Surf's Up

San Juan del Sur has lots of great surf. Friends on Sarana and Ocean Lady gave us some lessons and shared a board. Here is Erica on her first day surfing! The rest of us hung out and watched from under the umbrellas. L to R, Scott, Sherrell's butt, Di and Ron.

Nica Wedding!

Most of you don't know that we made our relationship legal in Vegas in November 2006. We wanted to have a party/ceremony with friends and Erica so recruited our new friend Tom who happened to have a captain's license and was qualified to "marry us". It was a fun afternoon and the party carried on into the night on Ocean Lady's Boat.
Group picture left to right:
Tom and Ann Carr(Leonidas), Joel, Erica, Ron and Di, Sherrell and Eric (Sarana), Liz and Scott (Ocean Lady) and Tom, the capitain.

Puesta del Sol in Asseradorres, Nicaragua

We arrived in Puesta Del Sol, a small marina/resort in the making in Northern Nicaragua after 4.5 days of sailing from Huatulco. We were ready to stop and step on land.
Noteworthy is that this is a third world country on the verge of blossoming into a tourist destination. It already is a destination for backkpackers and surfers, but soon to come will be the yuppie tourist who is willing to pay US prices. Nicaragua where we landed is a study of contrasts. The resort where we stayed and will go back to for the end of the summer and fall, is in stark contrast to the neighborhood outside its gates. People live in palapa and visquine huts with hand crank wells, horse drawn carts and bicycles as major mode of transportation. There are lots of dugout canoes in use and farm animals wandering the streets. There is a daily "chicken" bus to Chinendega, the nearest city, 2 hours away. This bus is the life blood of the people as it is their only connection to food and services. Taking the bus is an all day affair. People cram literally into the bus both ways and on the way back tons of stuff is loaded on the top as well as in the overhead racks inside. You think that not another person can fit in, then the doors in the back open and a few more manage to enter. Babies, chickens, kids, bicycles, furniture--anything you can imagine is crammed on/in and we head out over the pothole infested dirt roads.

Time to leave Huatulco

Here we are in Marina Chahue, at the "cheap seats" our "home" for 3 weeks. You can see Erica sleeping on the dock as it was much cooler for her. We also took advantage of the dock to boil our water for tea and coffee and breakfast in the shadow of Batwing. It was necessary to break out the boatcover to shade the decks as the heat was becoming quite intense.
Waiting for a weather window, we spent our time hiking to town to buy our food, using the internet and getting our last laundry done. Every afternoon we would hike over to the Club Chahue Pool for internet and swimming at their pool. We needed a good 4 to 5 day window to make sure we crossed the Tehuantepec in the best of conditions. This treacherous 240 mile span that connects Mexico to Central America is known to "kick the butt" of sailors who don't take heed and plan carefully. The winds can blow over 60 knots from the NE so one must take care to keep close to the beach for the first 120 miles. Our window allowed us to sail away from Huatulco late in the afternoon and through the center by the next day. We had excellent conditions. Our only obstacles were all the fishing pangas and rain squalls at night. Pangas don't have permanent lights so only flash lights when they see you getting too close. We cannot see them on radar, so have to keep a close watch for them at night. The radar does show squalls, so it is possible to study them and figure out directions to take to dodge them. Erica had tons of Pangas and squalls during her watch, so got a good baptism in the art of watch keeping.

Huatulco and Oaxaca

Going to Hualtulco meant that we could leave our boat and travel to Oaxaca. Benjamin our friend from Bellingham joined us for his Spring break and enjoyed Puerto Angel and La India, one of the beautiful snorkeling bays of Huatulco (see picture) then he and Erica and traveled to Oaxaca for a few days before he had to return home. After Erica returned,we left for 4 days, with our friends Tom and Ann of Leonidas, to enjoy the quaint colonial city, tourist attractions, Monte Alban and the unique markets. Pictured are bugs (crickets and grasshoppers) that are sold as food, basketry (circled is the one we bought), the ruins of Monte Alban, a typical street in the city, Santo Domingo, an incredible cathedral. We were reminded of the high plains of Colorado when we traveled by bus to the mountainous city of Oaxaca. Mescal is produced here and you can see lots of Agave plants and Mescal production facilities along the road to Oaxaca. The climate is cooler so we had a brief respite from the heat of Huatulco.

Puerto Angel

Onward to the little fishing village of Puerto Angel where the business owners were so eager for our business that they met us in the surf as we landed our kayaks and helped us store our craft near their restaurants so we would patronize them. Since we sold our van to Jason Rose, a former Marina friend from Bellingham, we thought we could replace it with this one!
Later we hiked up to visit new friends who own Casa Penelopes, a great Bed and Breakfast stop for those of you who might be interested, and could look down on the anchorage to see Batwing.
You can see Erica with Lluvia and Osiel.

Can't leave Acapulco yet

It was so much fun in Acapulco near Isla Rocqueta that we decided to stay and swim for another day. Our new addition to Batwing proved to be an excellent swim platform!

How we travel

This is an example of how we spend our days traveling

Isla Rocqueta in Acapulco

We spent a couple nights in Acapulco anchored at the outside island where during the day boatloads of Mexican tourists come to swim and stand in line. We guessed that because they live in Mexico City where they stand in line for busses and such, the crowds and lines they experience on vacation is to be expected. Not for us! We left for quiter places.

On to Barre de Navidad

After a couple days swimming and playing volleyball in Tenecatita, we traveled the 14 miles to a very sheltered lagoon where we could sail our kayak. There we met Tom and Ann on Leonidas, a santa Cruz couple with a very distinctive sailing canoe. Tom had cut an old Grumman canoe in half so it could nest on his 32 ft Dreadnought, and made his unique sailing rig. Ron and I are on the left in our klepper.

Mexican Riveria

Much time has passed and we are finally at a place where we can actually work on our blog and upload pictures. We are presently anchored in San Juan del Sur, a picturesque bay in southern Nicaragua. but let us backtrack to Mexico where we quickly traveled down the coast south of Puerto Vallarta. The first picture is of the Jungle river trip we took in Tenecatita, a lovely bay southeast of PV. We may not be able to get the pictures published so we apologize if they don't get up immediately.