Mazatlan, 1998   Holiday Season

Tuesday, November 24

We have been in Mazatlan since Saturday and it is a busy place especially after the peaceful passage sailing here from Aqua Verde on the Baja. The marina is of a size comparable to those in Southern California but all the many boats here have had to make the long passage to arrive. Most are planning on continuing south and some plan to head off to the South Pacific this season.

Bill and I start our first Spanish class today. The beginners all started yesterday but the instructor is trying to find enough advanced students so that we are not the only ones in the class. Sunday we went north to the beach at Cerritos. Bill enjoyed beer, reading and visiting in the palapa while I swam in the ocean with Amy, Fran’s (from Barnacle) granddaughter who is visiting along with her mother. Yesterday, Monday, we did the normal check in paperwork with Migration and the Captainia and then made a shopping run. First we visited the old town area to pick up a locally crafted Christmas gift for Bill’s mother and then we drove to the shopping center, a big US-style place, to pick up a few groceries. We have been real good since arriving, eating most meals on the boat and only a few in the great local restaurants.

Friday, November 27

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we had lots of activities here at the marina to celebrate. The day started out with a flag ceremony. The marina had finished the installation of flag poles especially for the occasion just the day before. The drum and bugle corps from the maritime academy here in Mazatlan started the ceremony off. Then the flags of the 8 nations represented among the cruisers here were raised simultaneously with the Mexican flag The US and Canadian flags were raised by the local Consulate officers and the other flags each by a boater from that country. The ceremony concluded with the Mexican National anthem followed by the drum and bugle corps marching out.

The day continued with the Thanksgiving Mass celebrated by a local padre who then rode in a panga throughout the fleet blessing all the boats, including our dingy that was on the dock next to Lanikai.

We had an afternoon full of games (horseshoes, dinghy and kayak racing, bridge) and then the turkey dinner at 3PM . The dinner was catered by a local restaurant and included all the proper ingredients for the meal including the turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and even candied sweet potatoes. Desert was pie, either pumpkin or apple. It was served at tables set up under huge shade tents in the parking lot and about 400 people ate. The dinner ended with an hour of Cuban music performed by a wonderful local band to which almost everyone danced. Many of the boats had dressed ship for the day so the marina was bright and colorful for the occasion and everyone seemed to be enjoying it. A picture of Lanikai made it to the local newspaper with the article summarizing the day’s events.

Friday, December 4

Another week has passed. Bill and I have been taking a Spanish class which is two hours each morning. It only lasts two weeks and we have two days left but in that time we have both refreshed our language skills. Bill’s Spanish, both speaking and understanding, is much better than mine but we both are getting closer to a useful grasp of the language. We have also activated the TV and try to watch an hour each evening to increase our understanding.

Bill got the hatch installed in the aft cabin over our bed to increase the air flow in that area. It is the first of many projects that we plan to accomplish while here in Mazatlan. The anchor chain has also been sent off to Culican to be galvanized.

Last night we attended the first Christmas party of the season. It was at an apartment rented by ex-cruisers in the old section of town and held on the rooftop of that building. We had a great view of the sunset and moonrise while we listened too and sang with other cruisers who had brought instruments and played for us.

Today the cruisers attended the shrimp festival which was more like a marine trade show. We picked up some literature from several local businesses that provide services to boaters, then spent the rest of the afternoon listening to bands that had been invited to play.

Monday, December 7

This last weekend was a busy one. Saturday night one of the local restaurants came to the marina and provided margaritas and hors d’oeuvres for the cruisers here. It was all provided free.

Sunday, Fran and I took off in the early afternoon to so some grocery shopping. We took most of the afternoon exploring the shopping center, purchasing food at the supermarket and then driving over to Sam’s Club for more looking and purchasing.

The wind really picked up from the NW today and the temperature dropped. At least three boats were caught out in the Sea of Cortez making the crossing from the Baja and had a wild time of it. Two of the boats could not make the course to Mazatlan and ended up far south in the San Blas area. One boat, Tiama, arrived here this morning after hand steering for over a day because their autopilot broke in the rough conditions. They all arrived at their destination safely but very tired.

Thursday, December 10

Last night the restaurant "Rock and Salsa" threw their margarita party for us cruisers here. The food was great and they served both margaritas and rum punch. There was a light but cold northerly wind blowing through the party. Heavy sweatshirts and jackets, with shorts of course, were the dress of the day. It has been cold for about three days now.

Tuesday evening we drove into town for the evening. First there was dinner at El Tunel, which was both cheap and yummy. This was followed by a evening of Beatles music in memory to John Lennon. It was performed by the Youth orchestra and it was good as long as we listened from behind their back or from several blocks away. Per usual they had the amps set a might too loud for my ears.

The north wind picked up again this morning and we had a cool wind blowing all day. Long pants are even beginning to appear among the cruisers. The locals still claim that this weather is most unusual. Bill and I went to the Gold Zone, the tourist area, for lunch and in spite of the cool weather tourists from the US were swimming in the rough sea.

Sunday, December 13

The wind finally died yesterday and it was a beautiful sunny warm day. We attended the Christmas Gala Ballet at the old downtown theater last night. The two leads were dancers from the Mexico City Ballet and were very good. The rest of the dancers were recruited from the ballet schools here and were obviously amateur but still good. The costuming was great and there were enough dancers to fill the large stage. It was very pretty and fun. They performed selections from "A Midsummer Nights Dream" and from the "Nutcracker Suite", both lively, colorful and fun.

Today is even warmer which is good since Debbie and Greg from Tiama are tying the knot on a little knoll overlooking the sea this afternoon.

Later: The wedding was a delightfully fun affair performed by a local justice in Spanish with the English translation done by our neighbor Joe from Valkyrie. The setting was at the El Cid hotel, just inside the entrance channel with view of the sea north and south of the channel. We all returned to Marina Mazatlan to celebrate with the newly married couple in grand Mexican fashion. Great pina coladas, cervesas, taquitos, and a large moist cake were served at tables set up under the typical shade tents. Actually we all got to watch the construction of the shade tent which occurred after we were already seated at the tables and was then moved over the tables after it was up.

Turkey dinner on Barnacle finished out the day.

Thursday, December 17

Last night we attended our second performance at the old Angela Peralta Theater downtown. This performance was Folk dancing with some interesting dance interpretations of Sinaloa (the Mexican state that Mazatlan is in) workers, fisherman and miners. We ate dinner before the performance at El Tunel again. This is one place still serves great local cuisine in spite of lots of tourist traffic. Earlier in the day the marina had organized a trip to the Cruise ship terminal and we all got to see where the "other type of cruiser" gets off their boat: lots of vendors with prices about twice what they are downtown.

Monday was a day of planning for us. We looked at the "to do" list and spent some time driving around finding local workers to help us out. Tuesday, Bill played with the wind speed indicator. After a trip up the mast we had the sender on the table to play with. It refused to fail while sitting on the table next to its meter. After a little cleaning, we re-installed it up top and are now waiting for wind to check it out. At this point, Bill feels that the failure is not in the sender at the top of the mast but in the meter in the cabin.

Saturday, December 19

Last night the cruisers were treated to a Posada, a Mexican Christmas tradition. The Posadas are performed for the 9 nights preceding Christmas and are small plays based on the Nativity theme performed by costumed talent Then everyone, carrying candles, follows the actors for the ritualized knocking at doors and singing. They are turned away at the first two doors with more singing and finally the third one opens and everyone is invited in. A pinata is broken followed by eating and partying. This one, organized for our benefit, was called "El Lobo de Belen" ("The Wolf of Bethlehem") and was very well performed by some friends of Mario, the marina captain. Four pinatas (full of candy for the kids) were broken to celebrate the season. We then roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over a fire to go with the hors d’oeuvres that we had all contributed. All in all it was another wonderful evening in Mazatlan.

Today we got our two strands of Christmas lights up outside and then greeted our friends from Paradise and Irie who finally arrived here in Mazatlan. Tomorrow we will finish the decorations by hanging our two Christmas flags.

Thursday, 24 December

Yesterday I baked the turkey and invited Barnacle and Valkyrie over for our hot turkey Christmas dinner. Tonight the cruisers are all going out to a restaurant and tomorrow there is an afternoon potluck so I decided to cook the bird early so to have cold turkey to take to the potluck.

Monday I went into town with Manuela and Karen from Paradise and Irie. We had a wonderful time exploring the shopping areas in town and then stopped in the Gold Zone (tourist area) for more. We left the boats soon after morning coffee and did not return until 5PM. The guys had thought that we had gotten lost but we were just enjoying ourselves in the many shops. We actually ended up purchasing very little but sure had fun looking!

Tuesday we went for a sail on the square rigged boat Spirit of Chemanius that currently is running charters from here. We took pick up truck taxies to the main harbor and then on a panga out to the anchored boat. Our group was cruisers and a few trailer park friends and the boat was full with 47 of us. We motor sailed (with main, stay’sl and jib) out to the islands off the beach and then pulled up two of the square sails for the sail back south to the harbor. There was a nice breeze blowing and the sea had a nice roll to it. Bill and I received permission to climb up and sit on the "top" of the foremast (a platform about half way up the mast) for a while. Quite a view from up there and quite a bit of motion from the rolling of the vessel. We enjoyed it for a time before returning to the deck and joining the rest of the passengers drinking the beer and margaritas provided. We returned to the anchorage about 3PM and were back to Lanikai in time for a short nap before catching a bus into town for dinner at El Tunel.

Friday, Christmas Day 1998

We had a very enjoyable dinner last night with a large group of cruisers at a local restaurant, "Rock-n-Salsa". It was a special Christmas dinner which included an open bar and music for dancing as well as the large dinner. It sure seemed more like a New Years Eve party than Christmas but it was loads of fun and we get to do it again in another week.

This morning our coffee group was smaller and later than usual but one of the members had brought a fruit plate and I made my traditional Christmas bread so we stayed longer than usual. Many cruisers managed to get phone calls made to relatives but the lines were their usual holiday busy.

Mid afternoon we went over to Sea Witch to celebrate Christmas with Jeff and Gail and about 14 other friends. It was a grand potluck with more than enough great food and lots of great conversation. We (again) met Tony from Veritas who we had originally met in Eureka Calif. 2 ½ years ago on our way south to San Diego. He was a fire chief at the time, lived on his boat in the marina and was a great help to cruisers passing through. We also chatted with two other cruisers that had made the trek to the Queen Charlotte Islands; about two years after we had made the trip.

Tuesday, December 29

The last two days were sewing days for me. I made us two new shade tarps. One to shade the front dodger windows and one to shade the aft of the cockpit. I also made a cover for the porta-boat to protected it from the sun while it is stored along the lifelines and a cover for the radar dome to protect the plastic there too.

Sunday there was an afternoon "duck nog" party on dock 6. The nog was very good and fluffy and many of us enjoyed the afternoon sun, drinking and visiting on the dock. The days are still nice and warm but the nights are cooling off into the high 50s; we are glad that we kept one of our small heaters stowed on board.

Thursday, December 31

Yesterday we awoke to fog. A layer of it had descended upon the harbor shrouding all in a surreal mist. It disappeared by 10AM, returned in the evening but was gone this morning. Yesterday Bill removed the leaky deck vent above the stove and I began to fill in the hole with epoxy. Bill also fixed a sight tube for the main water tank so that we will have some indication of how full it is and when to run the water maker.

Tonight the cruisers had made arrangements with the same restaurant where we had celebrated Christmas Eve for our New Years Eve celebration. It was again a great dinner with an open bar from 8PM to midnight and music for dancing. The music was a little loud for visiting, but we had a interesting couple at the table with us. They were back in the US after 10 years of cruising Mexico and the Pacific. They shipped their boat back to San Francisco from New Zealand and had moved back into a house just 2 months ago. Currently they were in Mexico to attend a wedding of children of Mexican friends met while cruising here years ago. Bill and I had a wonderful evening and returned to the marina about 1AM. We then joined a party in progress on Rigo on our dock and finally returned to Lanikai about 2:30AM.

Saturday, 2 January 1999

Savili and Le’Zarder sailed in to Mazatlan on New Years Eve and anchored in the main harbor. Yesterday we picked them up at noon to take them out to see the town. After a late lunch at Panama’s and a quick trip to the Gran Plaza shopping mall, we drove here to the marina before returning them to their harbor after dark.

Barnacle headed out today for points south and it is strange to have their slip empty; we’ll miss them. In the next few weeks many of the boats will be heading south; some will return in the spring and others will continue south or head out into the Pacific. For us, today was another project day. Bill did some maintenance on the car and I sanded and got paint on the new patch where the stove vent had been.

Tuesday, January 5

Sunday Bill drove and Judith (from Savili), Francis (from Le’Zarder) and I went grocery shopping. We spent over and hour in each of the three large superstores that we shopped in. The Gigante was by far the largest and Sam’s Club had the usual large size packages for that type of store and then we ran into the Commercial in the mall for things missed at the other two. We also ate a late lunch in the mall’s food court. Bill joined us for lunch but the rest of the time he spent just reading in the car. Today Savili and Le’Zarder moved over to the marina and Wayne started dismantling Savili’s sick engine for repair.

Friday, January 8

The last few days have been more project days on the boat. Bill picked up the new fuel tank for the genset on Wednesday and lots of little brass fittings for it. Yesterday we got boards epoxied to the inside of the hulll for attaching the tank and today he hopes to get it all installed, after another trip for more brass fittings. The tank feeds fuel to the genset by gravity and thus ends 2 ½ years of frustration with small air bubbles in the fuel caused by the electric pump. We also installed some reflective sun film onto our windows to help cut down on the radiant heating during the summertime.

I did take one day off, Wednesday, to go exploring and shopping in town with Judith and Francie. We did not spend much money but had a great time and returned tired to the boats at dinnertime with only a few new goodies.

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