Time to get going...what lies ahead I have no way of knowing

Nothing beats starting off a post with a great song lyric. Any guesses as to who and what song I am quoting?

Here's another one, being MIA with posts for basically the month of March, this is what I say to you:

Well then let's get you up to speed on what's been going on. If you found this post and are reading then congrats on making the jump with us to a new blogsite (I know change is a hard thing for some :) Remember to bookmark this new site, delete the old Sailblog one. AND sign up, so you can be notified when I update with new posts (located at bottom of home page as well as contact page)!

Currently, we are enroute to Bahia Tenacatita following an early morning departure from Bahia Chamela. Map is updated on site if you want to see where we are. I need to back track a bit and catch you up on these past few weeks.

I'll start from Puerto Vallarta and get you up to present. When I have time will back track and include Punta de Mita, and La Cruz, when my best friend, Jenn came for a visit. However, I dont want to get too far behind on what we are currently up to so bear with me as I skip ahead a bit in our travels.

We spent 7 glorious days in Puerto Vallarta, in a marina and visiting with Jay's Dad. Here are some shots of the town and marina:

Our dock in PV

Atessa IV docked in PV

Open air market in PV

Popsicles in PV

PV marina

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Malecon

Malecon PV

Puerto Vallarta

PV Marina

PV Marina sign

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Expat dinner with Harry

Jay up the mast

Court up the mast

Aerial view of BOAT

Can't say enough about how great of a city PV is. The marina is right along the malecon (which has a ton of restaurants and shopping) and a stone's throw away from Harry's beautiful condo which overlooks the marina. We enjoyed pool time, getting laundry and errands for BOAT parts done, and enjoying some great dinners/spending time with Harry.

While in PV we needed to work on two major things for the boat that we had been putting off since the beginning of March. Two cars from our mainsail (little plastic "dooblers" that slide along the track of the mast to aid with the lifting and lowering of mainsail/attach the mainsail to the mast ) were broken and we had been on a mission since making this discovery to find new ones. Also, our VHF was only transmitting and receiving with a mile radius, at most! So, thankfully we were able to locate more cars from a sail guy in Nuevo Vallarta and spent a day sewing all news ones into the mainsail. (this is after numerous phone calls and VM's--all boat workers here in Mexico are way overbooked and are constantly on "boat time" which means anywhere from never available to 4 hours later after agreed meeting time. Basically, I am better at nailing jello to a wall...)

So after getting this major task accomplished, we were ansty to get going, meeting up with an electronics guys in Nuevo Vallarta, refuel and then continue our journey south. We said our goodbye's to Harry on March 26 and headed for NV which was a very short 3nm sail back up north.

Side story about PV before I move on

While staying in PV, we had the great luxury of being docked in the Marina. Which, the marina was great--well maintained docks, round the clock security, quiet...etc. However, the only HUGE drawback was the shower/bathroom facilities. On one particular occasion, after running around all day and feeling gross-I skipped off to the showers to enjoy a nice long rinse...except when I walked in I almost started crying--grossest bathrooms EVER! Maybe a step above the public bathrooms on Venice Beach..and I mean maybe, in the most generous sense of the word. I thought afterwards, that I might be acting like a Prima Donna, but then the next day, Jay also tried to go in and came back out within 15 minutes, with a resounding "hell no." Hilariously, they closed the bathroom the following day due to a "leak" (cough, cough, that would be a "sewage" leak, cough cough)

So on a mission and with our toiletries in hand, Jay and I set off to get clean. Our target, The Westin. Now, do you ever have those moments in adulthood (well, I am told I am adult but actions speak louder than words, so I still question my graduation to this title) BUT, do you ever have moments where you feel the childhood whimsy of rebellion whispering in your ear? Like, throw caution to the wind and act out just for the hell of it to re-live that "invincible, screw-it" attitude of your 20's? Ok, well I have that on a daily basis...but rarely act on it as "adulthood" title shuts me down and I have become an overly paranoid, goodie two shoes wimp in my extremely old age. BUT it's always there! So, in foreshadowing summary--Jay and I acted on it....teeheehee.

We snuck into the Westin Spa and it was a glorious win for our 20 year old selves! Well, the getting in part; dodging staff and pretending we actually were guests, waltzing straight into the Spa, walking right past reception, enjoying spa-like rainshower showers, plush towels and all Westin amenities. All was going so smoothly, it was like we preplanned it for weeks in advance.

...that was until Jay decided he needed to smoke a cigarette at the entrance to the spa. Word of advice: don't hire Jay as your getaway driver. He's the worst at the "getting away" part. I mean, come on that's like setting up a celebratory brunch right in front of the bank you just robbed. Dumb! So needless to say we had to pay a bribe of $100 pesos (ok, fine it wasnt a bribe, just cost to pay for use of facilities, but bribe makes the story better sounding) And then we biked away into the sunset with our newly showered selves.

Alright, back to story telling of our trip....

We had been told before that Nuevo Vallarta marina is like Disneyland for boaters because of all the nearby amenities--and boy, oh boy they didn't lie! We managed to get a slip (the marina was quite full due to holiday weekend) all the way up in the estuary, beautifully tucked away and far away from marina noise. My god, it's a beautiful marina with some incredible boats from ALL OVER the world. The marina itself has pretty tiny causeways (coming in we had to hug the entrance and hold our breath with barely any room as we passed a large mega-yatch coming out. The marina side is lined with slips and on the other side of estuary are these incredible multi-million dollar homes, lush gardens and immaculately maintained lawns, outdoor gazeboos overlooking the water and some had their own private docks. Seriously beautiful. Did I take a picture of any of this to share? God, no! I actually meant to and then kept forgetting until after we had left. LOL story of my life!

Here are some pictures to share of Nuevo Vallarta of what I did document:

(click thru for slideshow)

Nuevo Vallarta

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Our main and only reason for coming to NV, and headed north again, slightly backtracking was that we had finally connected with an electronics guy that would be able to help with our VHF (which the current issue was becoming a huge problem as our radio was basically useless) AND, since having guests on our boat followed by red tide for a week, we had not been able to make water and our tanks were empty! We had heard that Paradise Village was about the only marina with filtered potable water, so we could also fill up our tanks!

Recall how I shared about most of the people who work on boats in Mexico are on "boat time?" Yep, with this knowledge we were going off a hope and a prayer that we could get the VHF guy to come and fix us up quick so we could be on our way. He called Jay around 9am Tuesday morning and said he would meet us at noon.

And he arrived at noon on the dot?!?! I was actually a little shocked when he knocked on our boat, thinking "this cannot possibly be the VHF guy" and "maybe he was mistaken and came to the wrong boat first?!"

After speaking with him for about 5 minutes, I was sure there was no mistake. He was a New Yorker! OH HECK YES! This was truly an Easter miracle--thank you Easter Bunny! Needless to say, Gray (the VHF guy) was a dream come true! He did some troubleshooting with Jay and I for about an hour and a half (with sending Jay up the mast to check cable connections at top) Problem: our cable line was completely corroded and needed to be fully replaced. But being the kick a*ss, on-top-of-his-business guy that he was, Gray called a buddy and within an hour we had 58' of new cable line and commitment from Gray to get this problemo fixed muy rapido! I mean, seriously, where did this guy come from and what good fortune we fell on getting him the very day we needed him ON a holiday weekend no less?!

By 7pm problem was solved and our VHF was back in working condition! We invited Gray to stay for dinner and spent the evening sharing stories and hearing all about being an expat in Mexico and running a business. Seriously, coolest guy ever! SO boater friends--if you ever need an electronics guy in mainland Mexico--shoot us a line and we can connect you with Gray.

And with that, we were on our way out and further south!

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Last Passage Distance: 3.18nm (PV to NV) Cumulative Distance to Date: 1,566.38 nm Days since last donating to Poseidon: many days--woohoo!!!! Items donated: n/a