Sculpture tour of PV

 The tour started with the Milennia Statue which was donated to the city of Puerto Vallata in 2001 by the sculptor Fernado Banos. He was actually there to explain the meaning behind the the work. The tour continued along the Paseo diaz Ordaz which is also known as the malecon.  All but two of the statues have been donated by artists who raise the funds themselves just to share their work with everyone.  They also must maintain their art as the city does not have the funds in the budget.



Sand sculptures are also a big attraction at this time of the year.



There are many different themes for the sculptures

Even a Christmas tree!!!

This is the original sculpture on the Malecon and was purchased by the city of Puerto Vallarta during the late 1970s.  It was not damaged by the huricane in 2002 but has been repaired and given a much larger seafront  to better protect it moving forward.  This statue has become the symbol of Puerto Vallarta

Named the Angel of Hope this statue faces the beautiful Church of Guadalupe as he prays for peace and everlasting hope for mankind.

Jim Damento is the artist that donated Valarta Dancers.  It is a very beautiful peace and depicts the local dance group Xiutia who performs twice a week on the local square.  Jim was there to share with us stories of how he came to be an American living in PV who wanted to sculpt this beautiful statue and how it was done.  Quite a long process!!!

 The Friendship Fountain is right off the central square and there is s twinned sculpture in the sister city of Santa Barbara.  It is a tribute to the local indigenous people called the "Chumash" and by legend tells the story of them leaving the Channel Island on a rainbow bridge.  Some natives looked down as they crossed the bridge and they fell but as legend goes they turned into dolphins before they hit the water.





More Tail

Monday we had another opportunity to take Di's Dream out for a day of whale watching with friends Jay and Laurie Ailworth. They live right here near Paradise Village and love to take advantage of any opportunity to get out on the bay. It does not hurt that Jay is a fabulous photographer who is always looking for that one amazing photo. I did not even bother to pull out my little point and shoot camera for this trip so all picture are courtesy of Jay. I have posted the rest of the shots on my slideshow on the left side of this page.

Merry Christmas

Rog and I would like to wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas. We are having a fantastic time on the beach, Rog is out riding the waves on a boggy board and I am waiting for my massage appointment! It does not get much better than this

I did take a picture of us sitting on the beach this morning however, my camera is too old to upload the picture to the iPad so we will have to use a shot of us taken at Yelapa. You will just have to take my word that our day will be spent calling everyone while drinking margaritas here at the beach in Paradise Village.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a warm, rain free day

Whale of a day

Michael and Sylvia Fitzgelard are dear friends of ours who now live in the Puerto Vallarta area whenever the weather is bad back home. Lets see, San Francisco rain, New York snow or PV where you get the same weather this time of year day in and day out.

Last week they asked us if we would like to go whale watching, sure why not. Any excuse to go sailing is fine by us!!! So we took Di's Dream out of the slip one again. We have now used the boat more in one month that we did the entire last year in San Francisco.

My whale pictures did not turn out too well but I invite all my friends to take a look at the youtube video that Michael produced. We had a fantastic time and saw so many whales. Now I want to learn more about their habits so I can better understand what we witnessed. The shot of the whale coming out of the water tail first is reportably a mother trying to give birth. I need to research this a bit more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RnGey8C1nI

Dine and Dash

Rog decided to try his luck at racing Di's Dream again yesterday and had a wonderful time. We had Rob from the beautiful sailboat Sea Diamond to handle the spinnaker lines, Liz Barrow was the official spotter, Jane was button pusher, Di did a little bit of everything and Rog was upwind tactician and helmsman on spinnaker leg. Thirteen boats started with staggered times and raced up to La Cruz where slips were waiting so we could all disembark and run up to Philo's for pizza.

We were entertained by Philo and his band of misfits while sailing trash talk flew around the room until with no fanfare the homeward start times were announced. We had just 14 minuets to get to the start line so we all dashed off to our boats.

Now we understood the "dine and dash" theme.

With Di at the helm the main went up and spinnaker was readied,

but no. The wind was right on our nose so we could not pop the spinnaker

so it was hauled back down. With a bit of luck and a strong desire to

stay away from everyone else, Di headed to port while everyone else

headed starboard and struggled to find the wind. We sailed through the anchorage successfully and found the wind once we cleared the

headlands. Once again the jib was pulled in and the big sail went up

with no problems and Di continued to drive until Rog finally had

everything dialed in and he could take over. Now it was a race to the finish!

We fought off the two J80s which was no small task as Eugine had a boat crewed by all the crackerjack youth skippers from the yacht club. We later learned that one young lady has been the national campion the past years running! Sure glad we were not match racing her. The only other boat that headed to port was Bright Star, a Jeaneau 40 with a handicap of 72 that is a very competitive boat. Unfortunately we could not hold off Bright Star at the very end and she finished just one boat length ahead

Another great day out on Banderas Bay!

Pictures provided by our great friends on

Full Shell, Marilyn and Eric.

Early Christmas

Tuesday is beading here in Paradise Village, great fun. I went off with all the girls this morning with little expectations of what Rog would do while I was gone, he has been reading quite a bit lately and not boat chores. Little did I know but he had plans to jump into the washer/dryer and see if he could get it running again. With a great deal of effort he took out cabinets, cut holes in walls, and cleaned all electrical connections and now it works!! I came back back and found him doing a load of darks, wonders of wonders. I am now a happy camper. Just wish the inverter could have been repaired so easily.

No coffee-no way

After anchoring at Yelapa overnight where it was a bit rolly, Rog new he would have to get the coffee pot going before anything else happened on the boat. Grumpy would not get out of bed without that wonderful aroma to intice her.

We may not have mention but out inverter blew up when we plugged into the docks over in La Cruz, not a good thing when you smell smoke on the boat. They had wired the ground to a hot wire at the dockside power source so the moment we plugged in--pop!! Ok, we have a genset and a spare charger on the boat so no worries.

Fast forward to Yelapa. Rog gets up, turns on the genset and it has a high pitch alarm sounding!! No power on the boat. That means we have to take the forward berth apart to get to the genset and replace the relay switches. We have plenty on the boat--right?? Yes we do but where are they and where do we install them?? Better get the manuel out and start reading.

Using the snake that had been a gift from a customer Rog located the source of the problem and was able to take care of it. Yes the genset would run and we were back in business.

HOWEVER, grumpy has gotten up and pulled out another gift that had been given to her when we had the original Di's Dream--- A stainless perculator !! We still have propane so coffee is made.

We have just found out that for a price we can have a new inverter walked across the boarder and put on a plane headed to Puerta Vallarta. There is even a service that will deliver right to our marina!! I did mention that this will all be done for a price, maybe I should have flown home and picked it up myself.

As posted in lectronic Latitude

The third race in the Blast is the Pirates for Pupils Spinnaker Run for Charity from Punta Mita to Paradise Marina. It's a great course that usually starts with a tight spinnaker reach on port, a gybe to starboard at the radio tower toward the middle of the bay, after which the fleet gets increasingly knocked so they end up on a very tight spinnaker or white sails reach to the finish. To the left is Piko, Lauren and Lauren Buchholtz's Seattle-based Pretorien 35 and another Ha-Ha boat, Roger and Diana Frizzelle's Richmond-based Catalina 470 Di's Dream. Both boats were able to carry all the way to the finish. Photo Latitude / Richard© 2010 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Another view of the luxurious Di's Dream, as she just barely lays the finish line. Once across, there was no time to waste in getting the chute down, as the heavy summer rains have greatly extended how far out the shoals come from the Rio Ameca. By the way, the main highway bridge over the Rio Ameca that collapsed during 23 inches of rain in 24 hours in September is expected to reopen before Christmas -- more than 50% ahead of schedule. Photo Latitude / Richard© 2010 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Rog and I are having the time of our life down here in Banderas Bay and as you can tell by the above article we are actually sailing our boat. Weather has been lovely for swim suit and t shirt sailing.

Picture album Cabo To Mazatlan

http://picasaweb.google.com/disdreamadventure/CaboToMazatlan?feat=directlink

Here are some of our pictures from our trip after we left Cabo. There are pictures of friends, fish and beautiful sunsets.

Please check them out!

What have we been doing

I keep thinking I will have time to sit down and get caught up with the blog but another day goes by and I still have not posted pictures that need to be shared. The Banderas Bay Blast is over, the Chili Cook Off winner has been decided and Rog has had a run over to an emergancy room doctor. He unexpectedly sat on a bee or wasp on the final leg of the race that has left him with a very painful welt about 4 inches across on the back of his leg!!! By this morning it became very obvious that he needed stronger meds before this got completely out of hand. After a shot and oral meds he is still not getting any relief but I have time to do a blog. No beach for us this afternoon.

We had a fabulous third leg of the Blast that started in Punta Mita with the spinnaker flying. Andy Barrow offered to crew for us and you know Di was more than willing to have another pair of hands with help with the spinnaker. We were running deep in 19 knts of wind pursuing Circ and barely ahead of the Catalina 42 Destiny. We followed Circe to the radio towers where we had to jibe over to starboard to run back and try to lay the finish line at Paradise Village. The wind started to lift us and it was a real challenge to keep the spinnaker flying so close to the wind. At the finish the water was getting very shallow, down to 14 feet, and another boat named Pico was right on our stern trying to drive us up. Maybe a little more exciting than Di bargained for and certain more for Rog once he got stung in the but!!

At the awards party we were extremly surprised to find that Di's Dream had pulled it out and finished first by just five seconds over Circ who is an incredably fast boat. Di's Dream was in a real dog fight for all three days and now needs to be rewarded with a good scrub and polish. She will come back out of the marina latter this week when we go over to Yalapa.

For more information on the Banderas Bay Blast go to this site

http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2010-12-03&dayid=512

Banderas Bay Blast

We had two beautiful days in Banderas Bay before we checked into Paradise Village. We arrived wednesday morning around 11 am and turned around by 12:30 to go out and participate in the Banderas Bay Blast. It is a wonderful three day race around the bay with the first leg going from paradise to La Cruz, second leg is from La Cruz to Punta Mita and the final leg is a spinnaker run back to Paradise Village.

Even though we are very tired we just completed the first two legs of the race still smiling and even speaking to one another! The first leg was a close reach on a long starboard tack and Di's Dream got off to a fabulous start and was able to hold off Destiny, a Catalina 42, and Circe, a Beneteau First. They had an incredible finish with just seconds between them.

Once we finished and headed up into the wind all sorts of alarms started sounding. Someone, maybe Rog, had said this would be a very mild day and no need to close the sink through hulls. That proved to be only the beginning of problems for the boat. Once we got into a slip an plugged the boat in we heard a very loud pop and immediately smelled smoke. After much searching and the help of a great electrician we figured out that the dock power had fried the inverter. With the help of West Marine and the fabulous John Platt we will soon be able to make coffee once more.

We arrived late at the start line after spending the morning removing the inverter and re wiring the second backup charger we had on the boat. We crossed the start just two minutes behind and quickly got into the fray. We had a great race with Destiny up to Punta Mita and thought we had made a bad tactical error when we held a port tack a bit too long however, once we ducked below them we had a better point on the finish and just edged them out by less than a minute. What fun we had for charity!

Today is leg three and we have enlisted Andy Burrow to help with the spinnaker run. It should make it easier on Di who just gets a bit anxious with all that sail up!

By 5pm we will be back in our slip and ready to sit still for a few days. No more races until next Wednesday.

Fish on

This looks like a pole that has a Fish On!!!!!

Paul and Cathy Eugina were fantastic crew on the trip from San Diego to Cabo. They had taken their own boat down to Mexico on the 2006 Ha Ha and spent the better part of two years cruising so we were anxious to pick their brains about cruising the Sea. We feel very comfortable sailing in Banderas Bay and south to Zihuatanejo but wanted to learn more about the Sea. For ten days we discussed various anchorages, where there was cell phone coverage and what to fish for. Fishing may have been the number one topic of discussion on the entire trip as we were running five lines at all times. Rog had two tickler lines and three poles just looking for fish and fish he found.

Our first major strike was at the exact moment we crossed the finish line right outside of Turtle Bay when we caught two yellow tail at the same time. Captain chaos was aboard Di's Dream!,, not only did we have to bring in the other three lines but where were we going to put the fish and who was going to clean them?... And the sails were up, what do we do first. We furled the jib in order to slow the boat, Di emptied an ice chest so we could store a fish and the boys started reeling them in. Of course we announced to the fleet that we had landed both fish at the finish. Great cheers were heard and plans for dinner that night were made.

Filleting the fish did not prove to be a problem as our boat was approached by a small boat as soon as our anchor went down. The locals offered to take our trash but agreed to fillet the fish in exchange for two beers instead! Di was a very happy camper, no blood on board and fish for dinner. Could the day get any better.

On the next leg of the Ha Ha we continued to fish with mixed results. We had one line out with 150 lbs test and cedar plug that attracted a very large fish that took the bait and just about ran the entire spool out. Rog fought it for the at least 30 minuets before we got our first look at it and quickly decided we wanted nothing to do with that particular fish. It was large, fighting hard and had a big fin- probably a shark! Eventually it snapped the line and we were free to sail again. No pictures were taken of the fish.

We also briefly caught a sailfish on the final leg of the ha ha. We were flying the spinnaker at the time and had no way to slow the boat downs the line snapped. Again, what would we do with a fish that large on board Di's Dream- better to loose it.

There were various other smaller fish that we caught including a barracuda and small tuna. Rog is getting much better at getting them on board while under full sail which is not an easy task. Having the locals fillet the fish is still the way to go as far as I am concerned and I hear no complaints from Rog. I am sure we will continue to improve as we catch more fish

Kathy and I are ready to BBQ our first fish of the trip!!!!

Post

No problems on Di's Dream except....

Rog and I arrived in Cabo San Lucas feeling very smug. No problems on di's dream on our trip down from San Diego although there had been numerous problems on other ha ha boats. There were dislocated hips, bow sprit that broke, spinnakers lost overboard or blown out, and a broken boom. Tragicly onene boat was lost when it when ashore just north of Bahia Santa Maria. It was not on the ha ha but was out of the San Francisco area. We were not able to assit in the recovery due to my physical limitations but our positive thoughts followed our friends that went to assit with the dismantling of the boat.
We sailed into Cabo around 9am on a thursday morning under rather blustery conditions after a beautiful third leg of the ha ha. Just the afternoon before we had been sailing the spinnaker for over four hours at eight knts in very smooth seas. Overnight the conditions became very light and we had to motor until suddenly we saw 20 knts with gusts to 25 knts as we rounded Cabo Falso. I was feeling very lucky to have a slip inside the marina. There was no rest and no trips into Squid Row for the boats out in the anchorage that night.
After a quick trip to the harbormaster and an expensive stop with the immigration officer we were free to do whatever we wanted. Well--- the fist order of business for di was to was all the sheets and towels on board. Two loads went without a hitch and then load number three went in, no so good. The washer just said no more! So now we were stuck with very wet and soapy sheets that could not go back on our forward berth for our next guests. Not a good situation and no sympathy could be found when other boats really had more serious problems or so they thought. Di could not do the wash on her boat and the thought of having Roger take all the cabinets out in the shower was not good. For now the washer is just looking pretty and will be fixed if possible once we reach Puerto Vallarta.
So at the end of the day Rog and I are very happy with our trip from San Diego to Cabo. We had great sailing conditions with hours on end of spinnaker runs under ideal conditions. We arrived in every anchorage with some daylight left, Rog had promised me we would always arrive in daylight, caught lots of fish along the way, and ate great meals the entire way.

Volcom Rocks

I know I like to color co ordinate everything but I promise you that I did not dress Rog for the party in Bahia Santa Maria and believe me he got quite a few coments about the outfit!!

I am not entirely sure when Joe gave Rog these great swim trunks but they sure worked for us this year. Dad was always styling in Volcom!!

Even our ponga driver was sporting Volcom. Now we just have to get the stock back up but we love the dividend this quarter.

Roger is 65!!!!

Roger turned 65 and is now all enrolled in Medicare---at least we think he is!! I am still working with Blue Shield to confirm automatic payments are in place. We may have to come back to the states just to get it all sorted out.

Rob organized a family present for Rog --a new rod and reel to replace the one that went with a fish on our last Ha ha adventure. Rob decided on a Shimano 2 speed gold reel and Shimano Tallus rod. He loaded this with 150 lb test after loosing another "big one" on the trip from Long Beach to San Diego. Rob does not really want to be a catch and release expert. Now there are no excuses expected. More to follow on this subject.

Joe had a great chat with Ina and got all caught up on family details including what she might be knitting next!!

We were lucky enougth to get the family together for a brunch at the Long Beach Yacht Club. You will notice that they seated us outside so we could make as much noise as we wanted. Beautiful day for the celebration too.

Ina brought Nolan down to celebrate. He is looking very strong and added great merriment to the gathering. Ina did not bring her famous brownies down.

Joe also got to hug Grandmother Mary. Don't ask about the get up he has on, way too long a story. He gave one of these T-shirts to Rog who said he would never wear it however he did and has never had so many positive retorts about a shirt he was wearing. Since then we have gone out and bought the video Fast times at Ridgemont High just to understand.

We all got to talk to Jennifer while we were gathered around the table. Jen had decided not to fly in for the event and we all missed her terribly. Roger just did not want her taking any chances because he has already bought Di a plane ticket for March of next year.

We loved having our new family join us for the party. Melissa, her mother Betty and sister Liz all enjoyed the beautiful sunshine we had. Yes Fred came down too

Somehow I did not get a photo with Gail and Bill Silva together so here is one with Gail, Roger and Fred--all parts of our new expanded family.

Paddle Boarding

After an afternoon on shore with the kids we decided it was time to try paddle boarding. We had a great time and shared many laughs. Rog was an instant hit--as in hit the water just moments after standing up. Stacy was the lucky photographer that captured this Kodak moment.

No Harm done. He would manage to get back on board.

Liz had the best balance of the group. She didn't fall until Joe just managed to nudge her board just a bit too hard Di even gave it a try!! Notice, I hold the paddle just like I am trying to stir a pot. Later I learned that one hand goes on the top of the paddle, who knew. Di did stay dry because she knew once she went down there would be no getting up.

Joe had a rather wet start, falling repeatedly at first. Although Joe is a fabulous surfer who would have thought paddle boarding could be different enough to be challenging. Melissa only went down in order to cool off. She wanted to check out this beautiful Stevens that had just arrived at the harbor

Stacy was the one who organized the activity and we were glad she did. You do notice that there is no picture of Rob on a board--he was over on his boat getting the traps ready to go out for lobster. We wouldn't see him for hours.

We finally decided it was more fun to sit on the boards than try to ride out the wakes from all the boats going through the harbor. Paddle boarding for novices should be done in a vary quiet bay not where there is as much activity as Avalon. Think we will all try this again one day behind Jen's house in warmer water.