Right now the sun has just set after casting the western horizon in shades of pink and yellow before slipping below the tree line. Now the anchorage is dark but the distant crash of waves is audible from all areas of the boat... the surf is the biggest it's been in a long time, and the air, full of the noise of moving water and sticky salt air is getting us excited for our surf session tomorrow morning...
But much more has happened other than surfing these days. It's been a wonderful blur of dinners with friends, sailing adventures and cultural celebrations that take place nowhere else, except wonderful Mexico.
We've been having some wonderful times with people that are our age- S/V Pisces made an unexpected stop in Punta Mita after doing the LONGEST trip between La Cruz and Punta Mita (it took them threes days and something like 750 miles) and we had a wonderful potluck dinner on their boat with S/V Tao, S/V Estrella and S/V Carmella.
Another night, Chris (Tao) got a year older and we all grouped up on Estrella's boat and had a wonderful evening of pineapple upsidedown cake (without the maraschino cherries) and drinks.
Adam (Estrella), Chris, Eric and I are the surf bums and spend alot of time out at the "Bahia"...
Punta Mita is quickly becoming our favorite anchorage in Banderas Bay. Put the awesome surfing aside, it's a beautiful, calm anchorage set beside a bustling but still largely traditional Mexican town- but surfing is certainly its big draw.
Eric and I have spent very few days in town considering how long we've been here, but it's been fun notheless.
After I ran out of my last pair of underwear we were forced into town to do a load of laundry which was an accumulation of at least a month and a half of our dirty clothes and linens. 45 lbs of laundry was handed back to us, clean, folded and smelling squeaky clean from the local lavanderia for 273 pesos...
Our favorite few tiendas are well-stocked and we occassionally make a trip into town to stock up on veggies and meat...
It was only a few days ago however when we looked at our empty fruit hammock and our empty fridge and our empty water tanks that we decided that we had to pull anchor in Punta Mita and head to La Cruz t re-stock at WaMart and fill up our fuel and water tanks at the marina.
Tao and Estrella and Nanu all pulled anchor together and we had a great time playing Pirates of the Caribean with each other as we tested the downwind capabilities of our boats. The wind was blowing a steady 14 knots off of our stern and we sailed wing-on-wing until we had to round the point. Taking a less direct route to get to La Cruz, we left Estrella and Tao and ended up in the middle of Banderas Bay when the wind suddenly picked up to 20 knots...
We haven't been doing much sailing in the past while, so it seemed like EVERYTHING became mobile and while Eric reefed our sails, I ran around frantically below deck securing fans, water jugs and other things that had found a new home on the floor.
La Cruz was fun...
We went to WalMart the day after we arrived and stocked up on all of the things that we haven't been able to find at the local tiendas, and found things at the store that we haven't seen since leaving California... like Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate! We also found our much sought after "California" red box wine... 1L for 36 pesos. Yup, we're high rolling around here! But we did not find things like yeast, basil, crisco, kidney beans... and the list goes on and on...
Following the advice of several cruisers, we found ourseleves at the Puerto Vallarta airport renewing our visas for another 180 days. It was a very, very verrrrry simple process. Very Mexican. Probably very under-the-table. But we have papers. And it only cost us 265 pesos per person. I think that immigration officer is going to be eating really well for awhile...!
The La Cruz festivals were going on while we were anchored in town, and Eric and I enjoyed a fun evening in the zacala watching an often jaw-dropping display of haphazard fireworks that seemed to go everywhere... except the sky.
A man with a papier-mache donkey strapped to his back ran through the crowd while fireworks errupted every which-way into the crowds as people struggled to get out of the way of the crazy donkey-man...
At midnight, a 150ft tall "Tower of Doom" (the most suitable name I could think of...) was lit, and fireworks lit up the ground and sky as wheels turned and fires burned and... whoa... it went really well with a tequila.
This morning we packed up and pulled anchor just in time for the regular 25-knot wind from the west to start up. We followed Tao into the Marina and docked at the fuel dock, filled up on gasolina and water before shoving off (it was difficult in the wind!) and heading back north towards Punta Mita.
It was a lovely sail! We tacked up the coast with at first only a reefed jib (the wind was shrieking around us at 23 knots). WIthin the hour, the wind died down and we were under a full main and a 120 jib heading north...
Now we're here (again) in Punta Mita, waiting for the sun to rise so we can hop in the water and catch some waves.
We have two mouldy bananas that I have to make into bread for tomorrow's snack...
Our thoughts are that we may head up to Chacalla in a little bit so we can get a change of scenery before making more plans on where we'll be going from here...
Until then, take care...!
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