Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
03/05/2003 - 04/07/2003
The Banderas Bay Regatta begins. Whisper is on the sidelines watching the action. We were one of only a few spectator boats. Robin says "we should've raced!"
The impressive whale sculpture in front of Neptune Plaza at Marina Vallarta.
"Welcome Home"
As we rounded Cabo Corrientes and entered Banderas Bay, we began calling MR Destiny to let them know we were on our way in to anchor at La Cruz. Our reservation at Paradise Village started on the 10th, so we thought we would be at anchor for at least a few days.
"Whisper, Whisper, this is Dick". Dick Markie, the Paradise Village harbormaster heard us calling MR Destiny and decided to proactively hail us. "When are you planning on coming in?". We explained that our reservation was scheduled for the 10th, but that we would like to get in earlier. Dick indicated that if we could get to the harbor entrance before 3:30 PM, we would be able to get in before low tide -- he closed with "Welcome Home". We bumped up our engine speed and made it into the marina by 2:30 PM.
Robin, Lara, and Todd get the tour of Paradise Village, a beach day, and an ice cream to top it off!
During our first week in PV, we headed inland to the central and western highlands of Mexico. Please be sure to see our side trip log for Colonial Mexico.
Our return to PV brought us together with many friends and reminded us of the pleasure of spending lazy days on the beach. Unfortunately, we were so busy in PV, we saw only a few beach days.
Friends Todd and Lara visited for a week, staying with us through the Banderas Bay Regatta. Todd brought along a replacement depth sounder and his skill as the primary outfitter of Whisper. Todd insisted on working while he was on vacation, installing the depth sounder, troubleshooting the genset, and performing a rig tuning.
The Paradise Village and the beachfront "palapas". Personal sun shades that invite us to camp out for the day. Waiters bring us lunch, snacks, and our beverage of choice.
The War Begins
When we were not working, we relaxed, had fun, and kept track of war events.
Paradise Village offers international cable at the dock -- including several movie channels and international CNN. Duncan became obsessed with his daily fix of CNN coverage for the first 2 weeks of the war.
We've had several lively discussions with other cruisers (mostly US and Canadian) about the war. There is spirited debate and a full range of views, but all seem to hope for closure and a better world afterward. Something we do all agree on!
Todd "the Intrepid". Our great day sail during the regatta provided an opportunity to secretly "race".
Banderas Bay Regatta
We were a bit intimidated by the "race" atmosphere of the Banderas Bay Regatta. Neither of us have seriously raced before and the talk of ratings, handicaps, racing rules, and politics kept us on the sidelines as observers.
We decided to daysail the first two days of the regatta and watch the racing action from outside the course. By the end of the 3 days, we learned our initial concerns about "racing" were unfounded. Even Whisper could have made a showing in this regatta.
After watching the race on the first day, we headed over to the La Cruz anchorage to spend the night.
Ding Dang Dinghy
Todd inflated the dinghy so we could head in-shore for dinner at Papacito's restaurant.
Our Avon 280 roll-away dinghy once again displayed its temperamental nature. The inflatable keel that had a small leak, is now suffering a broken valve and will not hold air at all. We discovered a small scratch in the bow that caused a small air leak, and the floor does not stay put -- sliding forward 4 inches in the bottom of the dinghy. Although we still believe in the utility of a roll-away, we have definitely accepted some compromises with this one! We'll need to find a new valve up the road somewhere.
Papacito's in La Cruz
Our main goal in La Cruz was to arrive at Papacito's early enough that we could arrive without dinner reservations, but still get a seat for dinner and enjoy the music. A well known pair of local Flamenco guitarists were scheduled to entertain the packed house. We met up with MR Destiny and other friends that had come up from PV on the bus. Although we were at the back of the venue, it was a GREAT night and we'll need to return again next season!
During Todd and Lara's visit, we also took a trip to the Zona Romantico in downtown PV and spent at least one full day hanging out on the beach. We had a great time and survived (actually enjoyed!) our longest-yet "guests on-the-boat" visit.
Bingo Again! proved its capability as their class winner and overall regatta winner.
Trimmers Lara and Duncan enjoy the beautiful sailing day on Banderas Bay.
The first race of the Banderas Bay Regatta -- one of the downwind legs.
Todd "the rigger" gives Whisper a rig tune. The construction crane in the background frequently swoops over his head.
A "workday" on the boat.
Note the extensive construction of the new condos right next to the marina. The dust was a bit much, but we did get a 10% discount on berthing!
Dock Party!
Several boats were getting ready to leave PV to head north and cross over to the Baja side in the Sea of Cortez. MR Destiny hosted a pot-luck dock-party that included friends from Spirit Wind, Avalon, Francis V., Tavana, Whisper, and others.
Most of these boats did leave and as of this writing, are all safely on the inner-Baja side of the Sea of Cortez. Tavana is staying put in Puerto Vallarta for now, and MR Destiny is up in Mazatlán with us.
Time to get busy -- no more goofing off!
Since our first week in PV was an inland trip, and our second week was a friends week, we fell a bit behind on some of our intended PV tasks. Now that everything was getting back to normal (and after one goof-off beach day), it was time again to look at the to-do list. Much of the work we have others do, but it takes some time to schedule the work and in some cases help.
One of the major tasks was to figure out how we were going to get our Mexican Visa's renewed. They expire in mid-April, and without a trip back to the states to get another 180-day permit, we needed to get our "FM-3" or "annual Visa" for Mexico. We needed bank statements, a Mexico residence address, mug-shot photos, and a bunch of other puzzle pieces to get the process going. We used an agent and the whole process was fairly painless except for the long afternoon at immigration (forms, fingerprints, signatures).
We used the same Agent to get our 10-year Temporary Import Permit (TIP) for Whisper, and to perform our PV Port Capitan check-in and check-out. The TIP is inexpensive and will [allegedly] allow us to import replacement parts for Whisper without getting gouged with the severe import duty. It required a Customs inspection of the boat and (in our case) a few trips to Customs. We got the TIP just before leaving PV.
After admiring some varnish work on nearby boats, we hired Armondo and his brother to do our varnish work. Duncan disassembled all of the molding and trim pieces and started masking. Armondo and brother did the actual sanding and 2-coats of varnishing. When they were finished, Duncan re-assembled the boat and cleaned up. Unfortunately, on the day of the second and final coat, the up-wind construction site decided to put in landscaping. Large dump-trucks full of landscape dirt powdered the fresh varnish with dust particles. Oh, well, we'll fix that mañana.
Jose on trip one of four up and down the mast. 12 hours later we had a clean, polished, and waxed mast, boom, and rigging.
During our work week, we had the bottom cleaned and the zinc checked by a local diver.
Jose, the marina's very reliable and industrious "boat guy", cleaned the mast, boom, and rigging -- then polished and waxed the rig. We also had Jose wash and chamois the boat dry a couple of times during our stay.
We received another quote on some simple canvas repairs we needed on our sun-awning. Instead of the $360 US we were quoted on our last PV visit, the nice young lady at Full Sail Canvas Design did the work for just over $100 US. A much better price and completed in less than 2 days!
Pedro Sr. -- our Capitan for the day. His son, Pedro Jr. tends to the bow. See this video for the entire gang!
Okay, just a bit more goofing off -- A palapa in Yelapa...
Is better than a condo in Redondo -- or so the saying goes. We decided to go check out the small village of Yelapa for ourselves.
Greg on Tavana negotiated a decent price to get a panga to take eight of us to the small south Banderas Bay-side village of Yelapa for a whole day.
On the 18 mile trip over we saw several turtles, feeding bonito, and a huge breaching whale! The whale was about a mile away, but it breached (launched itself about 1/2 way out of the water and splashed back down) at least 10 times. This was an amazing sight. In Yelapa, we had lunch on the beach, hiked to some nearby waterfalls, and headed back to PV before sunset.
Is Robin always smiling? Well, yeah.
Duncan modeling his cool orange life preserver!
The quiet beach in Yelapa. Small resorts, a few restaurants, and a fishing village. The simple life.
The gang gathers for lunch. Man those margaritas were strong!
On the river and waterfall hike, we discovered the local laundry service uses the river for its water!
Although the waterfall was just a trickle, the setting was beautiful. Frank is standing by the restroom center-photo and Susan descends the trail in the foreground.
Telephone booths, Mexican Style.
The view into the "parking lot". The village commuters park their pangas here.
Time to head home after a great day in Yelapa.
Time to get busy again!
Okay, so we goofed off for a day, but we needed to get back to work again.
We tried to get a stainless steel pole ordered and fabricated for our sun-awning. After 4 days and an email indicating they were having trouble getting the necessary tubing in from Guadalajara, we got our money back and will come up with another plan. The experience was fun because of the language barrier. Everything needed to be translated, sketched out, and verified before they would estimate or agree to take the job.
"Teapot Tony" contorts in the back of the engine room (behind the Volvo!) to check the head bolt torque and valve clearances on the genset
"Teapot Tony", a local diesel mechanic worked with us to examine the valve clearances on both the auxiliary and genset diesel engines. When Todd was here, he looked at it. Todd recommended we check the valve clearances on the genset to see if the "sooty exhaust" might be a result of inaccurate valve clearance settings. Tony found the settings to be correct, but then discovered a significant restriction (a funnel of soot & carbon) in the genset muffler. The resulting back-pressure could be the reason our genset engine has been running so "dirty".
Tony also indicated that any major work on the Volvo would require several special tools. Since we had not examined the shop service manual in detail before leaving, it was clear that we that neither Teapot Tony nor Whisper had the tools required to perform simple adjustments on the Volvo.
This was unexpected. We will suggest to Hallberg-Rassy that they offer a set of these "required tools" to cruisers that will be outside the range of a Volvo certified dealer or diesel technician.
Robin tries to find places for all the the beverages. We did a major beverage provisioning in PV.
Paradise empties!
April is a month of change in the Mexico cruising community. Many cruisers head back to their homes in the U.S. and leave their boats somewhere in Mexico over the summer. Most people need to get their boats above 27 degrees north latitude between 6/1 and 11/15 -- above the hurricane belt and where their insurance will keep them covered. Another set of folks stay year around -- living on their boats in the Marina while taking time to travel in Mexico or elsewhere.
Dozens of boats head up into the Sea of Cortez, about two dozen head to Hawaii or the South Pacific. We counted almost two dozen boats that headed south toward Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and the Panama Canal.
Some folks put their boats on "float ships" that ferry their boats to the Mediterranean, Florida, or Victoria Canada. A couple of cruisers we met here in Mexico left their boats here, then fly to France to spend the summer on their canal boat -- exploring the canals of France all summer. Hmmm, we really like that idea!
Another group heads north along the Baja on their "bash" back to California, or the Canadian west Coast for the summer.
Whisper is off to Mazatlán!
We have left Puerto Vallarta and are now back in in Mazatlán. We will probably have a short Mazatlán update in a few weeks, but we are really anxious to head over toward La Paz and the islands north of La Paz. La Paz is on the inside of the Baja peninsula at the southern end of the Sea of Cortez.
If the weather calms (currently high winds and seas directly on the bow), we will head toward the Baja by 4/20. This will be our last major log entry for at least a few weeks. As we head into the Sea of Cortez, we will be updating our position reports and the short text associated with each position report. We will also be available via the Contact Us page if you want to touch base via email. We receive "Contact" notes daily and usually reply within a couple of days.