Chacala

We motor-sailed (to charge our batteries) to the small bay and even smaller tourist village of Chacala in four hours. The "current" charts for this area put us about two miles East of our actual position and warn of non-existent rocks and other hazards.

The bay is very small in Chacala, so the swell refracts around the point, making a stern anchor mandatory for getting a good night's sleep. Even so, our first anchor position was very far out into the bay, making nights in the vee-berth like a gentle, continuous bungy-jump. Despite this, we did sleep well there.

After two nights, we decided to tuck in behind Escapade to get out of the swell and the boat was much more comfortable. Chacala has turned out to be our favorite anchorage so far. With the stern anchor, rolling is turned to a comfortable pitching. The beach has good surf and good swimming. The village is touristy enough that you can order a hamburger on the beach, but not touristy enough that you are surrounded by beach vendors (eg. we bought leche-de-burro soap from a fifth-generation soap-maker).

The sun set in the opening to the bay each night and the hammock strung is becoming the favourite spot on the boat. We have enough provisions to stay here as long as we like and Justin really likes it here so we may say a while. When we move on, we will update this entry to put it in the past tense.

San Blas

We had a decent sail to San Blas, though long. We left at five in the morning to arrive in the afternoon. We moved after our first night to try to get out of the swell, continuing a pattern of re-anchoring we started in Isla Isabel. The holding was not good being some kind of soft mud, requiring us to put out 80 feet of chain for 15 feet of depth. We spent three nights in San Blas before Justin decreed a departure of the next morning. After being in San Blas again after five years of absence, a few things are clear. It is still God-forsaken. The bugs are horrible, the dinghy landing on Mantanchen bay difficult and insecure. It is difficult to get into town and everything shuts down around noon.

There were some positives, however. The banana bread bakers on the road into Mantanchen beach were satisfactory, but could not live up to the hype. The jungle river trip by panga (16 foot fiberglass boats) also did not live up to the hype, but the swim in the fresh-water spring at the head of the river made the trip worthwhile.

The best time we had in San Blas, however, was listening to the ubiquitous 3/4 folk music on a very nice bus on the ride back to the beach after stocking up on fresh fish and vegetables at the market the morning of our departure for Chacala.

Isla Isabel

The sail to Isla Isabel was Dalia's first experience sailing at night and Justin's first experience being in charge on a night sail. We left Stone Island at noon for the 80-mile sail, expecting to arrive sometime in the morning if we averaged 5 knots and sometime in the afternoon if we averaged 3 knots. In the end, after sailing until midnight and then motoring the rest of the way (the wind normally dies here at night) we arrived at ten in the morning. Whales were everywhere jumping, diving and slamming their fins into the water.

We anchored the first night at the Monas, two rocky islets on the East coast of the island where there was great snorkeling with lots of fish, manta rays, sting rays, whales and interesting rock and coral formations. However, the anchorage is fairly open to the prevailing NW weather, and after a very rolly night we decided to head for the supposedly anchor-hungry South Anchorage.

In the South Anchorage we found a good sandy spot and we stayed there for five days. Isla Isabel is a bird sanctionary and is home to thousands of boobies and frigates. We walked around the island and we had to watch out because it was literally possible to step on a boobie nesting on the ground or get hit by frigate droppings from the shrubs overhead. There were so many baby birds everywhere, we felt we could eat some of them.


Also in the South Anchorage is a small seasonal fishing village. The fisherman were very friendly and we traded some of Justin's precious sauvicremas (a brand of chocolate wafer cookies) for four Red Snappers that were caught that morning. After hastily figuring out how to filet a fish, we ate grilled snapper for two days.

We met a good number of other cruisers here. Some we knew from Mazatlan (Lilly, Escapade, Dreamcatcher) and some new (Aboa, Eupsychia). It was nice that there was a steady stream of people through the anchorages, but it never seemed crowded.

We also experienced our first couple of breakdowns. One of our stanchions broke (we jury-rigged a splint to allow us to continue), the flopper stopper dropped into 25 feet of water after it chafed through 1/8" wire (it was recovered), and we had to reset our anchor to ensure it did not get fouled in the South Anchorage which is notorious for snagging anchors amongst its rock pinacles. We found this reputation mostly unfounded.

Dalia was seasick on the passage over which seemed to allow some other bug to infect her which is primarily why we stayed so long. The island was very secluded and peaceful, but as soon as Dalia was feeling better we were ready to move on and so set out for a long day-sail to god-forsaken San Blas.

Stone Island

We spent three nights at Stone Island, just outside the Old Harbour of Mazatlan, a short two hour motor from the marina. It was nice to finally be out of the marina, on our own (except for Lenahola) and on the beach.

We almost did not leave the marina at all after we found out our VHF antennae connection was corroded away. In the end, on the morning we were supposed to depart, Justin went up the mast and jury-rigged a connection so the radio would work well enough that we felt secure leaving.

The days were spent figuring out how to live on the boat. Washing dishes, cooking without access to a grocery store, taking showers and interacting only between ourselves were all activities we had to re-learn.



In addition, we both had to get used to the idea that the boat would always be moving, even at anchor on a well-protected beach. By the end of our stay at Stone Island, however, we were both ready to attempt our first big sail to Isla Isabel.

We're leaving!

Dalia arrived in Mazatlan on Dec 24 at 9 pm and due to some horrible weather in Montreal that morning her luggage didnt arrive with her. We were pleasantly surprised on Dec 25th when were woken from a afternoon siesta to the shouts of our neighbors on dock 6 informing us that the luggage had been delivered. On the 26 Justins vacation was over and it was back to work with a couple of smaller projects that we worked on together. Between christmas and when we left in January we reinforced the bow sprit, made a man overboard pole, installed the autopilot, changed the name of the boat and cleaned all the lockers in the boat (totally gross) among many projects. There is nothing like some gross manual labour to start a romantic honeymoon!

We went to a New Years celebration in Mazatlan with some people from the Marina. It was great to celebrate with everyone from the marina but we never thought that we would be celebrating the new year and the start of our honeymoon with a bunch of cruisers whose average age is 65, it was a fantastic evening!

A couple of days into the new year Gordon came to Mazatlan for a day sail on Steady Beat, he came bearing gifts, our flopper stopper (which we are thankful for) and two wide base mugs. We sailed over to Deer Island a short 30 minute motor from the Marina where we had a lovely bbq lunch and a short swim in the water.

Our final big project was to change the name of our boat on the transome. What started out as a small investigation by Justin turned out to be an eight hour (sans meals) effort to remove the wodden plaques off the transome. Our neighbors, Follow you, Follow me, were witness to this unplanned work fest and took some pictures (later they told us that this had provided much amusement to them ;). The hardest part of this project was choosing a font style and color for our new name that matched the boats style and our characters. In all the entire project (removing old name, choosing font and color and applying new name) took 4 days. On Friday we announced on the cruisers net that we would be having our re-naming ceremony that afternoon and everyone in the marina was invited. Next we had to buy the provisions for hosting this ceremony. That afternoon most of the cruisers were in attendence while Dalia said a few words to the God of the Sea Neptune and poured some champagne over the stern of Steady Beat. As all the attendees sipped on their champagne and nibbled on heart of palm and chipolte dip they wished us all the best on our honeymoon and with our marriage. This was our launch into the cruising world and it was very welcoming. It felt like our third wedding!

Before we left Mazatlan we experience a real cantina with our friends on Fancy Free (Moira and Bill), Slacker (Mike and Julie) and Kalinga (Joanne). We went to the shrimp ladies (shrimp sold out of buckets with ice on the street in downtown Mazatlan)and each bought 1/2 Kg of shrimp. We went to the cantina around the corner and gave the waitress our shrimp to be boiled. They bring us all sorts of salsa, limes and tortillas to eat with our shrimp. You can order your shrimp any way you would like, broiled, garlic, breaded etc.....but they dont charge you if you want them boiled! It seems that the Mexican men go to Cantenas during the siesta to drink beer and eat shrimp, no women hang out in these locations and at some women are banned. Note to the wise do not schedual surgery or car repaires after siesta, especially if your surgeon goes to the cantenas for lunch;) While having our lunch a band set up and started playing, it was the loudest and funniest thing we have heard. I have a video for those who want to experience the moment.

I forgot to mention that around Mazatlan Marina there are couple of cats, two of which Justin fell in love with...Linus and Luna. In the mornings on our way to the toilets we would be greated by them as they wait for Bob to feed them. Linus a couple of months older than Luna played with her and napped with her. Sometimes we would see them in the shade of a parked car with Linus's paws wrapped around Luna. When they were frisky you could see them climbing the plam trees and running after one another. The Marina is raising money in order to sterilise the cats.


After almost three months of sweat, blood and money, we are finally ready to leave. There are a few last minute things we are getting done before we head out tomorrow morning (VHF antenna connection, emergency water, tide tables, etc).

The plan is to head out to Stone Island, just outside the port here in Mazatlan for a day or two to make sure both we and the boat are ready to make our first overnight passage to Isla Isabella where we hope to see some boobies of the blue-footed variety.

There is of course, much more to say, but it is very late after a briefing with Mike and Julie aboard Slacker, and a lot to do tomorrow morning before we can head out. So more to come at our next stop.