Season Ends

It has long been said that all good things must come to an end but we will enjoy our last day here in Paradise to the fullest! Our friends Jay and Laurie shared a two day stay here at the hotel with us so we got all our boat project done by Monday at 2pm and made it to the pool by 3:00. Today was a spa day for me while Rog did a final check of the boat before we met up at the pool for Piña Coladas with our friends. It has gotten very warm here but rain usually is threatening by 4pm. Time to head home at long last. We left the states on Nov 1st and plan to cross back into Arizona July 1st. I was convinced that staying in the pool was the only way to stay cool but sooner or later you do have to get out. I can't believe it but after an entire season I still managed to get a sunburn today! More sunblock next year. Roger and Jay worked very hard at relaxing, after all Rog does have to start driving back first thing in the morning. The first leg of the trip is a very windy road to Tepec that last for the better part of three hours. After a short stop we will continue up to Mazatlan where we will stay at El CID. Thursday and Friday we will be visiting friends who are hauling there boats at Guaymus, it is way too hot there. Saturday we will head to the boarder and cross into Arizona at Negalas. Home sometime Monday is the plan. The rest of the summer is still up in the air. We have a trip to SF planned, I have to see all my doctors for my 5 year checkup, and a possible trip to visit Jennifer in Orlando since Roger is getting very lonesome for Nicholas. With the arrival of one baby in the Caymans and another in Southern California this fall we do not have plans to get back to the boat until late January. Not sure how we will survive with out the boat but two healthy little guys will make it all better.

Visit with Family

After our great passage from Mazatlan back to Paradise Village we got wonderful news. Rog's brother Bob would be visiting us for a few day and after a bit of encouragement decided to bring his wife Dale and daughter Karen Brita along. We weren't sure how they would respond to life aboard Di's Dream and all that goes along with boating but they adjusted very quickly. The plan was to run the air conditioner and leave the water heater turned off which would mean going up to the yacht club for showers. There was no food on the boat as we would be leaving PV right after they departed so all meals had to be eaten out, oh darn. But we could go shopping and we proceeded to do lots of that. We kept it very simple and went up to the Paradise mall for fajitas which Karen Brita insisted were the best thing since sliced bread. There was absolutely no problem getting her to eat her veggies! A bit of ice cream after dinner became the norm with great discussions about the best flavor. I think another trip will be required to make a final decision. On Sunday we took the boat over to Yalapa with plans to get a slice of lemon meringue pie from the Yalapa Pie Landy. I do not know how long she has been selling pies by the slice on the beach but I know we have been enjoying a slice on every visit since 2001. And I wonder why I have a problem keeping my weight down while cruising! Karen Brita also tried fajitas for lunch while Dale and I decided to have an umbrella drink. In fact I think quite a few fluffy drinks were enjoyed over their four day visit. Monday we enjoyed an afternoon at the beach here in Paradise after a trip to La Cruz for breakfast at Ana Bananas. We were trying very hard to get an entire season of cruising fun into their short visit and I think we were quite successful. Of course No visit to PV is complete without a evening spent enjoying Rythems of the Night. It is a dance show held on the south shore of Banderas Bay in a jungle setting. You can only get there by boat so once again we were on the water. A lighting show and downpour came as an added benefit to the evening but luckily not until we were headed back on the boat. It was an evening we will all remember. Rythems of the Night is a modern dance with a Cerc de Soleil feel to it. A bit of gymnastics along with fire dancing and juggling in a Mayan motif. And the dancers, they had muscles on to of muscles! I have never seen anything quite like it. There was one more boat trip planned and it was a ponga trip into old town. Karen Brita wanted to do a bit more shopping so I thought the river area was the place to go so we headed off around 10am and shopped until we couldn't carry anymore. By 5pm we had returned by way of the city bus, our adventure over. Bob and his family left early on Wednesday and now the job of putting the boat away for the summer has started in earnest. Rog is cleaning the bilge, defrosting the refrig, varnishing all the wood and doing all sorts of other maintainence jobs. The boat is looking tip top.

Nearing the end of the season

 Rog and I decided to check out the beach on horseback in Mazatlan after some heavy duty bartering with vendors where we scored some great "Cowboy" trinkets.  The ride was really a lot of fun as our new friends John and Carol snapped a few pictures of us on Giddy up and Slowpoke.





Di's Dream in the travel lift ready to splash after
a new epoxy barrier coat and then three coats of
Comex three bottom paint which seems to hold up the best in these warmer waters.  The folks at the yard, Total Yacht Works did a beautiful job and we took the opportunity to have Rafa the Yanmar mechanic clean the fuel bowls and change all the
filters.  Now we are good to go for another when we return next year.

During the week out of the water we stayed in a suite at El Cid.  The grounds and colors were in full bloom.  Each day consisted of a dingy ride over to the yard to check on the progress as the boat was being prepped.  We did replace a thru hull fitting but everything else was deemed to be
ship shape.  After the morning check out we spent the day at the pool to take advantage of the four
o'clock happy hour that seemed to always call out to us.

Roger wanted to know when I had found time to open my own pharmacy!  I told him that I had always wanted to follow in his retail drug career.  But work is a four letter word and is really not that appealing to me.

                                                                                     

                                                                          We left Mazatlan Saturday for Puerto Vallarta and as always the rods are out ready to fish!                     Lots of action with at least six skipjack tuna and one little Dorado that had to quickly be return to fatten up a  bit for another time.

Fabulous 12 knot winds but then it all went calm.

After a very smooth evening and night the dolphins joined us by the dozens frolicking and showing us the way home to Paradise Village.

They are incredibly fast, nimble and a joy to watch. They must love the news bottom paint!

                                                                                                                                                                         Our last sunset of the season on the water!  The ocean is still and our voyage is a pleasure on our homeward bound leg.

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Morning comes early and the SSB net starts at 7:30 am so check in is always a priority. The
Sonrisa Net gets a fond farewell from Di's Dream.
This year has been again new friends and new
locations that we will long remember and treasure.

It is hard to describe adequately the beauty and
vast nature that we have been so blessed to be
a part of each and every day.

The admiral looking for wind and it is nowhere to be found. Now it is time to start squaring the boat away
so we are ready for our arrival in Banderas Bay.

The seas are still calm and the boat speed is exceptional in such flat waters. Only 26 hours from Mazatlan
to Puerto Vallarta.

We arrived back in the channel at 2pm, wrong, we changed time zones once again and lost another hour.  Now it is 3pm in Puerto Vallarta and the sun does not set until 8:45 in the evening. It has been a fabulous crossing with seven hours of enough breeze to sail that was followed by very flat seas and no wind.  The engine is running strong

Rog ties up the boat good and tight.  There is still a great deal of work to be done before we drive home but on this Sunday afternoon we decide it can wait until mañana.  

HIGH and Dry

We have spent this last week in Mazatlan getting the bottom paint done on Di's dream.  We did quite a bit of research to find the best yard in Mexico and the paint that would hold up best down here in the warmer water.  We had painted the bottom just two years ago with Micron 66 which did not hold up quite as well as we had hoped so it was onto something else.  The formulas down here are deemed to be more effective in the warm water so Comex it was for us.  We did not do a complete strip job on the bottom but did take off the majority of the old paint and put on an epoxy barrier coat and three coats of paint.  They promised it would  be ready by Saturday am so we will have to see.

I went to the yard to assist Rog, as if he really needed my help, as was surprised at the way the Mexicans worked.  I don't think they would have been out on a ledge back in the states!  I was just holding my breath while he had the line in his hand and the boat at his mercy.  Just don't let the wind blow.

It looks like we have a problem boys.  The guys had been handling the dock lines while a cute girl was at the helm of the travel lift.  Suddenly it would not do anything and we had shut down.  After several tries, and failures, they finally pushed the right button and we were under way once again.

There is a bit of concern on Roger's part, after all we were hauling the boat in Mexico.  I think he would be worried no matter where we pulled his little toy but there was a bit more concern than normal.













Rog has been cleaning the bottom since we left PV and I will have to admit he has done a very good job. There is not much growth on there, even the bottom of the wing looks clean.  There are a few bare spots along the waterline.

There is no gender bias here, the girls can go under the boat easier than the guys to tie those stands 

The boat has been painted and looking very good.  We got two full coats and a third around the waterline out of our five gallons of paint.  They used a roller which is different from our last two bottom jobs but it looks good.  Zincs were changed on both the strut and bow thruster, the boot stripe was buffed and she looks virtually new again.  She needed this tender loving care.

I forget how large the boat really is until I stand under her.  She is huge!  She will be splashed in the morning at 9am and we will head back to Puerto Vallarta as soon as we fuel up.

Underway again

We are two hours out of La Paz heading to Muertos where we will drop anchor for the night. Tomorrows crossing to Mazatlan looks picture perfect so you will have to stayed tuned in to find out how it actually turns out. We will be in Mazatlan for over a week so I will try to get all my pictures posted. More later

Oh, So Confused

As we left San Jauinco for Bonanza last Monday we had full intention to make the crossing to Mazatlan that evening around 2am.  It was a bit early in the morning for my liking but it would get us into Mazatlan late Wednesday just before dusk, a quick 40 hour crossing however a couple of things prompted us to change our mind.  First we did not have to be in Mazatlan until June 1st and it was only May 21st not May 28th.  We had another week before we had to make the crossing!  I am still not sure where we gained that week but we could be still at anchor in Aqua Verde if we had figured out the dates correctly but no, here we are in La Paz.  Secondly, there was a storm called Bud coming towards the coast that could potentially kick up the sea state just a bit.  However if we stayed in Bonanza for a could of days we could have internet and use up some of our excess provisions while we waited to see what was going to happen.




I decided it was a good time to clean out all the 10 pounds of sand that had collected in the bottom of the dingy.  There was no surf a Bonanza so I could just sit on the edge and clean to my hearts content.  Little did I know that by evening we would have 25 knots of wind out of the west and plenty on rock and roll on the boat.  Not a good condition for sleeping!

This bay is as large as it looks and the water was the most beautiful colors of blues that we had seen all season.  We arrived around 10 am and did not see another boat come into the anchorage till late afternoon.  We did get enjoy rays jumping out of the water and countless fish swimming by.  We also believe we saw three giant manta rays swim under the boat, that kept me out of the water for the rest of the day. There were bees but not so many that we couldn't enjoy the cockpit.  It was a wonderful way to end our season up the Sea if only the wind had not started blowing!

Rog took a hike to see if the little anchorage we had passed before entering Bonanza was large enough for the boat if the wind kicked but it didn't appear safe if we were to swing full circle overnight.  It was a good decision because by morning we had done a complete 360 degree swing.

The beach really did go on forever and consisted
 primarily of pebbles or shells, very little sand

Rog was fascinated by the one lone tree on the island.  You have to wonder where the bird picked up the seed that became this tree.  Why were the roots exposed?  Had the sand covering them blown away or been washed away by high tide?








After two very lovely days and one difficult night we woke up Wednesday morning to howling wind that just begged us to pull up anchor and head to La Paz.  A bit of time tied to a dock was sounding very good to both of us before making the passage to Mazatlan.  So we are now at Marina Palmera enjoying temperatures in the low 90s and very cool evenings.  There have been parties on the dock, large groups walking towards town for dinner and bicycle rides for provisions.  We are slowly getting back into civilization and it is feeling good.  Monday Sergio is working on our rod holders and I will do my last load of wash before we head south to Muertos Tuesday.  With any luck we will leave there on Wed and will be in Mazatlan in 32 hours where we haul the boat for bottom paint.  We will not be staying on the boat but rather at El Cid for a bit more R and R.

Isla Coronado

Most of the spots we are visiting this year are a repeat of last year and Isla Coronado was one of our favorites so here we are again.  We came south from San Juanico on Saturday with plans for provisioning in Loreto and maybe brunch at La Mision where we had eaten last year with John and Gilly on Destiny. The eggs Benedict did not disappoint however the vegetables at the local market left a great deal to be desired.  I will just have to adjust to cabbage and carrots instead of romaine lettuce and tomatoes for our salad until we get back to Mazatlan.





The water is so clear here that you can really enjoy walking along the waters edge.  We are only seven miles from Loreto but it feels like you are miles from any civilization.  Sea Gulls pierced the silence if we got anywhere near a nest and even began dive bombing us the further we went ashore.

The boats look very small on the horizon but they really aren't that far off.  There are eight boats here today but tomorrow could see an entire new group arrive.  This is a very favorite anchorage as there is internet and cell phone reception!

If you look closely you will see two baby sea gull chicks.  Mother had them well hidden under driftwood and behind the carcas of a dried out puffer fish.  We only spotted them after the gulls started dive bombing us so we knew something was close that we should not see.

We haven't seen a lot of crabs until our walk this morning and this one was so colorful that he just begged to have his picture taken.  He was actually fairly large too, his body was about 4 inches across.

Rog had to take precautions to make sure that the gulls did not make off with his hat.  

When all else failed they straiffed him!