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.