On our way from Punta Mita to San Blas we ran into a section
of ocean that was literally carpeted in small jelly fish. A short distance into this we started to see
the sea turtles that feed on these jelly fish.
For about 2 hours, sea turtles were everywhere you looked around the
boat…hundreds and hundreds of them…too many to count. Straight out of “Life of
Pi”, but without the symbolism.
Sea turtle kibble
Just one of many
Leaving the sea turtles behind, we almost motored straight
into a long line net. These nets are
suspended from rope and buoys that float on the surface of the water, just
waiting to snag some poor unsuspecting catamaran propeller. Luckily, Tony saw the line when we were just
20 or so feet from it, which is a feat because the floats are usually 7 Up
or Coke bottles and really tough to spot.
We made a hard turn to port and followed the pop bottles for about 20 minutes before
finally finding the end. That thing had
to be at least a mile long! Wouldn’t
want to run into it in the middle of the night!
Time to hoist those sails....only 10,052 more turns of the winch, Tony!
Piedro Blanco. That's a lot of bird poop.
Rizzo, the Wonder Dog, enjoys some wind in her ears
On to San Blas which is about 11 hours north of Nuevo
Vallarta. The seas were pretty calm and
we ended up motoring almost all of the way.
The prediction was for southerlies, but what wind there was ended up
coming directly from the west.
There is only open ocean in that direction, so a pretty large swell developed. We knew that the marina was up a river which
means that we had to cross over a sand bar at its entrance. This always enhances the waves and it was a
pretty exciting trip into the river as we got up to about 8.5 knots surfing
down the front of a wave. No problemo,
but a small hint of what was to come.
The next morning was the start of our overnight leg to Mazatlan . As we neared the river exit Tony spotted a
surfer in the waves being created by the breakwater on the right hand side of
the river. Kathy looked left and saw 3
or 4 more surfers in good sized waves on that side. Jesus…..we’re on a sailboat, not a surfboard! There was only about 40 ft of reasonable
water between these two breaks and it looked damn narrow to us. However, to the sounds of cheering from the
surfer dudes/dudettes, Vakasa made her way through the exit and launched
herself safely over a couple 7—8 foot waves.
Let’s hope someone got that on U-tube!
The overnight trip was pretty benign, with not much happening until Tony’s3 am to 6 am
shift. Three hours of sitting at the
helm with nothing but the instruments and the stars to stare at can make you a
little stir crazy. He thought he was
seeing things when dozens of little dots started appearing on the radar
screen. OMG…..we must be running into a
fleet of pangas! Nope, just thousands
(yes, he swears it was thousands) of sea rays jumping out of Vakasa’s way and
scaring the heck out of him!
Surfers to the left, surfers to the right
Looking back at the surfers once we're at a safe distance
The overnight trip was pretty benign, with not much happening until Tony’s
Not our picture, but just proves that it can happen
Catching a few winks after a night shift
Vakasa's crew doesn't catch the sunrise very often
We arrived at Mazatlan
at about 11 am in the morning after
sailing for most of the previous day but motoring all night long. Again, the weather was from the west, but the
winds were light and the swell seemed pretty small with long periods
between. However, as we closed in on the
entrance to the marinas (another river mouth) we couldn't believe the extent of
the surf and waves breaking at the river mouth.
Being way more savy in this department now, we called the marina and
were told that the entrance was closed due to high surf. Damn it….we’ve been up all night, and were
looking forward to tying up at a dock and going to bed. What now?
Mazatlan has developed a bad
reputation for theft of dinghy motors and the occasional onboard robbery and
unfortunately the most common crime area was the only anchorage open to us in
these conditions. We headed there;
chained the dinghy and motor to Vakasa, hid our valuables, paraded our vicious guard dog around the decks a few times, locked ourselves
inside the boat, armed ourselves with flare guns (just kidding, although a really
scary neighbour did recommend it) and hit the sack.
The "Old Harbour" (now called Bandito Bay) Mazatlan anchorage
The Silver family actually took this ferry to La Paz on their North American tour back in 2000....looks just the same now...bet the berth ceilings still leak!
Fun to watch all the ships coming and going
We stayed at this surprisingly nice anchorage for a couple
days and had no problems with banditos.
In fact we had a wonderful time, which included a great bus ride into
the old town where we window shopped for a few hours, walked the Malecon (sea
wall) and enjoyed beer and guacamole at a palapa bar. The anchorage was well protected with lots of
interesting tourist and commercial boat traffic going to and fro. We felt that as long as we didn’t leave
valuables on display, we were pretty safe.
Under an incredible flowering tree
For some reason Tony developed a real affection for this statue
Pre Easter celebrations were happening at this lovely Old Town Cathedral
Now, I know that this is getting long, but we still had one
more river entrance to tackle and we did that this morning. After being assured that the entrance to the Mazatlan
marinas was now open and the dredger was not operating, we motored on over. The surf was not nearly as big as the other day but it was still
worth worrying about. We timed things perfectly and started in the entrance just as a huge tourist catamaran rounded the
corner on its way out. Abort! We pulled a “U-ey” and headed back out. Attempt number two.... We lined ourselves up and started in
again. S&**! Here comes another boat. Abort again!
Third time lucky?.... We actually made it into the channel this time, with just a little swell helping us on our way. But as we started
to round the corner we saw that the dredger (yup, the one that wasn’t supposed to be working
today) was in the middle of the narrow (we mean NARROW) channel and its pipes
were taking up 2/3rds of the room. The
driver of the dredger frantically waved us to the right and we managed to squeeze through with only about 3 ft on either side of Vakasa….wild-eyed Mexicans to port and scary sharp
looking rocks to starboard!
Now that's a narrow entrance!
The dredger at anchor. When we came in it was in the middle of the channel which didn't leave much room for Vakasa!
The El Cid, Mazatlan marina
Now we’re almost finished…..but not quite. It turns out that we’re on a falling tide,
which normally means nothing in Mexico as the tides are usually so small. But
today the river current was running really fast.
You could actually see small whirlpools and white-capped current
waves throughout the marina. It took Vakasa’s wonderful and
talented captain 4 tries to get us to the dock.
Ahhhhhhh......docked at last
Two cervazas (each) later and we are laughing about the
whole adventure and ready to enjoy everything that Mazatlan and El Cid Marina has to offer for a few days. We've had fun, with a few major adrenaline shots and Vakasa has added surfing to her repertoire of
achievements. Hang ten, dudes.......
