May 24, 2005

Hello Everyone,

Today is May 24th, and we back in Mazatlan just long enough to get some gasoline and groceries. We stopped a few days ago and we have spoiled ourselves by staying here at a beautiful resort marina with pools and spas and delivery service to our dockside. It was great when we bought hundreds of pounds worth of groceries and a bellman delivered it to our boat, such luxuary!

The weather has been spectacular and we have been enjoying great ocean sailing winds over the past month. We decided to leave this morning and head across the gulf of California and up into the Sea of Cortez because some nice southerly winds are around which will help Sol Surfin with the crossing. It will take us anywhere from 36-50 hours depending on the weather and seas. We will shoot for an island named Isla Partida which is just north of La Paz. There are really cool coves and caves to explore along the Sea of Cortez and thought we might start there.

Over the past month we have enjoyed our sail down the coast stopping at spots along the way to Puerto Vallarta. We headed as far south as La Cruz where we hung for a few days at a favorite cruisers hang out and ran into a few people we had met earlier in the year. La Cruz is a cute town just about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta in the Banderas Bay. We enjoyed the local flavor and caught a bus to PV where we spent a few days locating a part to our dingy motor. We were successful and headed to Punta de Mita, which is a very beautiful spot on the very north point of the bay.

Along our route we stopped at Isla Isabella for a few days. It is a beautiful island that is a fishing village and bird sanctuary, really spectacular and an incredible amount of wild life out in the middle of nowhere. The fishermen are really friendly. One morning we awoke to being surrounded by about 15 pangas boats pulling in the catch of the morning. We enjoyed our coffee and watched them at work. We ended up trading fish for a snickers candy bar. Our website has some great shots of this island.

From there we went on to San Blas and enjoyed the typical mexican lifestyle hanging out in the town. Gary had a great time surfing the break water. I caught a couple. The waves would crash along the channel, not great for sailing but really fun long right waves for surfers. We tucked our boat into the channel and paddled a mile or so and hiked with the surfboards to get to this break. The next day, a fellow sailor girlfriend and I took a side road trip to Tepic, the capital of the region. We went hunting for artwork of the local indians who live in the mountain regions of Nayarit. We found some beautiful Huichol Indian artwork, lovely hand beading works along with some really nice wax yarn paintings. Got some really beautiful works that look great on the boat.

We spent Cinco de Mayo in a seaside town called Chacala. This place also has amazing surf. It took us a 20 minute ride in our dingy heading up the coast to the surf break. Unfortunately, some tour packages are now included it into their surf tours and there are a few too many surfers for this secluded little break that you can only reach by panga or dinghy. We did have the advantage of getting there at the crack of dawn and had the place to ourselves along with a few locals. The locals are great and very friendly with sharing the waves. The gringos were fun, more aggressive but very interested in the cool catamaran anchored in the bay. They all wanted to hear about our sailing adventures. Of course we were happy to share because this is the exact spot that Gary actually started his dream of cruising on a sailboat. He was once one of those surfers on vacation who spotted a trimaran anchored in the bay and thought it was a cool idea. This was back in 2000, so 5 years later, it is now him with the sailboat. How is that for visualization!!!

We are doing well and enjoying the sailing life. Check out the website, we have more great photos posted. We are using a new program that makes it easier to post our pictures now.

Blessings,
Celeste

PS:June 7th now and We are in La Paz. All is well and pretty darn hot.