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Life is good.

Having landed safely in Mazatlan, we headed to Marina El Cid to meet Patrick’s parents for the holidays.  We had arranged to have his parents stay in Marina El Cid Hotel while we acquired a slip in the marina, which worked out very well indeed.  El Cid Resorts are sprinkled across Mazatlan and each has a different set of offerings to its patrons.  The Marina El Cid Hotel and Marina had two nice pools, a Jacuzzi, a couple restaurants and bars to choose from.  This was a little high-end for us but we splurged since his parents were visiting and it was Christmas, after all.  We had decided to partake of a few tours during their visit.  The first tour we went on was the Old Mazatlan city tour.  It took us through the historical sections of Mazatlan and allowed us to explore the Mercado (open public market), Cathedral and town square.

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception

The Mercado Central in Mazatlan

Here we go! Trolley tour of Old Mazatlan

Our favorite tour was the Puerta de Canoas Tour  and the Los Osuna tequila factory.

Los Osuna Tequila Tour

The tequila tour was very interesting and the farm in which the agave was growing was incredibly beautiful.   The tour guide explained to us the process in which the agave is farmed, roasted, and then fermented.

Blue Agave

The Still

Tequila bottling and aging facility

My most favorite part of the tour was the lush green and vibrant flora and fauna on the farm.  The small buildings that dotted the farm were painted in bright colors that contrasted nicely against the deep greens of the palms and bright pinks and oranges of the Bougainvillea bushes. They were attracting a ton of beautiful and graceful migrating butterflies that fluttered amongst the brilliant back drop of the Bougainvillea flowers.

Bougainvillea and White Butterfly

Purple Bougainvillea and a blue butterfly

The old fashioned method for extracting nectar from the agave plants

The latest technology for chopping up the agave plants.

Pure tequila dripping from the still.  100% alcohol waiting for aging.

Our next stop on the tour was the small village of Puerta de Canoas.  We visited a horse farm where they trained dancing horses, yes, dancing horses.  These horses are hired for municipal and state events and parades such as Carnival and Revolucion Day.  I worked on a horse farm in high school and have rode my share of horses, so I appreciated the hard work that went into training these very large animals.  A couple of these horses were easily 19-20 hands tall while the trainer pushed 5’3” (including his heeled cowboy boots)!

Dancing horses

After the horses danced, it was time for almuerzo (lunch).  We went to a small family-owned open air restaurant where the lovely senoras provided us with a mortar and pestle, roasted chilis, garlic and tomatoes so we could make our own salsa.  After we made our own salsa, they showed us how to roll and bake our own homemade corn tortillas.  There is nothing better than fresh warm homemade tortillas, salsa, and guacamole.  I think that was one of the best meals that I have had in Mexico!

Yum!!!!

Homemade tortilla lesson

Throughout Bill and Becky’s visit, we were able to enjoy several local restaurants in Mazatlan, including Te Lucy, which had excellent food and some of the best mole Patrick has ever had!  We appreciated the personal service and the local knowledge imparted by the maître d’.

Te Lucy Restaurant in Old Mazatlan with Bill and Becky

Thanks to Bill and Becky for coming to visit us during the holidays.  It made it feel a little more like Christmas having some family near to help us celebrate!

El Cid Morro Christmas Tree!

This is for all you Maritime Mobiles who are probably not really active in HAM Radio, but are using Winlink for email and position reports. Here are few operating suggestions:

Sending Position Reports

• When you send a position report, ALWAYS but your vessel name in beginning of the comment fields. No one probably knows what your callsign is, but we can look around and see your boat name.
• While underway, send at least one position report. I usually do this once a day on long passages or at roughly the midway on shorter passages. Its fun to later connect all the dots!
• Always send a position report when you reach your destination indicating you are anchored or moored safely

Check Who’s around you

Did you know you can ask Winlink for a list of other people who are nearby? It goes without saying that you need to have updated your position recently for this to work. But assuming you have done that send a mail to INQURY with the subject REQUEST and the message body WL2K_NEARBY. Send that off and next time you check your mail you will have a list of nearby folks. Notice I didn’t say vessels. Winlink is for any HAM to use, so you will see RVers, Backpackers as well. Here’s a sample. If you always put your vessel name in your position report comments this is lot nicer to read!

List of users nearby W7PEA
Postion: 21-09.69N  105-13.60W  posted at: 1/11/2012 6:16:00 AM
(NOTE: All dates in UTC, distance in nautical miles and bearings true
great circle.)
Winlink 2000 Nearby Mobile Users
(Only the latest report for each call within the past 10 days is listed.
CALL     Dist(nm @ DegT)        POSITION             REPORTED           COMMENT
W7PEA          0.0 @ 000   21-09.69N 105-13.60W  2012/01/11 06:16  Deep
Playa - Anchored at Chacala
KJ6LNI        26.1 @ 198   20-44.83N 105-22.13W  2012/01/08 15:15  Anchored
in La Cruz
KJ6NYJ        26.5 @ 197   20-44.40N 105-22.00W  2012/01/10 23:08
VE0NAV        55.0 @ 319   21-50.88N 105-52.72W  2012/01/13 00:59
Arrived Isla Isabella much warmer here than Mazatlan All Good
KQ6MY         55.0 @ 319   21-50.88N 105-52.76W  2012/01/13 22:36
Isla Isabella
KJ6NKS       113.8 @ 169   19-18.03N 104-50.19W  2012/01/09 01:04  Here in
Tenacatita with all of our local friends
KD7NPI       113.8 @ 169   19-18.02N 104-50.15W  2012/01/09 00:39

Let People Know Who you Are

One of the best things you can do is to put your vessel name in your position reports. The next thing you can do is update your entry on the HAM Lookup servers, login to www.QRZ.com and www.HAMQTH.com and at least update your description with your vessel name and a link to your web page. This way if someone looks up your callsign because they saw it on Winlink they can know your vessel name and send you an email via Winlink or contact you on VHF. Pretty handy!

If you need an SSCA Burgee I have one available for free. Just need to swing by the boat and pick it up. Current Location is Chacala, Nayarit, Mexico. We will be in Puerto Vallarta eventually. Contact me via the blog or on Winlink, my callsign is W7PEA.

OK, not really, but a rock tried to.

We tidied Deep Playa last night and went to bed early with the idea that we would pull up anchor around 0400 to depart beautiful Isla Isabel and head to Chacala. Well, our anchor was hung up on a rock so we let the scope back out and went back to bed to wait for daylight to deal with it.

At daylight, I first tried to snorkel down and put a trip line on the anchor. A trip line is attached to the anchor opposite the boat and let you pull the anchor backwards, (i.e., away from the way it is set) to hopefully unstick what is stuck. The anchor was in about 3.5 - 4 fathoms of water (21-24 feet) and I just couldn't get down that far. The pressure in my head was too much.

I got out and we consulted Nigel Calder's Cruising Companion for ideas. The book suggests running a line down to the anchor by shortening the rode and using a length of chain around the rode which will weight it down and let it slide to the anchor and hopefully around the shaft. From the dinghy you can can then pull the anchor out backwards and clear it.

Well, it worked like a charm! We cut 2' off our stern rode and the old furling line, I ran it down the main rode from the dinghy. With the dinghy going slowly in reverse I let out about 60 feet of line so I could get a good angle. I basically had the dinghy holding steady as it coudl in the considerable swell and I yanked and pulled on the anchor for about 5 minutes until it seemed like the main rode was moving every time I pulled. I then held my line tight as Dawn pulled up the remaining 30 feet of rode with the windlass.

We were now off the hook, with me in the dinghy, with the outboard and the main engine running. Dawn put the engine in gear so we would not was up on the beach or into our friends anchored 30 feet away on sv Camanoe. We managed to get the outboard and dinghy back aboard which was difficult but without incident.

I highly suggest if you don't already have it, go cut 2 feet off your stern rode or pick up and extra 2 feet of chain so you can do this yourself!

We are now underway to Chacala about 4 or 5 hours out. We owe lots of posts on Mazatlan and Isla Isabel (amazing!) and a ton of pics and videos need to be uploaded. We'll do that when we have unlimited data uploads so we don't use up the data plan on the card.

While we understood why many cruisers claim that La Paz is where cruisers come and they never leave.  We had plans to meet up with Patrick’s parents in Mazatlan for Christmas holiday week so we weighed anchor and headed back down the coast to return to Ensenada de los Muertos, which is approximately a two-day sail to Mazatlan. Mazatlan is located in the state of Sinaloa on mainland Mexico.  It is approximately located just north across the Sea of Cortez from Cabo San Lucas on the border of the Tropic of Cancer.  It borders the southern end of the Sea of Cortez and has a more lush and tropical climate compared to the desert-like climate of the Baja Peninsula.  After having our share of Northers and cooler temperatures they brought to La Paz we were ready for warmer temps and tropical waters of the mainland.  After staying overnight at La Bonanaza anchorage on Isla Espiritu Santo with s/v Bella Star we headed out early to make Los Muertos before night fall.  The water was like glass leaving the anchorage with absolutely no wind so we needed to motor to make it through the Lorenzo Channel.  As we were motoring along, I noticed a ton of fish jumping out of the calm waters so I took that as a hint and dropped the hook.  I had a feeling we were going to land something good!  A few hours later just before heading into the anchorage we heard the wonderful sound of the line whizzing out of the reel.  Patrick grabbed the rod and I got my gaff and the “fish booze” ready, which is cheap vodka in a spray bottle used to knock out the fish after it lands on board.  This time we caught a Skipjack tuna! This fish was soooo beautiful and strong!

Just as we were bleeding the tuna on deck a pod of dolphins showed up to greet us and check out our catch.  I threw the head overboard for them but they didn’t seem too interested in my measly scraps.

We quickly got on the radio to let Bella Star know that we would be hosting a tuna dinner onboard Deep Playa that night.  After quickly bleeding and fileting the fish I threw it into a marinade of soy sauce, fresh ginger, mustard and lemon juice for a couple hours.  It was a good fish but, like many say, Skipjack Tuna are the ones you throw back, and now Patrick and I agree.  It was a little too fishy for our tastes, so next time we will throw it back.

After spending some quality time hiking and enjoying nachos with Bella Star, they took off the next day for Mazatlan.  We decided to wait till the next day for the seas to settle a bit more.  The following evening we weighed anchor for Mazatlan about 7:30 in the evening.  After leaving the anchorage in a completely moon-less night we experienced rough swell (not forecasted of course) and after 45 minutes we decided to turn around and head back.

The next day we decided to leave about 4:30PM to avoid departing in the dark.  S/v Journey, who we met in La Paz and were fellow participants in the Baja Ha-Ha, buddy boated over to Isla La Piedra anchorage with us. Everything was going great, we were even able to put up all the sails, including the mizzen, and sail along at 5 knots for about 6 hours!  Just as the sun was setting and Patrick decided to go below to take a nap the winds increased and the swells built to 6-7 feet on the beam.  Patrick came up to see what was going on and decided that perhaps this was not going to be a nice calm night of sailing.  We reduced sail to a double-reefed main.  Throughout the night the winds built up to 30 knot gusts with 8-9 foot swells with a very short period.  Due to the conditions, we decided to take short naps in the cockpit while the other was on watch.  The spray was coming over the dodger and combing making for a long, cold and damp sleepless night.  At one point, I opened my eyes to see the port side solar panel flap in the wind so we had to tie it down to ensure it didn’t flap off the boat.  Around 2:00 in the morning we chatted with Journey about our decision to turn up into the wind and the swell for a few hours to make for a more comfortable ride and they agreed and followed our lead.  Finally about 4:00AM we were able to turn down wind, which put the swell and wind on our stern and made for a MUCH more comfortable ride.  We were able to watch the sun rise just as Mazatlan came in to view.  Oh what a beautiful sunrise it was for such very tired eyes.

After weighing anchor in Isla La Piedra anchorage we crashed hard for many hours.  We didn’t even drop the dinghy in the water the next day. At least we were in Mazatlan, in warmer weather and water!  Or at least we had hoped…but no mi amigo…it was only 68 degrees and the water was 65!!! AAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Fresh homemade tortillas!!!

Shot from the balcony of my parent's room

We broke our glass coffee press and had been making coffee with a strainer and paper towel filter. We bought this new stainless filter and had my parents bring it down with them. It's going to last a lot longer than the old one and it matches our REI mugs!