A week in Santiago

We started last week with the expectation of a SF 49er win but as we all know that was not to be. Rog had found a spot at the Oasis Beach Club and a fan of the Giants to watch the game. He was very happy and Rog was deeply saddened. Not sure who he will be rooting for on Supper Bowl Sunday but he has his spot all picked out as well as well as is lottery number.

As you can see we are in a beautiful anchorage in Manzanillo Bay. Santiago is a small community of upscale homes occupied primarily by Canadians down for a six month vacation. Right now there are at least 15 boats in the anchorage with half heading further south and the other group heading back to the Sea of Cortez for the spring. We are in the last group, heading back to Banderas Bay around the first of March. In the meantime I come ashore every morning so that I can walk the beach for a bit of exercise. Only problem, the beach is four miles long!

Many cruisers get their daily weather updates from Stan at Solmate Santiago. He either posts online or sends emails concerning whatever area interests you, currently we are receiving the Cabo Corrientes south info. Last Wednesday Stan had a party for all the cruisers in the local area. It was wonderful to meet new friends and see old ones. New friends include Katie and Phil on Avalon and Pamela and Dennis on Mind Magic. Both boats will heading north once they leave Santiagoso we should get to spend more time with both.

After a wonderful afternoon Stan suggested an outing to La k'melia which is an amazing comedy club and jazz bar. He had warned us that the beers were costly for Mexico, $3.50 each, music very load, we couldn't talk once the band started, and there was course after course of food brought to the table. No charge for all the food! Really.

Rog is learning to navigate on our new MacBook and there is no better spot than on the beach. He has been researching the MacEnc program to try and figure out how we change our entire boat from a PC base to a Mac. We will need new connection cables for the Gps, new software and more charts. Since Oasis has wifi it is going to take a lot of time on the beach to get this done.

The staff is young and energetic at the Oasis, always willing to pull our dingy up on the beach or help us get out past the waves.

Saturday is market day in Santiago and you will find everything you need there. The best is the DVDs that are four for $100 pesos! This day I found a little car for Nicholas, Rog found an inner tube for the dingy wheel and we both decided on some great fresh veggies .

Every morning we wake up to a commotion behind the boat that means the bait fish are in a frenzy feeding on the surface. This goes on for quite some time. The pelicans love feeding on the bait and the water in teaming with larger as well. We see the locals fishing from the shore with great success.

So today will be another beautiful day here in Santiago Bay. We will probably spend it at the Oasis since Tuesday is two for one all day long and they have a fun band playing. We will check in with our friends to check out the weather back home, I am sure it is a lovely there as it is here

La Manzanillo with friends

When we were anchored in Tenacatita last week with our friends Jay and Kat we decided a quick trip over to La Manzanillo was necessary and by quick we meant by dingy. The water was flat, conditions were great for a full throttle adventure. We went over before ten so we could have a nice breakfast before heading to see the crocks.

They have installed new fencing around the crocks to keep them safe from all the visitors. They have even built a suspension walkway so that they can charge one dollar for the pleasure of seeing these huge animals way too up close and personal. Kat went up into the tree house at the end of the walk so she could take better pictures but only found us within photo range.

Jay and Rog were having a great time pretending to be the big hunters on safari, as long as they were behind the right side of the fence.

This sign says it all. No swimming, goes without saying, no feeding, we saw several people throwing fish parts to the crocks and no small pets inside the fences.

I was not very crazy about the swinging bridge but I crossed it anyway and once you went over then you had no choice but to return the same way.

It is always wonderful to visit the local church in these small villages and the one in La Manzanillo was truly beautiful. The outside had been repainted since the last time we visited and the entire square looked spruced up. The inside of the church was even more amazing than the outside. It is one of the most beautiful churches I have seen in Mexico

Bara de Navidad

On our last trip home Roger decided I needed a new laptop computer and offered to take me by Best Buy as we headed out of Bakersfield. I knew we were headed to Carmel where there was an Apple store very close to where we were staying and that was where I wanted to shop. Why not have all our electronics match? So a new Mac laptop it was.

So now I had to sit at a coffee shop in Bara de Navidad trying to download Microsoft word, all 992 MB of information. Have you ever tried to do this over Mexican WiFi, not an easy task and one that took the better part of the day. In the meantime I was able to get caught up with all my email and other computer related chores. Our friends Jay and Kat also stopped by to get caught up on their email and to check on weather conditions for heading north.

I know I am not very good at spelling but I can figure out what the little coffee shop had to offer in the way of food. I have to admit that their coffee was strong and hot, their fruit smoothies very refreshing and their sandwiches excellent. I was there way to long!

First Catch of the Season

I know I am not keeping in touch like last year but I will try to get back on track now that we are finally out of the slip. It took a call on the Vhf from our good friends Jay And Kat on Kat Den Rie to get our act in gear but with less than four hours notice and a quick propane run we were off the docks on Wednesday and headed over to La Cruz for fuel. We had been planning our departure and working towards it but just not throwing off the lines so now we were committed.

We both left La Cruz Thursday morning at 4am, yes am, sharp. We had great plans of making Chamela before nightfall and with a very light breeze in the morning and southwesterlies the rest of the day it became a motorboat ride. Seas were calm but rolly so we kept some sails up just to steady the boat.

Jay was the first to get his pole in the water but we were the fist to get a strike. I had laid down for an afternoon nap, Rog was on whale watch when we got the HIT! I heard it and immediately ran upstairs, my job is to reel in all the other poles so nothing gets tangled, Rog had put the boat in neutral and then looked to see that our fish had run the entire spool. This is the first time it had happened to us and amazing to see how fast it had happened.

Rog slowly began reeling him in while we watched him jump and fight the lure. Jay later told us it was a large bill fish that we had caught. Realizing we were still going to fast Rog let off the main and began furling the jib. We just had to slow down or we - drats he just shook himself free. Rog had fought him for a good 15 minuets before he was gone We got all the line and the lure back so without Jay there to confirm what he saw this would be just another fish story about the one that got away.

A short time later this menicing looking boat was bearing down on us I am sure intending to run us off his fishing grounds. Actually, he was just a shrimper headed Bach to Cheamela just like us, intent on getting in before dark.