BACK TO PUGET SOUND

It is Thursday evening, May 15 and I am in an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 flying over the central valley of California, headed to a 10:08 PM landing at rainy and cold Seattle.   I found a  roundtrip $233 ticket from Mazatlan to Seattle so decided to fly back to Tacoma for a couple of weeks.  The taxes and Mexican departure fees added $78 to the price of the ticket but that is still cheap.  I can see why the airlines are going bankrupt if they sell many tickets at that price. 

Mirador is securely tied up at Marina Mazatlan where other cruisers will keep an eye on her.  Actually, I bribed two different boats into visiting Mirador every couple of days by offering them use of any of our hundreds of VHS tapes or DVDs.  They check the batteries and bilge and pickup a new movie.  What a deal! for both of us.

Mirador is at a dock with water but no power.  The slip rental is 25¢ a foot a day or $300 a month until June 1 when the fee drops to 15¢ a foot or $180 per month.  Hurricanes seldom, if ever, threaten Mazatlan until late August and the marina is 1/2 mile inland thru a channel with two right angle turns so no waves can get in.  The only real threat is the storm surge so I think Mirador will be safe and sound until I return in early June.

Mazatlan has turned out to be a wonderful city to visit.  The older downtown area is about 8 miles by bicycle and Parque Bonfild, which is the area containing all the marine stores and trades, is about 9 miles.  Downtown has a great mercado (centralized market) which contains hundreds of small stalls, each selling a specialty item such as tee shirts, smoked marlin, or fruit.  The old city square area has several open air restaurants and  bars with live music all evening.  The new, air conditioned bus stops in front of the marina and takes us directly to either the Mercado or square for just 75¢ and 15 minutes.

An interesting aspect of shopping in Mexico is the abundance of specialized shops that group themselves together.  For example, Avenida de Rafel Beluena, about 2 miles from the marina, is one of the auto care and construction material areas.  In several places along the avenue there will be four autoparts stores, one after another, each selling the same thing.  Or there will be three paint stores, each adjacent to the next. 

Every other street in a residential area has a Ferreteria (hardware store), Plometeria (plumbing store), Fruiteria (you can figure this one out), and Abbarotes (grocery store).  Each store is about 30 feet wide and opens directly onto the street. The Ferretria and Plometeria have counters just inside the store with a wall covered by pegboards hanging behind them.  Every item sold by the store is hanging on the peg board and you just point to what you want.  The clerk then disappears behind the peg board wall to find the requested item.  Anything you might need is available at some special store in Mexico but it may take a visit to several types of stores to find what you need.

The Portabote rebuild was completed and has made a huge difference in the performance of the dinghy.  The very stiff and stout transom, along with much stiffer seats that hold the boat open, has made the dinghy scary and fun to drive.  The boat jumps on to a plane with the 9.8 HP Nissan and stays on a plane with about ¼ throttle.  The dinghy steers very quickly now, I guess the old weak seats and transom allowed the sides of the boat to flex too much so that the boat couldn't track properly.

I will be in Tacoma until May 31st when I am scheduled to fly back to Mazatlan. 

Here are some pictures of SV Windjester, a Morgan 41, entering the El Cid breakwater about a ½ mile from Marian Mazatlan:

This is looking SW from the north side of the breakwater.  This is on a "small swell" day.

The key to a comfortable entrance is to come over the bar in between swells and then arrive at the turning point, about 50 yards ahead of Windjester, at such a time that you can bring the boat to port without getting abeam of the breaking swell.

Windjester chose to come in VERY close to the breakwater so that they would not have to make such a sharp turn to port. 

I did not think there was 6' of water that close to the rocks.

Here is Windjester after they cleared the breakwater.  You can see the shallow water off their port bow.  When we came in I found 9' of water about 5 yards to starboard of Windjester's position.

Normally there is a dredge working in the channel about four days a week, trying to keep a 10' depth.  For some reason that no one can determine, the dredge has disappeared.

Often the dredge is hidden behind the rocks you can see on the left side of the picture.  The problem is that the dredge pipes extend out into the channel we have to use and you can't see those pipes until you are clear of the point. 

That means you either have to turn around and go back out thru the surf or try to squeeze between the dredge pipes and the rocks at the bottom of this picture.

Lisa and I took a 15 mile off road ride on our mountain bikes.  This is a picture of Nuevo Vallarta, a resort about 8 miles north of Marina Mazatlan. 

We rode our bikes down the beautiful boulevard that leads to the resort complex entrance. The guards wouldn't let us past the gates so we couldn't see much of the grounds.

During the half-hour we rode around the area we saw no vehicle enter or leave the grounds nor did we see any sign of a guest. 

The head high very dry brush and vines are the predominant vegetation in the entire coastal area that gets no rain between December and June.

And finally, here is picture of "Girlie Mon" tossing a shoe.

This is Dick from Corazon de Acero throwing his horseshoe with his unique backhanded style that has earned him the "Girlie Mon" name.