We never did anymore work on the table in Topo because the winds never really died until the day we left. We actually delayed our departure by one day due to the winds. We are now following the weather on Buoyweather.com which seems to have pretty comprehensive, on-demand info looking out 7 days. Seems to be pretty accurate, too. Thanks, Robert on Blue Dolphin, for this tip!
Pancho helped us take the boat to Mazatlan, and we had a great time.
As you can see, the weather was fine. Seas are pretty flat here. This is on our first day. In fact, it was so calm that it was Pancho’s idea to get out a deck chair! It stayed up on deck for a couple of hours before we started to roll a little from swells. The one thing we didn’t see much of on this trip was wildlife. Unless you call this guy wild!
Along the way, we did pass through a real fishing fleet. We counted over twenty boats before they were all passed. They were dragging lines behind them but not beside them. We were sailing at this point. We turned on the engine for a very short period while we passed a little close to one of the boats. We didn’t want to be caught without ability to maneuver if necessary!
This was our second day. These boats could have been from Mazatlan or Topo – hard to say.
All through the trip, we were focussed on timing our arrival for daylight. As we started, our estimated ETA varied from one to four am, so on the second day we started zigging and zagging a little. We arrived just outside the harbor entrance about a half hour before sunrise. Perfect!
Pancho called the Capitania for us, and we went in behind the ferry with about four other boats that were waiting:
We anchored in the Old Harbor, and Pancho left pretty quickly after that. He needed to get to the bus station and home without any snafus. Meanwhile, Gary from Sunshine Lady came over and ended up showing Pancho where the busstop was that he needed to get to the main bus station. Here he is in the dinghy with Larry ready to leave:
And with me at the dinghy dock. Larry and I returned to the boat where we slept most of the rest of the day. They say that two day passages are the hardest – not enough time to get a rhythm for sleeping and resting. I was sure tired! Larry had slept a lot more than I had, and he was tired, too. So, we rested! No problemo – we’re retired!
Next day we went for a walk around the nearby portion of the malecon and saw the beautiful scenery off of Mazatlan’s waterfront – several islands and the lighthouse are nearby, plus a fisherman caught a ray that he had problems getting off the hook so he could throw it back:
And, of course, every day there is a gorgeous sunset:
The next day, we took the bus to the north end of town to check our the marinas and the marine shops in the area. We have decided to deal with some problems that we have been putting off because Mazatlan is the best place on this side of the Sea of Cortez to try to get parts and skilled repairmen. As we were walking along in Marina Mazatlan, we saw Tigger, a catamaran owned by Rick and Sheri (there are no last names in our world – only boat names). I yelled, “Look, Honey, it’s Tigger!”, and out popped Sheri. So we went down to their boat and chatted for a while. It turned out they would be returning to our anchorage in a couple of days, so we agreed to meet up later.
Meanwhile, we had contacted our friend (through Doug and Linda of Aquadesiac) Ernesto who lives here in Mazatlan with his beautiful wife, Linda. Ernesto and Linda took us out to dinner on Wednesday night, and somehow we got Larry very, very borracho!! (That’s Spanish for drunk!) But we had a great dinner:
Amazing food! Larry had his first lobster, and declared immediately that he loved it! We are making a fish-eater out of him!
Linda is an air traffic controller in Mazatlan. She actually works in one of the four area control rooms in Mexico. No windows! Just radar blips. Her English is very, very good, and we all had a great time. Larry is about halfway there here, and finishing the job here:
The tequila shots were the coup de’grace! Tigger had arrived in our harbor and anchored nearby. They heard us arrive back home that night, and they wondered what all the yelling was about! It took a concerted effort to get Captain Morgan (that’s what Ernesto calls Larry) back in the boat safely! It was only the stern coaching from the Admiral, I’m sure, that prevented him from slipping into the bay.
The next day with Tigger, we walked north together toward Old Town and they introduced us to Manuel who owns a small restaurant next to the laundromat. Since then we have eaten there three times – great food, great price. Here we all are yesterday when we went for the weekend special – paella:
Manuel is a sweetie who speaks almost no English – no matter. Food makes its own communication!
We have had fog for the last two mornings. This is the first we have experienced it in Mexico. It stayed in until the afternoon yesterday, but it lifted by 9 or 10 today. Made a pretty interesting picture late yesterday (around 2:00 pm):
This is the lighthouse hill which is directly next to our anchorage with a lot of transportation hubs nearby. This morning (Sunday) I took this picture of Tigger before they pulled out:
That seawall which shows dimly in the background is only about 100 yards away. Pretty thick fog! Shades of Modesto….
When we returned to the boat after a short walk yesterday, Muggs had a spasm in her back. Muggs is a wuss who is not used to these things, so today she is taking it easy and catching up on stuff like the blog! I am feeling better already, though, so you may not hear from us again for a while. Tomorrow we plan to visit Marina Mazatlan and arrange to stay there for about a week while we attend to the repairs (on the outboard, the holding tank plumbing, and the heat exchanger on the diesel). It will be a lot easier to top off gas, water, and diesel, plus they have an actual pump-out service!! So until next time, this is your intrepid reporter from Mexico, signing off!