so we’re not the best at meeting strangers.  In this case, I’m glad Patrice and Maria were there to make the first move.  This is a truly beautiful family and I hope we find some way to keep in touch and keep up on their travels and movie and become better friends.

I didn't get as many good pictures as I thought.  Patrice and Maria took some additional pictures with their camera (the professional one, as opposed to my happy snap)…hopefully I can get a few of them in the next few days and add them here.

1/17/2011 - Latest Update

NOTE:  apologies ahead of time…I’m very talkative today.

Notice the two alligator slides on either side of the tower.

The fun just keeps on coming… Yesterday, Jake was invited to our friend’s boat, Andiamo III.  They have moved from La Cruz to a marina close by called Paridise Village because they have some friends coming to stay with them and they wanted to be closer to them.  It’s one of those places where people joke that scared Americans go to see Mexico (no offense to Andiamo, they feel the same way).  Anyway, they invited Jake to come and play in the totally awesome pool (complete with alligator slide) and then spend the night with their kids Christian and Abigail.  Jake wasn’t too keen on spending the night yet so we decided to go for the day while Andy worked on the boat. 

After an hour or so on two different buses (I really hate the bus system here…it takes FOREVER to get anywhere), Jake and I had lunch at McDonald’s and ice cream before we called Andiamo on the radio.  Shockingly, they couldn’t hear us…our hand held radio is crap.  So we set about to find them.  Trying to get into Paradise Village without proper id is like trying to get onto a military base the day after 9/11(well, not that hard, but pretty darn close).   We just tried to look the part and after some well staged conversation between Jake and I about not being able to find his friends, spoken in front of sympathetic looking people who looked liked they missed their grandkids, a nice gentleman let us in the gate to the dock so we could continue our hunt.  We finally found Andiamo and surprised them in the middle of their lunch.

Jake, partaking in the paper airplane contest.

Once the kids were all dressed, we went to the pool and had a fabulous afternoon.  The kids swam and played games while Tami and I sipped white wine spritzers and had some much needed (at least for me) girl time.  The highlight of Jake’s day was probably going down the big alligator slide.  I had to go first to see how scary it was…against my better judgment I decided to take Jake down with me the second time.  I say against my better judgment because I hate water slides.  Absolutely hate them.  I’m not the best swimmer in the world and hate water up my nose, which is what always happens on those things.  I’m positive I must have had a bad experience at White Water at a young age and have just supressed that memory.  Like most of my worries, it was unfounded and we landed safely in the shallow pool at the bottom, both times (he made me do it twice).

Today, I really didn’t want to do anything.  It’s two o’clock and I’m still in my pajamas.  But I will say we have been pretty productive.  I cut Andy and Jake’s hair this morning (long overdue), then Jake and I had school.   He’s coming a long much better with this new math program we’re using (Mathucansee), recommended by an old high school friend (thanks Tina, if you’re reading this).  And by doing Math first, somehow he doesn’t mind the reading and writing so much afterwards. 

Yes, that's my purple shirt he's wearing.

Sanding away...

Andy has been busy for several days sanding, priming and painting the whole boat.  He’s doing a fantastic job but there is dust everywhere and the whole boat is a wreck (which is why cleaning is not on my list of things to do today…it would be a waste of time).

Painter's tape, primer, windows are out... lots of prep work.

The cockpit is a total mess...dust everywhere.

My next task was to check on our ditch bag and see what was in there.  A ditch bag, for those of you don’t know, is literally the bag you take with you if you have to “ditch” your boat.  While no one ever expects to have to do that, it’s a good idea to be prepared anyway.  I know all of my cruiser friends are thinking that’s the understatement of the year.  See, we went to a seminar the other night where the topic was being prepared.  Aside from scaring the bejesus out of most everyone, it also woke us up to realize we probably have some work to do.  We packed our ditch bag a while back so I had forgotten what was in there.  When I dumped it out and laid it all out, I think we’re only about halfway packed.  So, off I go to make more lists (and spend more $).

Around lunch time, Jake announced he was hungry (what’s with that kid?).  I looked around and we have nothing appetizing to a 5 year old.  No bread, no tortillas, no tostado chips.  So I gave him an apple and peanut butter to hold him over until I thought of something.  While we are in a place where I can just “go to the store,” it’s not that easy to do.  I have to lower the dinghy, drive 15 minutes or so (we’re at the very end of the anchorage) in rolly waters – from 1-5pm here it sucks – probably getting wet… park the dinghy, find someone to let me in/out of the dock gate, walk ½ mile – 1 mile depending on where I parked the dinghy to the store, buy vegetables, go to another store, buy meat, go to another store, buy drinks, pack them all in my backpack and/or additional bags I brought and walk the ½ mile or so back and do everything backwards again.  The other option would be to hop on the bus for an hour and go to the Mega grocery store, make sure I don’t buy too much as I have to carry it all and hop on the bus back, walk some more, dinghy back…you get the picture.  I didn’t want to do any of that today so I have made some quick bread to tide everyone over and am trying my darndest to get my husband to take us out to dinner.  There is supposed to be some “weather” this afternoon (20 knot wind) and he wants to stay on the boat for that…I’m hoping it doesn’t pan out or we’re all having popcorn for supper (again).  He’s out of beer though so I’m thinking things are in my favor…

Tomorrow I get to have another girl day with my friend Diane.  She is a travel writer and often gets some really cool perks providing that she does a review or an article for the said perk.  Tomorrow she is going to the spa and has graciously invited me to go with her.  I cannot tell you how happy this makes me…  It’s been over a year since I had a pedicure and the last massage I had was by a giant Russian with hairy knuckles at the YMCA in Norfolk!!  I have no idea what I’m going to get but I’m positive it will be fantastic.

1/13/2011 - More kid fun

To continue on the kid theme… Jake has been having a blast with the other kid boats here.   Yesterday we had 5 kids over and all of their parents and I didn’t take one picture.  Nope, not one picture.  A lego bomb went on in the main salon while we grilled lunch outside and tried our best to avoid going inside.  We ended the day by all hopping in the dinghy and going to Tacos on the Street (still no pictures).  This is a little joint up in town that has $1 tacos and a fantastic flan (I hate flan but this one is really good).  $20 bucks later (how do we do that? Seriously, they were only a dollar and it was BYOB!) we headed home and an exhausted Jake fell right to sleep.

Today, while Jake and I attempted to catch up on his school work, Andy went to shore to go to Home Depot and ran into an old friend from the summer, Dan on s/v Dazzler.  When they got back, Dan came over and we took the dinghy in to eat pizza at this place on the beach right out from our boat.  The restaurant did some advertising the other day by bringing free pizza to all of the boats in the anchorage and a 30% off coupon.  So we thought we would give it a try. 

The place is gorgeous.  There is a beach there where Jake was going to play while we did the grown up chat thing, but since they had so few guests, the guy told us he could swim in their pool.  So Jake did a little resort crashing of his own (we didn’t bring out suits).  After some time, our friends from s/v Andiamo showed up with their kids and another party was  underway.

Las Palmas Resort & Spa in La Cruz

Christian, Jake and Abigail munching on fries between dips in the pool.

"watching the kids"

Tonight is movie night at the marina but we’re going to pass.   Too much fun for this old couple.  We’re going to curl up with some popcorn and legos and watch Horton Hears a Who.  

More fun in La Cruz

Making a puffer fish in the sand

In between boat projects, the crew here on Savannah has been managing to have some fun!  After two or three months of playing with mommy and daddy, Jake has finally found some other boat kids to hang out with.  One little girl in particular has become his new best friend.  Her name is Pari.  He got to play with Pari all day yesterday and he woke up this morning to tell Andy and I that he doesn't want to leave here...ever.  At least not until Pari does.  She even likes Star Wars!

Feeding their dinosaurs by the pool.

We went through the boat the other day and gathered all of the excess stuff that just takes up space and took it to the Swap meet yesterday.  A boat swap meet is kind of like a yard sale on land.  Everyone brings their junk and lays it out and hopes someone else will think it's a treasure.  We did pretty good...utilizing the same philosophy we always had with our yard sales (make it dirt cheap, the point is to get rid of it, not make $$), we found a good home for everything.  Nothing came back on the boat and we made $200 in the process.

Jake pulling Bosun in the dock cart.  I'm not sure who was entertaining who here.

After the swap meet we took the kids and went to the beach.  While the kids played we said good bye again to our good friends on Ulalena (over a few margaritas) as they're heading south to explore more of Mexico's mainland.  We're hoping we're still here when they pass back through in a few months to return to the sea.  We also said hello to our friends on Ceilydh as they have just arrived from LaPaz.  They'll be doing the puddle jump at the same time as us when we cross over to the South Pacific.  And finally, we spent time with new friends from Katrina Liana and Safety Cat, hoping to get to know each other even better.  As you can tell, we're really enjoying La Cruz.  It's the first place where we're not itching to move on.  There are lots of young people, it's close to a big city (Puerto Vallarta), yet it still has the small town charm we've grown accustomed to.

1/5/2011 - Savannah on the hard...again.

Things are turning good for us here…no more whining.  We’ve been talking with the boat yard here in La Cruz and after a little haggling, we finally got to a reasonable price to haul us out and paint our bottom.  Apparently, they really want to show that they’re willing to work with cruisers and we’re the test case.

Waiting for Savannah...

We pulled in at 9:00 this morning and they were all ready for us (very unexpected by us, but very appreciated).  We pulled into the lift, threw some lines around and up we went.  We were able to get off the boat before they pulled us totally up, but the whole process didn’t take more than 20 minutes.  They immediately started hydro-blasting the bottom and so the day began.

We’re expected to be back in the water by Friday. 

In the meantime, we’re in no rush.  I’ll explain.  We looked and looked yesterday for a place to stay for a few days.  Finding a room here isn’t like finding a hotel online.  I can’t get on the internet and Google it.  No, we have to do it the old fashioned way…walk around and ask. 

Our first option was a room behind a bar here, Philo’s.  Literally, behind the bar.  It was $400 pesos/night (roughly $38) but we would have to put up with the noise until who knows what time at night.

Our second option was a bungalow on the beach.  It had a kitchen, pool, patio, courtyard, the works…but it was $130/night + tax  +$15 for the kid.  As tempting as that sounded, we vowed to keep looking.

I walked a little out of town where all of the nice condos are.  I looked and looked, walked and walked.  I was about to give up when I saw a gringo lady standing on her balcony. 

“You don’t rent rooms, do you?”

“No, sorry.”

A man was standing beside her and hollered down…”How long?”

After a quick exchange, he gave me directions and sent me up the street to find Bub and Ladonna at Casa Cardinal.  “Tell them Sandy sent you!”

“Thank you!”

I rang the bell and a nice looking older gentleman came out.  I told him my “friend” Sandy said he might have a room to rent.  15 minutes and a big hug later I was walking back to the boat with two sets of keys. 

Casa Cardinal is very nice.  It’s owned by a nice couple from Kansas.  They live on the bottom and they have two one bedroom apartments for rent on the second floor.  They’re fully furnished and have air conditioning and a small kitchen.  In the back there is a heated pool we can use anytime we like!  They even have a washer and dryer we can use.  All for how much?  Hold your seats….$30/night.  I KNOW!!!  That’s what I said.  So, we’re all tucked into Casa Cardinal and have already used the pool.  I’m sure we’ll end up paying them more than that as I just feel like I should.  If Philo can get almost $40/night for one room, these folks can surely get at least that.  Not to knock Philo’s…it’s a nice room, but, really…

When we’re back in the water, we’ll have one big check mark on our list of things to do before heading south.  What a relief...

Christmas in La Cruz, Mexico

It never really felt like Christmas here in Mexico and I think it’s mainly because of the lack of street decorations, tv commercials, mall decorations and the like.  It’s probably not a bad thing seeing as that’s one of the ways Christmas gets out of control.  But you add 85 degree weather and no family to it…well, it feels like any other day.

But we made the best of it and it turned out pretty good.  We intended on a nice quiet Christmas eve with just us, much like we did Thanksgiving.  But when I found out there was to be a cookie decorating activity on our dock, I decided to ask if Jake could go.  When the older kids came to get him (“I’m fine mommy, you don’t need to go”), Andy and I decided to check out the dock party…just for an hour or so.  We had a nice pot of chili and presents for Jake waiting for us.

Well, the hour tuned into hours before we knew it.  We had a great time hanging out on the dock (albeit with people we barely knew) watching Jake run back and forth with the older kids from boat to boat, just happy to be playing with someone under 30 years old.  One of the dad’s pulled out a reindeer piñata and the kids got to wack at it for a while.  It didn’t take Jake long to figure out he needed to be speedy to get any candy (especially since he was the smallest).  The kids even got on the internet and tried to track Santa.  After a very late night, we finally went to bed so Santa could come to us.

Jake's first experience with a Pinata.

Jake crawled in bed with us Christmas morning like he always does and just laid there for about 15 minutes.  Finally, he whispered in my ear “Mommy, when do you think we can get up and open presents?”.  Who could resist that?  So we got up and sure enough Santa found the hatch we left open and left Jake a full stocking and his #1 toy on his list…Star Wars Legos!

We put legos together all morning and in the afternoon we went to a local restaurant where they provided the turkey and ham and everyone else brought a side dish (we took our chili).  It made for the largest potluck I’ve ever seen.  For $50 pesos we ate like kings.  They had live music and after dinner Santa handed out presents to about 500 local children.  They were lined up down the street.  It wasn’t dinner at mom’s but we were with good friends and got to see the meaning of Christmas first hand with all of the generosity of the folks at Philo’s.

Philo on the guitar with one of the local kids playing along.

This guy was great!

Even Bosun from Ulalena dressed up for the occasion.

It was hard to capture but kids were lined up around the corner to see Santa.

Does he look ready to go to you?

Today, it’s back to our normal routines and trying to clean up everything.  We don’t have piles and piles of wrapping paper and boxes like normal as it was a very modest Christmas here on Savannah but I did manage to put off doing dishes and putting up laundry for a few days.  And I’m stepping on legos everywhere I go.

12/23/2010 - Not much going on here

We’ve spent the last few days piddling around doing nothing and doing everything.  It’s been a few days where you feel like you’re getting nothing done and just going through the motions.

We took Jake to the beach one day.  There’s a local beach within walking distance so we took the sand toys and blankets and spent the morning playing.  Andy and Jake built the finest sand castle I’ve seen since we started this gig.

Hard at work with a 5 gallon bucket and lots of sand.

Looks like something out of Harry Potter??

Andy’s spent a lot of time cleaning the boat, organizing and attempting to downsize.  I’ve made numerous trips to the laundry and grocery stores and started on the inventory of our “stuff” (to prepare for provisioning later).  I finished Christmas shopping and now need to wrap everything.  I have attempted to start jogging again, but no one’s holding their breath yet.

Jake has been playing…and playing…and playing.  He picked out some stuffed animals to donate to some local children’s hospital here and he’s spent some time making presents for some of the cruisers (well, just one..lucky Ms. Teri).

Last night the marina put on movie night for the cruisers.  They played Santa Claus on the big screen outdoors.  They sold coffee, hot chocolate, popcorn, the works!  It was a really nice night.  It looks like they’re going to be doing this every week.  They’re really going out of their way here to appeal to the cruisers.  In addition to the movie night, they’re going to start a potluck every weekend, cooking classes, and they’re even trying to get some of the cruising seminars here (in addition to Puerto Vallarta) so we won’t have to hop the bus every time we want to hear one.  The staff has been great…I wish we had the money to stay here the whole time we’re in La Cruz!

Enjoying $1 margaritas at a local restaurant on the beach.

Tomorrow morning starts the pie making (Andy can’t live without his pecan pie) and cooking making (for Santa of course) so I’m off to get some rest!

Exploring La Cruz

We've been here a week now and I know I owe a post or two but I haven't really been in the mood...but I can think of at least two people waiting on me to do this, so here goes...

Scott, Teri and Jake at a local restaurant.

Our friends from Ulalena arrived a few days after us and we've had a very happy reunion as we haven't seen them since early fall.  We've gone out to eat with them a few times and are finding the food here very good.  Jake has really enjoyed meeting back up with Mr. Scott and Mrs. Teri and is looking forward to spending our Christmas with them as well.

We attempted to go to the Wild Animal reserve at one of the really swanky marinas here but that proved to be an unsuccessful trip for a number of reasons I won't go into.  We're going to try again after Christmas.

Yesterday we went sailing with Scott and Teri on another friend's catamaran (Catana 40), Puddytat.  Sylvie and David were wonderful hosts and we actually saw a few humpbacks out in the bay.  It was a beautiful day for sailing.

Andy and David.

Scott trying to convince himself he doesn't want a catamaran :)

Teri and Sylvie

One of many humpbacks we saw on our trip.

Sylvie is a wonderful artist that does various different things (fabric design, jewelry, painting) but one of the things she does that I enjoy the most is painting on fabric.  She dyes the fabric herself and then she creates stencils that she paints onto the fabric.  It's a very intensive process and take a lot of her time. She sells these pieces to others to use as they like.  I took a picture of one of the pillows she made with her seahorse square.  If anyone is interested she has both a blog where she talks about her work (Sylvies Designs) as well as an etsy site where she sells it (SylviesDesigns - Etsy).

Veggie stand at Wednesday's market in La Cruz.

There are a few markets around here.  We stumbled upon a more traditional market here on Wednesday...fruit and veggies, clothes, dollar store type toys, flip flops.  Today, there was a very different type of market on the local plaza.  It was more of the California style farmers markets that we used to go to in San Diego...small vendors with various types of art, bread, cheeses, premade food (humus, dips, etc) and an extraordinary vegetable stand (at least I thought so).  Unfortunately, I didn't need any vegetables.  But we did buy some fresh mint, squash blossoms and some sort of green heirloom tomatoes.  All of which I've never seen here in Mexico.

Jake jumping in the trampoline they had available for the kids at Sunday's market.

Lady weaving a basket at the market.

Tomorrow we move into the marina to begin our "Christmas vacation."  Instead of buying each other gifts, we decided to treat ourselves to the marina for two weeks.  This is a huge place for cruisers so there are more than enough activities going on to keep us busy.  It doesn't really feel like Christmas, but we're trying.  We put up our tree and lights, we've written our letter to Santa and practiced making cookies for him.  We even saw a Christmas parade in town the other night.  I'm making my last trip to Walmart tomorrow to finish up the shopping for Jake.  We'll be attending a huge potluck at the local restaurant here for Christmas day, but doing the traditional (at least for our families) Christmas Eve dinner on the boat with just us and a few gifts.  We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate)!

La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

Sunset over La Cruz anchorage (tired of sunsets yet?)

We woke up Monday and decided since we were only 9 miles from La Cruz, why not just go ahead and go instead of chancing the dicey landing on the beach at Punta Mita.  So here we are in the largest anchorage we’ve been to with the exception of La Paz.  There are tons of boats here…I counted over 30 last night.

La Cruz is short for La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.  La Cruz means the Cross and Huanacaxtle is actually a tree.  Legend has it the town was named that because a woman was buried beneath one of the giant, shady trees and they carved a cross into the trunk of the tree to honor the woman.  Through the years, the tree became a gathering place and the name “La Cruz de Huanacaxtle” stuck.

There is a new marina here right inside the harbor (of which we’re treating ourselves over Christmas) and it is very fancy.  You get a preconceived notion of the town just by docking your dinghy.  Then you walk outside the gate and all of your notions are shot to pieces.  It’s a small town with broken cobblestone streets and small tiendas and restaurants just like the rest of the towns we’ve been to.  We were pleasantly surprised.  Yesterday we decided to go out around lunch time and found most everything to be closed.  I think Siestas are a huge part of this culture!  Nothing seemed to open until 4:00. 

Today we headed out around 4:00 to find Philo’s, a local cruisers favorite.  We picked this destination for two reasons.  One, they are supposed to have good pizza and be a cool place to hang out.  Two, they are having a huge Christmas potluck and we think we might need to make reservations so we were going to check that out as well.  The pizza turned out to be great, atmosphere great and we got all of the details we needed for Christmas.

This also seems to be a place where people use the bus system to go to the various other towns.  Puerto Vallarta is only 10-15 miles south of here and there are several stops in between.  We’re going to have plenty of time to check them all out as we’re going to be here for quite a while. 

Puerto Vallarta is the jumping off point for us for the Galapagos so we won’t be venturing too far away.  There are some places further south we would like to go but we’ll just have to see how it goes.  We’re planning on leaving for the Galapagos in March as that’s supposed to be in the weather window of the best time to go.

Today we start our exploring in Nuevo Vallarta.  There is supposed to be a mega resort there with a wild animal reserve!  Jake’s looking forward to the Tigers.