Adios Chamela, Hola Tenacatita

Last night we joined several other cruisers on SV Frannie B to celebrate Ned's birthday.  He was born on Valentine's Day, as was his son!   Chocolate cupcakes, tea and lots of good conversation -- ahhh, the cruising lifestyle!  This morning, after the morning net, we weighed anchor and after a pleasant 10 day stay we left Bahia de Chamela.   For most of the day we motor sailed, but around 1 or so we had enough wind to sail and we sailed right into the anchorage at Tenacatita.  So far we've connected with four other boats we've been buddying with so the season looks promising re: social life!

No sooner did we drop anchor that I took the last bit of dough out of our 4-loaf bowl and got it ready to bake.  This reminds me to let all of our readers know that our book, "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day," given to us by Roy's colleague before we left Santa Maria, has enabled several other cruisers to bake break every day.  In fact one of the boats has already left Mexico, bound for the Galapagos and Tahiti with recipes for daily bread baking.  Another cruiser, after tasting some of our Peasant Bread, ordered the book and it now resides on her Kindle.

I also put together a pint of hummus, flavored with chipotle, mmmmmm.  We'll take that to the cruiser raft-up on Friday night here in Tenacatita.

Both of us have finished reading "My Song, a Memoir by Harry Belafonte" and heartily recommend it as a "good read."

~~~ Marlene and Roy ~~_/) ~~

Weather, anchors, etc.

We stayed up later than usual last night, 10 p.m.  Just as we were heading for the bunk, a clap of thunder, a few flashes of lightning in the hills, and then rain.  It rained all night.  This morning a boat that had arrived late yesterday was inching up on our stern.  They had anchored too close to us plus let out too little chain.  After several calls we finally awakened them.  He came out and let out a little more chain.  Well, we weren't at all comfortable with our boats being so close so we moved to another spot in the anchorage.  It's a funky weather day so we're staying on board; some new friends are coming over around 1 pm to play a game of some sort.  When we re-anchored we recognized a boat from our past years in Mexico and hailed them on the radio.  So tonight they'll come over for dinner and catching up on the last five years!

~~~ Marlene and Roy ~~_/) ~~

Fishing in Chamela

All boats offer hiding places for small fish, however catamarans provide cover for medium sized as well as small fish. Since arriving in Chamela we've been impressed with the many schools of fish that seek refuge under Damiana. This morning a panga with three pescaderos were using individual drop lines with tiny bits of bait to catch these fish swimming near our boat. They were very close so we got some fenders and invited them to tie up so they could catch fish, hopefully without ramming into our boat. They threw a large weighted net several times to catch enough bait to head out into deeper waters and try their luck with dorado. We mentioned that we'd be happy to buy a kilo of dorado if they catch one. They wanted to know what time we'd be here! We'll keep you posted! ~~~ Marlene and Roy ~~_/) ~~

Correction to last night's post

Ice cream --- what were we thinking?!!  We had spectacular gelato at Mega while we were in La Cruz -- don't know how that slipped our minds.  Nonetheless the vanilla ice cream on a stick dipped in chocolate hit the spot while walking in town on a warm day.

~~~ Marlene ~~_/) ~~

Chemela - Day 4

Just as in previous visits, we love being here.  We have fond memories of meeting some cruisers here on our first trip down the "Mexican Riviera," people we socialized with for several years and with whom we still are in contact.  Today was the first day we went to shore.  We met another couple the other day (they stopped by in their dinghy) and planned to get together at one of the palapas on the beach for lunch and then walk into town.  We aimed for the one on the right end of palapas where we always had wonderful food  The people operating it are different, but the food was spectacular.  Roy had a tasty shrimp dish while I feasted on octopus.  Rice and a small salad plus beverages -- what a grand lunch!  We walked through most of the town, stopped at one store and bought ice cream (on a stick), the first we've had since we returned to Mexico.  A little further down the road was another store with wonderful produce -- just what we were hoping to find.  So now with enough veggies for several days we're thinking of staking out our claim -- which I guess we already did when we dropped anchor.  We lucked out -- fresh veggies are brought into town by truck on Tuesdays and Fridays!  Getting back to Damiana in the dinghy proved to be a challenge: the rollers hitting the beach were great for surfers, but not for dinghies.  We had waited until late in the afternoon, but not late enough to avoid a few big splashes.  All in all, though, weather has greatly improved, warm and sunny and beautiful sunsets every evening.  We just heard on the local VHF radio an announcement from a boat that arrived in the anchorage about an hour ago that they caught a huge tuna today and that anyone in the anchorage that wanted fresh tuna to come on by their boat -- they are from France.  Cruisers from all over the world are some of the friendliest we've ever met!

~~~ Marlene and Roy ~~_/) ~~

blog: http://svdamiana.blogspot.com

website: www.svdamiana.com

Chemela

We are currently in Chemela, having arrived Saturday afternoon. Our rounding of Cabo Corientes was uneventful: winds climbed gradually to 20 kts, but being cautious we reefed the main at 15 kts. Eventually the wind shifted to be entirely aft of us so we dropped the main altogether and with jib alone kept going at 6-7 kts until early morning, when, typically, the wind died, and we resorted to using the motors. The wind did pick up again around 11 a.m. and we were able to sail the rest of the way into Chemela.

The old saying that "you can't go home again" rings true with our return to Mexico. One thing that is very different is the number of new arrivals that are passing through or returning home. So many that we've met are heading down to Panama, Ecuador or across the Pacific before spending a full season here in Mexico. Weather has been colder than before: I remember spending January in Tenacatita, playing dominoes in bathing suits! We're currently 40 miles north of there -- we're using two blankets at night, I'm wearing long sleeves, long pants, the door to the cabin is closed and it's 9:05 in the morning!

Yesterday we had freaky weather: wind and swell from the south. All 8 boats in the anchorage were rocking back and forth all day. We spent the day doing some housekeeping chores and have a few more to do today.

~~~ Marlene and Roy ~~_/) ~~

Adios La Cruz

After spending over four weeks in La Cruz, enjoying all the town offers, live music at several venues almost every night of the week, social life with other cruisers and the convenience of being base a full-service marina, we are once again completely on our own -- at anchor just outside the La Cruz marina. Our last few errands before leaving the dock yesterday were to stop at the fish market to purchase enough fresh fish for at least five meals; also a quick stop at the carniceria organica to buy a whole chicken and some beef for the freezer. As has been our habit, when we left the dock we went out into the bay and sailed for a few hours, getting used to sailing again, enjoying the wind and sense of freedom. We returned to the anchorage to spend the night, catch up on our sleep, and plan our journey south. One of our bargains at the fish market was a whole huachinango (red snapper). Fifteen minutes on the BBQ and we feasted last night with steamed veggies plus our usual salad, and today we had huachinango sandwiches (of course with our homemade "Artisan" bread). One last trip to shore this morning: we dropped off our old dock lines at the fish market, expecting that some of the pescaderos (fishermen) will be able to put them to use (Roy finally finished putting esplices in the new line that we bought before leaving California) and we then walked up the the OXXO (local 7-11 type chain store) to purchase additional time for our modem's data card. We are aiming to arrive in Chemela (96 miles from here) by tomorrow evening, Sunday at the latest. A weather system is brewing that promises some turbulence that we'd prefer to avoid.

~~~ Marlene and Roy ~~_/) ~~