Glory days March 97

March 3-12	While the windlass is being repaired, we spend our time continuing on our endless list of projects. We sand and varnish the exterior wood, Rod makes some adjustments to the watermaker, and Brenda gets out the sewing machine and makes us a BBQ cover and alters the dinghy cover and outboard motor cover. Of course, there are the normal errands of laundry, grocery shopping and banking which we do by bicycle. We also find a local dentist and have our teeth cleaned. We do take one day off and read our books by the marina pool, but otherwise we are busy with our tasks.
March 13	Yesterday, Rod installed the rebuilt windlass. The windlass bearings were all (4 of them) rusted and not operable. In addition, we think the new solenoid which Rod installed was defective and that is why it burned out at Mismaloya. Since our next set of visitors won't be arriving for another two weeks we decide to leave the marina and head south for a little more exploring. We leave about noon. There is no wind during the day light hours so we motor until sunset when the wind finally fills in. We sail through the night, taking turns with watch duty. The sky is cloudy and the moon is not visible, but the night time temps are warm making this night passage very tolerable. About 3:00 am while Rod is on duty, he finds it necessary to divert our course because a small boat with apparently no one on watch, motors right on by within 200 yards!
March 14	We arrive at Careyes about 10:00 am. It's a lovely little cove with room for only a few boats. When we drop anchor we have plenty of room since we're the only boat here. Club Med has a hotel here and a few kayakers paddle by, but otherwise this is a very intimate anchorage with views of swaying coconut trees, soft white sand and turquoise water. We both are tired from our interrupted sleep last night, so naps and a little snorkeling is all that is on the agenda today. Unfortunately, Brenda gets stung by small jellyfish which results in small itchy spots. This is the third time she has been stung while we've been here in Mexico. So we knew right away to apply meat tenderizer to minimize the infection and we have prescribed anti-itch cream. She seems to more sensitive than most people to their venom. In the future, she will wear her Lycra wetsuit every time she goes swimming unless we can be sure the water is free of these little buggers.
March 15,l6	Since this is the most picturesque anchorage yet, we decide to stay for a couple of days. We do some small projects and then go ashore and walk around the palical homes built on the cliffs and Playa Rosa and the Bel Air Hotel. Gorgeous. We eat at the Playa Rosa Restaurant-good but, just as Ron Raines guide says, pricey. (2 meals and a bottle of wine = 500 pesos or $65 US) They add the 15% tax and 15% tip right to the bill. Two other boats arrive and we meet Bruce, Barb, and Liz on "Crossroads" and Rick and Beth Ann on "Shadowfax", an Islander 42 (1970 vintage and in really nice shape). We have Rick and BA over for drinks and snacks. Nice witty people with whom we have a lot in common. We make water; Rod 's relocation of the booster pump does the trick and the system runs great, finally.
March 17	About 11:00 am after a leisurely breakfast, we pull anchor and depart for the Bay of Tenancatita, about 17 miles southeast of Careyes. Well, I should say we tried to pull anchor because the darn windlass failed again! Luckily this time, it pulled l25 ft before dying, so Rod only had to pull 25' by hand. No wind on the way to Tenancatita, so Brenda uses the three hours to tape the wooden hand rails in preparation of the sanding and varnish we will do in our next anchorage. While we are motoring along, a pod of l00 dolphin cross our path. Oddly, they don't divert to play with us, they appear to have a preassigned mission. When we arrive in Tenancatita, there are about five sailboats already here, but room for lots more. We choose a spot real close to shore, hoping it will be shallow, because we don't know if we will have the windlass working when it is time to depart. We have to guess at the depth because the gosh darn depth meter also fails as we are coming in.
March l8,l9,20	Rod crawled up in the forward V-berth to get to the anchor chain locker. After much trouble-shooting he discovered the previous owner of our boat had installed the windlass solenoid backward. Each time Rod replaced a burnt -out solenoid he replaced in the same way. Rod dinghied over to introduce himself to some of the other boats. His extrovert ways resulted in us being invited over to two of the boats for snacks, which in turn resulted in an offer to buy to a still-in-the-package solenoid. So now our windlass works again and it is wired correctly this time! It finally works better than ever before. Rod says that he has always expected a problem of some sort as he thought it didn't operate fast enough. Having the windlass rebuilt in PV was still necessary though as all of the 4 bearings were corroded and shot. Rod also fixes the depth sounder and we discover there is 9 feet beneath our keel. Close to bottom!
	Our normal schedule is to work on projects in the morning when it is cooler and then play/swim in the afternoon. Our "play" activity here is to take the dinghy up a three mile jungle river that empties into a lagoon. This trip is so magical, we do it twice.. The entrance is slightly tricky due to occasional waves breaking over a little reef , but once inside the river meanders sometimes wide and sunny, sometimes narrow and dark. The mangrove branches reach across and then dangle down to weave tunnels . As we slowly motor along we scare up flocks of white and blue herons, a few storks, pelicans and other birds we can't identify. We also see fish leap just in front of our dinghy. We feel like Bogart and Hepburn in African Queen, without the leeches thank God. The water temps are pleasant but no way would we risk bumping into a snake or a crocodile (small caimans). We save our swimming for the ocean waters.
March 21	We had a tremendous storm last night, which included huge claps of thunder and big cracks of lightning , as well as lots of wind and rain. Rod was awake all night long worried that the anchor would pull. When we talked to other yatchtees today they all reported endless trips to the cockpit last night too. It's so warm that we can do our checking in our bathing suits even though it may be the middle of the night. Yesterday when we ran the watermaker it began to gasp for air after about an hour. We thought we had that darn thing fixed. So, Rod spent most of the day today installing a new booster water pump, having decided that the original pump was undersized. Yachting is definitely not all fun. This pump works much better as it is a vane pump instead of a centrifugal pump and is able to generate more pressure to push the water through the pre-filters.
March 22	We get another boat washing early this morning. The lightening and thunder is very disconcerting as is the high winds. All is well though. We pull anchor at 10:00 and head back north to Chamela. The winds are 3-4 knots from the south so with the cast iron sail running we are successful in keeping the apparent wind on the beam and can m-sail along at a good clip. When the clip reached 8 knots Rod doused the Perkins and we cruised into the anchorage under rag power. A real treat to actually be successful at sailing. Brenda boned up on the VCR and took our first real life images of this form of bliss. We only capture the good moments. Why try and preserve the dark times. We join Sandy and Jim from Makini (a new Perry 47) into town (it's a stretch) to eat dinner. Rod decides we'll row and we do make it into the beach unscathed. Dinner took the form of 4 meat tacos and a couple of beers each. The total bill was 25 pesos per couple. We were generous though as we left a big tip. The return dinghy ride wasn't quite as uneventful as we couldn't get our rowing going and we took a breaking wave over the bow. Wet and sputtering (and Brenda bitching at me for bitching at her to row faster) we continue into another couple of waves which go under us, as they ideally should, and continue onto Glory Days and a fresh water wash down. I suppose, as John Candy said in Planes Trains and Automobiles, "This may seem difficult now, but in the future I'll bet we look back at this event and laugh". It is the unexpected which adds spice to life!
March 23	Even though we got wet last night, Rod still doesn't want to use the motor on the dinghy; he's determined to conquer the waves. So he rows us into shore again. But this time we land a different landing spot and all goes well. We have an enjoyable fish and shrimp lunch at one of the beachside restaurants. For dinner we join Rita and Bill on "Lucky Lady" for sushi, guacamole and chips. Later we had a spectacular view of the partial full moon eclipse.
March 24	We pull anchor at 11:00 am and continue our trip north, headed for Puerto Vallarta, about 93 miles away. This trip will be an overnighter. The little bit of wind is right on our nose all day and all night so it is necessary to motor the entire l6 hour trip. All day long we drag two fishing lines; at sunset we get five bites in a row. Our catches include one skip jack and several Bonita; we let them all go. We're still waiting for the elusive yellow fin tuna.
March 25	We arrive at the Puerto Vallarta harbor entrance about 4:00 am. Rather than enter in the dark we drop anchor in about 40' of water just in front of the high rise hotels along the shore. We get a couple hours of shut-eye and then about 9:00 am we enter the harbor and tie up once again to one of the marina slips. Rod's sisters will be arriving in four days, we want to use the next several days to work on our taxes before they arrive. Since we don't have the inverter installed yet (it is the last of many boxes we had on board when we left SF) we need the shore power.
March 26-28	We work on the taxes, do the laundry, grocery shop and other mundane tasks.
March 29	Linda and Rhonda Bulcher arrive from Idaho. The gas barbecue fails again and we end up eating dinner at a restaurant. Oh well.
March 30	Easter. After a big home-cooked breakfast of chorizo and eggs, we catch the bus and go to town. We spend the day shopping and return to the boat tired and hot. Rod is able to repair the BBQ and we eat chicken by candlelight, listening to Latin music in the background.
April 1	We check-out of the marina and sail to La Cruz, only 7 miles away. Nice warm winds make this a nice initiation sail for Linda and Rhonda. Swinging on the anchor is also a new experience for them, fortunately the swells are minimal.
April 2	We lower the dinghy and outboard motor into the water and go to shore. It's a short walk through town to the main road where we catch a bus and travel to Punta Mita. Rhonda and Linda are surprised at the dismal, dusty existence that most local people live. Most of the homes have water tanks on the roof that supply gravity fed water, but obviously running water and sewers are not present. It is an interesting 20 minute ride through the local countryside to the swimming beach at Punta Mita. We didn't bring out suits, so we pick some comfortable chairs under a palm leave thatched roof and watch the tourists play in the surf. In this case, the tourists are mostly Mexicans that have come here to play for the day; there a few Americans. All day long vendors walk by "hawking" t-shirts, silver jewelry, pottery, etc. We have lunch and a few cervezas and get back on the bus. Instead of going straight back to the harbor we decide to visit the town of Bucerias as well. It's a little larger but basically the same. We pass some open-air stands where ladies are making fresh tortillas and cooking chicken and ribs. We can't resist. We get a package to go and a fine dinner in our cockpit under starry skies. We pull anchor and sail across Banderas Bay to Yelapa. Another fine day of sailing! Although the sun is shining, the winds make the temps feel comfortable and Linda and Rhonda both get sun burn as they nap. The trip takes us about 3.5 hours. We've been to Yelapa before with Pete and Marsh but this time we anchor on the other side of the cove. Experience has also made us smarter and when we go ashore we do not dump the dinghy.
April 3	Brenda, Rhonda and Linda go to shore and hike up the trail to the waterfall. Rod stays behind to finish the taxes and to clean-up the boat (he is a full service skipper). At the top of the trail we are greeted by young children asking us to throw pesos into the pool of water for them to retrieve. The youngest want to sell us flower blossoms. We toss a few coins and instead of buying the flowers we ask to take their photos and reward their smiling faces with a few more pesos. We return to the boat just in time to avoid getting wet when the rain showers start. Wind accompanies the rain and our boat rocks and rolls. We all sit down below playing games and reading until the pitching of the boat forces both Linda and Rhonda to take Dramamine tablets. After a nap they feel better, although the rain continues.
.April 4	It is still raining. The weather causes us to change plans. Instead of sailing to another anchorage for our last day with our sisters, we motor back to the marina at Puerto Vallarta. We spend our last evening together in town and have dinner at a delightful restaurant on the beach where we can watch the sun set. It's been a delightful week; it's been a pleasure spending quality time with Rhonda and Linda
April 5	The ladies must be at the airport by 7:00 am for their flight home to Idaho. We're not use to alarm clocks!