January 14, 2015
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| Boca de Tomatlan |
Wednesday morning, our tour guide, April, picked our group
of seven sailors up at 8:30 for a hike from Boca de Tomatlan to the Quimixto
waterfall along the southern shore of Banderas Bay. It took us a little bit over an hour to drive
through Puerto Vallarta during rush hour and then make our way through the
fancy houses and hotels in Conchas Chinas and Los Arcos to the tiny town of
Boca de Tomatlan where the main highway turns inland. Boca de Tomatlan is the jumping off place for
pangas to Yelapa and other spots along the southern shore that are not
accessible (or at least not easily accessible) by road.
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| Anchorage in Boca de Tomatlan |
April parked the van in the shade in Boca de Tomatlan and we
crossed the river and followed a trail that wound between the jungle on one
side and the beach on the other to the pretty Playa Colomitos, so named for a sort of philodenron that grows there.
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| Playa Colomitos |
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| Las Animas |
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| La Troza |
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| Our Guide, April from Wave House |
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| Quimixto |
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| Quimixto Waterfall |
From Las Animas, we continued another three miles or so to Quimixto where we paid a short visit to a friend of April’s who was renting a beach house that April and her husband had formerly occupied for five years. April’s friend was caring for a neighbor’s dog and her one week old puppies. We played with the babies for a few minutes and then continued up the beach into the very small town of Quimixto before turning inland and following the river uphill to a pretty waterfall. There was a restaurant and swimming hole at the base of the restaurant. We stopped there for a cold drink while some of our number tested the chilly water. By the time we cooled off, it was time to wander back down to Quimixto and catch a panga back to Boca de Tomatlan. By the time we made it back to La Cruz it was almost dark. April dropped off the rest of the group at the marina and then she and I shared a couple of glasses of wine and some leftover Chinese food. It was nice to hang out for a bit.
January 15, 2015
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| El Rey Bombon |
Running seemed inadvisable after my long walk the day
before. I opted for doing 90 sit-ups and
90 squats instead. I received a Facebook
message from one of the other members of our hiking group from the day before,
inquiring whether I might be available to take his place helping his friend,
Brad, move his boat White Wind to
Barra de Navidad. The three of us got
together for lunch to discuss the possibility.
Brad had a taste for ceviche, so we ate at El Rey Bombon, a seafood
restaurant next door to Sonja’s laundry that I had been wanting to try. I had a ceviche tostada. I had also ordered a couple of shrimp tacos,
but it was a good thing they forgot my order because the tacos were so huge
that Brad couldn’t eat two of them, so shared one with me. The tacos were
excellent, as was the ceviche, and very reasonable.
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| White Wind at the Fuel Dock |
I decided that I would make the trip with Brad, so ran up
the hill to get my passport so that we could check out with the port
captain. I went with them to the boat to
check it out before committing to sailing anywhere. Unfortunately, by the time I got the boat tour
and we returned to the fuel dock, it was past 14:30 and the port captain’s
office had closed. We wanted to leave
about midnight Friday night so as to get around Cabo Corrientes just before
dawn when the winds were light. Brad was
planning to go on Aprl’s excursion to the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens on
Friday morning, which would have made it impossible for him to check out Friday
morning before leaving unless he could work out some kind of arrangement with
April. The port captain was not open
over the weekend. I left my passport
with him and he promised to figure out some way to get us checked out, even if
he had to bail on the trip.
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| The Gecko Rojo |
I stopped at the Gecko Rojo for one beer on my way back up
to my apartment, just to say hello to the denizens of the bar. Then I went home to relax and eat dinner
before heading back down to the marina amphitheater for movie night. It was a lovely evening and just cool enough
to need a light sweater. After the
movie, I dashed over to the Marisol Market for their Thursday night produce
sale. From 17:00 to 22:00 on Thursday
evenings, they bring in a truckload of fresh produce and sell it off their
loading dock. Much of it goes to local
restaurants, but they sell to individuals, too.
I was there to buy provisions for White
Wind. Their prices were quite
reasonable. For 55 pesos (under $4), I
got a head of lettuce, two big avocados, a bunch of bananas, a couple of
onions, and two yellow peppers.
January 16, 2015
I couldn’t tell if it was second day soreness from the hike
or maybe just the result of all the squats I had done, but I wasn’t up to
running. Blair, Brad’s friend, hailed me
on the radio right after the net. He
wanted to tell me that Brad had decided that the 20 knots of wind predicted for
the next day would be too much for his light boat. I didn’t disagree. Hunters can get pretty uncomfortable in big
wind and seas. Brad had gone to the
botanical garden, so I met Blair at Enrique’s restaurant to collect my
passport. We still hoped I would be able
to help Brad deliver the boat, but we would have to work around the weather and
my friend Cara’s visit.
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| Three Foot Brown Iguana |
Blair was flying out that afternoon, but we made a trip back
to the boat to drop off the provisions I had purchased for Brad. On the way, we stopped at the plaza where
Blair showed me a colony of huge brown (orange striped, actually) iguanas
living in the trees there. They seemed
to prefer the leafless trees where they could sun themselves. I had never noticed the lizards before, but
they were everywhere once you started looking for them.
We took the dinghy back out to the boat and hung out there
for a couple of hours while Blair packed his bags and cleaned up the boat. Blair was killing time until his flight
left. We brought the dinghy back to the
marina and cruised up and down the docks, looking at the boats in the
harbor. Finally, we walked back up the
hill and I left Blair at the bus stop. I
went home to grab some lunch and study languages and guitar for the rest of the
afternoon until it was time to return to the marina for Mexican Train happy hour.
We had a large turnout for dominos. Fortunately, I had brought my set of double
15 dominos, so we were able to set up two tables in the courtyard behind the
deli. I knew everyone at our table and
we had a great time. One of the marina
security guards was a former bartender and he whipped up pretty decent
margaritas. We played until it got too
dark outside to see and the mosquitos started to feast.
I went home and made myself dinner. I spent a pleasant evening and was just about
to go to bed at midnight when I remembered that Katrina had told me I could
play Mexican Train online. I checked it
out and, before I knew it, it was two o’clock in the morning.
January 17, 2015
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| Wings |
Having gone to bed much too late, I slept until the radio
net awakened me at 8:30. By then, it was
too late to run. I drank coffee and
listened to the net. I was moving slow
and barely had time to get my act together by 11:00 when I needed to report to Wings for the third installment of the
Vallarta Cup races. It was a beautiful
sunny day and we all enjoyed the hour’s trip to the starting line in Nuevo
Vallarta. The wind was light in the
morning and the start was delayed for 15 minutes. No sooner had the committee boat raised the
postponement flag than the wind came up.
It was quite windy for the race.
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| Sky and Ray After the Race |
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| Our Skipper, Fred |
Having thought the wind would be light, the race committee
had chosen a relatively short, but complicated, course involving three
spinnaker sets. After an excellent
start, we sailed up to a windward mark, popped the kite and sailed down to the
sea buoy off Puerto Vallarta. We did
much better than the previous week. We
left Gypsy, the winner of the
previous week’s race, in the dust (although they beat us on corrected time) and
even managed to keep up with Olas Lindas,
the fancy German raceboat that owed us time.
Unfortunately, we followed Olas
Lindas and both of us sailed right past the PV sea buoy, although we
realized it before they did. We probably
would have beaten Gypsy if not for
that error.
From PV, we sailed back up to the windward mark, raised a
second kite, and sailed down to a leeward mark near the starting line. Rounding that, our performance class then
took another lap around the windward mark before charging back down to the
finish under spinnaker. It got fairly
exciting at the end as the wind gusted to 20 knots and the block holding the
spinnaker guy broke and went flying just before we crossed the finish
line. I had been very actively grinding
the spinnaker sheet on the last leg.
When we did an emergency spinnaker douse, no one on the foredeck was
expecting it and the kite came in at the cockpit where I had my hands full
hauling it out of the water. I don’t
think I had ever before worked up that much of a sweat during a sailboat
race.
The J 80, Sheva, was
the clear winner, since they almost managed to keep up with the bigger boats.
Bright Star, which had trailed us the whole race the week before,
had stayed in front of us the whole way.
We came in 4th, but were pleased that we had managed to beat Olas Lindas and stay with the pack. The additional wind clearly favored Wings.
It was a quick race, but we had all worked hard in the hot sun. We enjoyed cold beers on the commute back to
La Cruz. Getting home early, Rod, Carol
and I had time to pay a visit to our crewmate Nick’s boat before they gave me a
ride back up to the highway on their way back to Bucerias. Usually, I am glad for the walk, but I was
ready for a shower and a rest after that workout.
After my shower, I munched leftover pork chops and guacamole
for dinner. High season had clearly
arrived. Loud music was blaring from all
over town. At midnight, the gringo bands
shut down, but then the Mexican ones cranked up. I could hear two or three going, including
one with very loud trumpets. They were
still at it when I finally fell asleep about 2:30.
January 18, 2015
Even the cannons firing in Bucerias couldn’t get me out of
bed early enough to run after the music had kept me up half the night
before. I finally got up about
8:00. I did 21 push-ups, 95 sit-ups and
95 squats and promised myself I would do better the next day. I made a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs and
enjoyed my coffee while working on my jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle was one of the sorts where all the
pieces are the same shape and fit in the wrong places just as well as the right
ones. It had been slow going, but I finally
managed to finish the sky. I studied
languages and played the guitar for an hour.
After lunch, I had intended to go to the store, but ended up taking a
nap instead. The music had continued
unabated until about 14:00, but finally quieted down and was silent all
afternoon and evening. I never left the
house. Instead, I made grilled chicken
with a mango jicama salad for dinner and spent the rest of the evening catching
up on my writing, which I had neglected all week.
January 19, 2015
Monday, there was a beautiful dawn, but I was still too sore
to run. I didn’t think it was the
hiking, so must have been all the squats.
I spent a pleasant day, following my usual pursuits and made a trip to
the Mega for a few groceries in the afternoon.
January 20, 2014
My friend, Cara, was due to arrive the next day, so I spent
the entire morning washing the floor so that we could walk around without our
feet turning black from the soot that drifted in through the open windows. I doubt anyone had scrubbed that floor on
hands and knees in years and there was all kinds of dirt that had collected
where the walls met the floor. I still had
not finished when it was time to walk down to the Octopus’ Garden to meet Brad
for lunch. Brad had brought White Wind
into the marina for a few days to wash the boat and take advantage of La Cruz’s
social and culinary opportunities. The
Octopus’ Garden really only served breakfast, so we had chilaquiles for lunch,
which suited me fine.
After lunch, I picked up my laundry and headed back up the
hill to finish washing the floor. By the
time that task was done, I barely had time to study languages and practice the
guitar before the day was over.
Still having a lot of fun adventures, keep going girl, keep going. Jan
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