Christmas in La Cruz

After we left San Evaristo we headed for Ensenada de Cardonal on Isla Partida, the island north of Isla Espiritu Santo. We shared the bay with a large motor boat. It was a quiet bay with glorious sunset. In the morning we set out for Playa la Bonanza on the southeast side of Espiritu Santo to get ready to cross over to Mazatlán. Sometimes you need a Plan B. Waves were out of the south and Bonanza is totally exposed to the south. Rolly anchorage. Yuck. Midway we baled and headed for Puerto Balandra, a bay north of La Paz, where we’d get protection from the waves. It’s a shallow bay with lots of locals on the beach. The famous hongo, a mushroom shaped rock, was back upright and photo worthy again. We took a relaxing walk on the beach. All was lovely until about 5:00 when the wind picked up blowing straight into the bay and we started hobbyhorsing like the next big rodeo bronco. We decided to pull up the anchor and head for Muertos as an overnight instead of a long day. Underway we joked that we’ve now done the Canal de Cerralvo more times in the dark than in daylight. After all the wind and wave action, the wind dropped completely in the middle of the night, so we had to kick on the engine.

We dropped anchor in Ensenada de los Muertos the next morning and found 8 boats already there, over half of them old friends, also waiting for a weather window to cross to Mazatlán or Banderas Bay. The weather window for a good sail across was still a couple of days out so we had time to meet up for lunch, walk on the beach, stow the dinghy, and make food for the overnight passage to Mazatlán. We left mid-afternoon on Sunday and arrived in Mazatlán Tuesday morning. Underway, Nina saw about 30 shooting stars during her 0300-0600 watch (3:00-6:00 am). The wind was light so we had to motor the first night but we sailed the rest of the time. The morning Amigo SSB (Single Side Band) net was almost all boats in transit.

We anchored at Isla de la Piedra (Stone Island), south of the Mazatlán Old Harbor and settled in for a nap. Refreshed, the crews from Dharma Girl, Gypsy and Sherpa dinghied over to La Caleta, a restaurant in a cove that doesn’t require a surf landing. We walked down the dirt road to take the panga taxi across the harbor to town. It drops you off close to the cruise ship dock. Two huge cruise ships were in port so there were tourists everywhere, lines of taxi drivers hawking their tours, a visible police presence to make everyone feel safe, and volunteers handing out maps and answering questions to make sure no one got lost. We walked up to to the central market and got fresh vegetables and stocked up on Aldamas, one of our favorite Mexican candies that we can’t seem to find anywhere else. We ate lunch upstairs and then wandered back to La Caleta for a bucket of cervezas and back to our respective boats. They’d had a riproaring party at the restaurant the night before that blasted music well into the wee hours. Our waiter told us it was the employee year end party, and yes, he embarassedly admitted when asked, there had been karoake, but he had not participated because he has an ugly voice.

Underway again, we rolled our way overnight to Matanchén with Dharma Girl. The coastline from Mazatlán to Banderas Bay is fairly shallow and exposed to the Pacific Ocean. This creates bigger swells so we rolled our way south. We saw whales. In the middle of the night, we had to dodge several fishing fleets, ironically all on Nina’s watches. Nothing like having a lit up, 80′ surreal steampunky looking dragonfly heading straight for you in the middle of the night. Dharma Girl had their own part of the fleet to evade as well. Finally, we all made it through safely. Next day, we headed to shore and and met up with Chris from Dharma Girl and met Brandon from Mosaic. We all bought some of the banana bread the area is famous for and then walked back to have shrimp empanadas at a palapa restaurant on the beach. The bay is well know for it’s jejenes: evil, tiny, biting bugs that eat you alive, bug spray or no. Nina counted 75 bug bites on her legs alone. Bill was covered in spots as well, but he itched less.

We fled the bugs for Chacala where we practiced our double anchor skills. Chacala is a small bay open to swells. Two anchors lets you take the swells on the bow rather than on the side of the boat. We dropped and set the aft anchor and then motored forward to drop and set the forward anchor. Everything snugged up and we were good for the night.

Our goal was to be in the bay before Christmas. We spent a couple of nights in the La Cruz anchorage before moving into Marina La Cruz for Christmas. We noticed early on the trip down that our fuel system was leaking and letting air get into the fuel line. The leak was somewhere around the fuel pump and secondary fuel filter on the engine. We’d already installed new hoses to the pump and filter, installed new crush washers. But, we still had a leak at the fitting on the outside of the fuel filter. Bill cranked the bolt a little more to stop the leak, and it stripped. We made emergency repairs by using a thinner washer on the fitting which gave us about one thread to hold the bolt. This got us to La Cruz where we could get parts shipped to us, but it meant no more sailing until the new fuel pump arrives which meant no more whale watching for a while because we couldn’t risk using the engine to get in and out of the slip. Luckily Cook Engine in Portland had the parts in stock. But snow was predicted so they weren’t sure if they could get the parts out if they were closed down by the weather. We’d also be shipping in the middle of the Christmas shipping deluge. The pump would make it to San Diego where we had an importer lined up, but he was on break until the week after New Year’s. In the meantime, we dinghy sailed.

There are always things to do in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. There’s the Sunday Market, where the whole malecón around the marina is filled with arts and crafts and food tables. Spanish classes with Ana (these would be on hiatus for a couple of weeks after we attended the first one) where you can practice your conversational Spanish with an amazing teacher twice a week, two-fer vegan ice cream on Tuesdays. There are free movies at the marina on Thursday nights. There’s nothing quite like seeing the documentary Maiden with fellow sailors. Seminars, activities for kids. The town itself is full of restaurants. Masks indoors were required, but there were tourists aplenty and we were all out and about in the warmth and sunshine.