6/15/07 

 What a whirlwind of activities this past 3 months.  In summary we had a family meeting and voted that we are having so much fun out here cruising that we decided to sell the farm (sort of speak) I flew home the middle of April, met with a realtor and put our newly built home on 15 acres on the market to sell. I flew back down to the family that stayed in Marina Mazatlan one week later. It was time to leave Mazatlan and do the two day passage across the Sea Of Cortez to La Paz, Baja. After a couple of days waiting for the entry to the marina in Mazatlan to open due to high Southerly swell causing breaking waves across the opening, we got the green light from the Port Captain. Leonard on Vale Cache went through it first and called us on the radio and said to just gun it and push your way through. We did just that, it was a bit of a white knuckler, but we did just fine. Right behind us were our friends Chris and Robyn on the sailing vessal Robyn's Nest, a wonderful 35 foot Island Packet. They did just fine, it was a bit scary looking going through it with the swell breaking on both sides of us as we threaded through the middle of the non-breaking swell. It was just 30 minutes later we heard the Port Captain get on the radio and announce that once again the opening to Marina Mazatlan was closed due to high swell. We settled into a nice motor sail with the auto-pilot doing what it does best, steer us on an even course to our destination. Two hours out I picked up email and found out that after our house was on the market now for 3 days we had received a full offer without any contingencies. This was a somber shock to us, if it wasn't for our lovely Liberty sailboat we would be a homeless family. We continued on to La Paz anyway. The sail across was a bit bumpy, but we all did just fine. We made a wonderful stop at a very secure and peacful anchorage at Isla Partida. Clystal clear water, white sand, we could even see our anchor. We explored the shoreline, and walked over to a local fishermans primative hut. There were 4 locals there cleaning their catch, we all marveled at the huge 6 foot long squid. The eyes on this thing were the size of large softballs. I asked the fisherman if he was willing to sell us a cut of fresh calamari, he replied with a huge grin, and said no problema. He pulled out his knife and cut us off a slab that was two inches thick and a full foot square, it must have weighed 5 pounds. All he wanted in return was a couple of cold cans of pepsi. That night we had some friends over and we ate fresh calamari and salad, life is good. The next day we went to Costa Baja Marina in La Paz. This is a new marina with lots of wonderful amenities, pools, restaurants, free shuttle service to town, and at a great price to boot. We met up with our friends on Warm Rain Tom and Dawn. They also were from the Blaine marina where we started our trip South. The last time we saw them was in San Francisco. We enjoyed each others company along with Chris and Robyn for a week. We had to cut our trip short now and get the boat back over to Mazatlan and get the Liberty ready for the summer. We found a wonderful local guy that is watching our boat for the summer. We kissed the Liberty goodbye and flew home the second week of May. The past few weeks have been packing, getting moved into an apartment, getting a storage unit, and visiting with family and friends. We have now picked up a great buy on a Southwind class A motorhome that we will make a road trip of going back down to the boat in August. This past week me and the boys went on a nice one week trip over to Bellingham and back home camping through the North Cascades, with a one night stop at the Grand Coulee Dam. We really enjoyed the tour, and the 45 minute lazer light show at 10pm after dark. Poor Yvette has been working back at the hospital in her old position as a critical care RN. She is making some great money for her cruising kitty. We will be looking forward to doing all the major tourist attractions the Southwest has to offer on our way back down to Mazatlan from August through October. We will have plenty of time and only need to average an hour drive a day, to make the 3,000 mile trip. Our plan was to buy the motorhome cheap, and then sell it when we get back to the boat without much of a loss, just the gas. That shouldn't be too much of a problem because we caught a great deal from an elderly couple that sold it to us for only $4,500.00, and only has 35,000 miles on it!! We will be keeping our site a lot better updated now that the frenzy of moving and all is over. We are looking forward to getting back to the boat and enjoying Mexico for another winter season and then in March of 2008 doing the 22 day puddle jump from Puerto Vallarta to the Marquesas. We will take a two year plan to circle the Pacific and end up back in Seattle around August of 2009 or 2010, stay tuned.

What I do best, staring at the ocean                    Turtles at play                                        Watch your fingers

       That was a full ride                                     The thought of going back to life on land    Tommy and Billy from the Pacific Cloud

Bill and Laurie from the Pacific Cloud                     An Easter Spread, YUUM !!                 Robyn tries Yvette's pressure pot bread

Leonards a happy man, fresh made bread              Easter eggs on the boat? No Problem              Gotta love Mazatlan

   Tom, Joel and Kyle at the pool in La Paz               Again, doing what we do best                          Whos the biggest kid in this picture?

3/29/07

  We are now in Marina Mazatlan enjoying spring like weather. The evenings are cool enough to chase us inside, it is getting down to 72, good grief we are so spoiled. It is 85 by day and low 70's by night, I guess we have just become used to the heat, but we know it is right around the corner in the next month or so. We left Puerto Vallarta two weeks ago after staying there for two weeks. We were waiting for a package to show that had a new handheld radio and some letters in it. It was tracked into Mexico on February the 28th, it has been a month now and it still has not showed up. The lovely Adrianna at Marina Puerto Vallarta is watching for it so she can send it to us via DHL where ever we may be when it shows up. Our first stop out of Puerto Vallarta was only an eighteen mile run to Punta Mita, the North edge of Banderas Bay outside of PV. We never went to shore there but just sat at anchor one evening and left for a little sail up to Chacala about 20 miles North the next morning. Chacala was a very quaint little Mexican Village with a great beach. It is a beach resort town for the Mexicans. We went ashore, checked in with the local Port Capitano and proceeded to find a cool seat under a palapa with cool drinks and Coconut pastries. It was very relaxing sitting there looking out over their little bay with about 15 of us cruisers anchored out in it. The next morning we were getting ready to go ashore when Yvette heard someone on our boat. She went out and checked, there was a nice guy and his older lady friend taking a break from their swim out to our boat. We asked them to sit down and rest and visited with them. They had driven six hours from Guadalajara. He worked at a leather belt factory and were just out for a weekend holiday, camping on the beach in a tent. After about 30 minutes of conversation completly in Spanish they said their goodbyes and slipped back into the water and swam back to shore. We are getting so good at holding wonderfully fun long talks in Spanish with the locals. Their abilty to be so happy and friendly was just amazing to us. They love to talk to us Americans if we can speak Spanish with them as very few know English in these small towns. We enjoyed their ability to be so friendly and polite, back in the States they would have been arrested for tresspassing, they just never mean any harm. We came upon a little sign in front of a house that was a menu for dinner. It said to make your reservations one day in advance, but we were picking up the anchor the next morning. Your choice of Shrimp rellanos, enchaladas or carne asada with beans and rice for $5.00 US(50 pesos). The lady had a little table in her back yard and fixed your dinner in her kitchen. We mentioned it to another couple that had just arrived and they later told us, when we met up with them days later, that it was a great experience and the food was wonderful. We will remember that house when we make it back down there in the fall. The next stop was San Blas, one of the oldest cities in Mexico. We were warned to anchor about a mile off shore because of mosquitos and "no-see-ums"( little fruit fly gnats that are hardly visible and bite like a bee, in the evening hours) Here is were Henry Wadworth Longfellow wrote about "The bells of San Blas". We met up with another couple Cathy and Charlie on  Chere, they are also from Spokane, WA. We all went ashore in the morning and went to town for a nice breakfast of huevos rancheros. We walked the quaint town and met up with a guy that loved to talk about his town and he would love to give us a tour if we would stick around for a couple of days, but we will not be here long enough. We came across a lady selling her tamales in the street, as we went by she hawked, "tamales de res(beef), cerdo (pork) pavo (turkey) and Pina". That stopped me in my tacks, I turned and said, "PINA??" which I knew was pineapple tamales, I said "no way?" She fired back with a smile and said, "here you try". So there we are, on the side of this little street  eating a pineapple tamale that was a huge hit with all of us. We proceded to buy about 15 tamales from her for dinner later that night. That fed six of us for $7.00. They were so good, and we would love to find them again someday.The next day was going to be a tour 'jungle ride" up a river to a crocadillo farm, the boys were excited for that, and we were going to skip a day of school, and they would make it up on Saturday. That night just at sunset the bugs came out, and boy did they. The whole huge bay was engulfed by a huge termite swarm. The little buggers would fly up to our screens in the ports and wiggle their way through the screen, leaving their wings stuck behind. We sprayed the screens and went on an hour killing frenzy, it was pretty ugly. We had to shut all the ports and hatches and learn to live with the warm air instead of the bugs. We decided that night that we were not going to go through this again and elected to forego the jungle tour in the morning and just leave at first light in the morning. In the morning I got up and the outside of the boat was covered by dead bugs and wings. I got the hose out and washed it all off and away we went. We will probably never come back to San Blas, what a shame, it is a great little city, just way to much stagnet bug breeding water around. We all got bit up and itched for days after that stop.  Off to Isla Isabel, dolphins and whales escorted us out. The dolphins were huge bottlenose type and just played at our bow. Every so often one would come up to the surface of the water and look up at us as if to be hoping that we are still there watching them. They are just like kids showing off to us. We came upon two huge humpback whales with a calf just outside of San Blas. We were just amazed when one shot up out of the water just 100 feet off of our starboard beam.  We just couldn't believe our eyes, not everyone gets to see a humpack whale breaching so far out of the water. He/She was the size of a greyhound bus or more and came completely out of the water and landed with a gyser of a splash that was so huge it seemed like an explosion. All four of us were up on the bow and looking right in that direction when he came out, what an awsome sight, that could never be fully put into words or description without actually seeing it. The next twenty minutes were just magical as the three would roll around on their sides and wave their huge 20 foot long fins out of the water as if to be waving to us. Through out that day we saw many more, but never did one breach as that one did for us. Many did however come straight up out of the water half way and then fall to their side with a big splash. We reached Isla Isabel and snuggly anchored right up to two huge pillers of the broken up valcano coldren island in about 20 feet of crystal clear water. The boys up on the bow directed us right over a nice sandy patch and we dropped the anchor. We could easily see the anchor and 100 feet of chain scope we let out. The fish around made us feel like we were anchoring in an aquarium. We spent the rest of that afternoon snorkling with rays and many fishes, the boys even went under the boat and touched the bottom at 15 feet, while I cleaned the prop and bottom. The next morning we woke up and dropped the dinghy into the water and went right up onto the island to explore. Never had we seen so many iguanas, boobies and frigates. It is no wonder why Jacques Cousteau called this island the Galapagos of the North. We spent 5 hours hiking around and exploring. It was amazing how close the nesting birds would allow us to get, they just are not afraid of humans. The following pictures will tell the stories. The next morning we got ready to ride a nice unseasonal Southerly 90 miles North to Mazatlan. We took off around noon and knew that we only had to average 3.5 kts to get to Mazatlan after daybreak the following day. We enjoyed an easy sail North on following smooth seas. Night fell and the stars came out, it was a great beautiful night sail with a partial moon. The boys slept normal hours while Yvette and I took turns sleeping. There was the occasional fishing/shrimp boat to watch and steer clear of, but mostly it was just a great night sail. The next morning at daybreak we were within sight of the worlds highest light house just off of Mazatlan. We could see it 25 miles away, and was amazed at just how bright it was. By 10:00 AM we were in Marina Mazatlan and checked in. Mazatlan looks like a fun, place to explore over the next week or two, the next update will be full of our adventures here. The next stop will be a 35 hour sail West across the Sea Of Cortez to Las Frailes and then working our way up to La Paz and beyond for the next month.

    Baby Frigates                                                    National Park, MX             These are big boys, each about 2 feet long

Blue Footed Boobie                                             Baby Frigate                           Male Frigate Decked Out For The Ladies

Crater on Isla Isabel                                     Boobie with her chicks                             Anchored off of Isla Isabel

Bill and Leonard  exploring Mazatlan with us       Pig Head Soup Anyone?                    Worked Up an appitite, Hungry?

3/11/07

We are still here in Puerto Vallarta, and enjoying getting some maintenance done on the Liberty. She really needed a good bath after being out at anchor and away from unlimited fresh water. The past week has been filled with oil changes, cleaning and provisioning before we start our trip North into the Sea Of Cortez. There was a source of excitement a couple of days ago as there was a crocodile swimming around our boat in the marina. It would appear that the poor wayward guy just lost his way from the golf course ponds not far from here. The locals and tourists were all gathering on the sidewalk to watch the poor thing waiting for the tide to come back up so he could make his trek back to his family. One guy attempted to hook the croc with a line and a big treble hook on it, but every time he would get it close to him he would just jump and try and bite anything in sight. It was quit funny watching all the hoopla about it. I asked a few of the tourists on the sidewalk if they would like to clean our prop, but didn't get any takers. The boys have been doing great with their school work and then around 1:30 everyday they are off exploring and going to the pools and enjoying carefree afternoon swims. We have been talking with the Arnolds on the vessel Fafner every night on our ham radio. They are doing very well, but the winds have been very light. They are about 600 miles from Manzanillo now with 900 miles to go to the Galapagos. Today was one of their better days and they traveled 87 miles in the past 24 hours, they should be there in about 7 to 10 days. Their spirits are up and they are enjoying some very nice flat seas. They ask everyday if we have some ice cream to send them.   

  Joel / Kyle / Clair and Alex and their floaties        Ten feet off of our stern !

The tourists were throwing this guy bread, ya, right!                 Smooooooth anchorage

      Settling in for another peaceful sleep                              Early morning netter catching bait

3/7/07