Hasta Luego Banderas Bay- Hello Mazatlan

2-27-13 – Mazatlan, Sinaloa, MX (Almost)

One last look at the anchorage at Punta Mita

How nice! and a great lunch underway.

They say that one of the best and worst parts of cruising is meeting all the new people, and then having to say goodbye too soon.  I’m a firm believer in not really saying final goodbyes as you depart, as plans change and this world of cruisers in Mexico is pretty small, so you never know who you’ll see again.  Hence Hasta Luego or until next time, seems to fit.  We have finally released ourselves from the time vortex that is Banderas Bay and are making the bash North to Mazatlan (18 miles to go).  Not that the time vortex of Banderas Bay is all that bad, we had a great time, but due to many reasons we need to keep moving and do some more adventuring before our time is up.  Being some of the first to leave Banderas Bay has had its advantages.  It seems everywhere you leave you say goodbye (or hasta luego) to your friends, and we want to have dinner one last time, or one last beer, margarita, surf or whatever.  Either way we’ve had a lot of fun the last few weeks, sort of saying goodbye as we move out of the bay.  Even our pal/owner of Mita’s Pizza, Nicole, left us a nice goodbye note.  The night before we left we went to Mita’s Pizza for a last dinner with some friends and we ordered an extra pizza to take with us for lunch the next day underway.  Come lunch time the next day we open up the box and find a nice note from her on the inside; a great way to brighten up a long upwind day.

On a side note, while we have seen so many whales lately they are almost common place, we saw one up close the other day while visiting with s/v Destiny, an 84 foot schooner, once borrowed by the US government to look for submarines during World War II among other things (so it’s very cool).  Being as big as they are, they usually end up at the back of the anchorage.  We were visiting and we saw yet another whale baby breaching over and over again.  Almost not a thing anymore we see it so often.  But the baby and mom were heading towards Destiny and they just kept on coming closer and closer until we were all holding onto the rails waiting for impact.  One picture actually has our dinghy tied to Destiny in the picture with the whales.  Now that’s close!  We all had a good time with that and watching the pictures on the big screen downstairs afterwards.  Like I said it’s a cool boat.

Elizabeth on our way to San Blas

Our trip North has not been without adventure.  Nothing serious but that’s why they call it a bash.  The forecast has been right on at least, with winds of 12 to 20 knots from the NW and 3-6 foot swells.  Unfortunately, we need to go northwest, so there have been some frustrating moments over the last three days.  We left Punta Mita under grey skies and more wind than we wanted, but it all turned out ok as the skies cleared and the wind came around just enough to make it usable for the last half of the day.  We entered the huge Mantanchen Bay a little after dark to find little white lights blinking every so often in random locations.  Pangas with fishing lines stretched out behind them.  There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to where or in what direction they place their lines, so you just have to guess and match up the blinking light at the end of the line you think goes with the solid light of its matching panga.  

Moonlight over Mantanchen Bay

Sunset over the Pacific enroute to Mazatlan

We guessed wrong, and ran one over.  We heard it and put the engine in neutral and from what we can tell slipped over it; but we did feel bad about his line.  Not sure what to do about it, maybe tie a beer to the cut line with a note saying sorry?  The next morning we had to dodge a few lines on the way out, but we guessed right that time.  Somewhere along the line on our trip from San Blas to Mazatlan, a 130 mile overnight passage, Elizabeth discovered that there was oil leaking from the engine somewhere.  We were already going nowhere, beating into the wind and swells and dodging shrimp boats, so we shut down the engine to investigate.  It appears that there is a faulty oil filter to blame, not exactly sure yet as I made the executive decision not to fix it underway, oil is really hot when the engine is running,  it wasn’t dripping too bad and I figure I added at least a little extra oil when I changed it last week in La Cruz.  Should be good for another 25 hours of motoring, right?  After all this our spirits were a little low, trying to find a sail combination, motor combination that would actually allow us to go in the direction we wanted without almost doubling the miles traveled was proving to be very difficult.  That’s when a little good karma paid off and all those quarters and pesos Elizabeth has been tossing overboard to Neptune came in handy as we saw a couple of our first dolphins in a while, and then an OWW gull circled us a few times (courtesy of our friends on s/v Shindig I’m sure)  After that things seemed to pick up and we figured out the magic go upwind solution (more throttle!) and carried on.  An easy dinner of beans and hotdogs as a result of the upwind bash, a night spent with the company of my new piggy timer, fluffy pancakes for breakfast under a sunny sky and calm (er) ocean, and a lot of motor sailing.  I guess that’s why they call it a bash.

Brian hanging out with 1st mate - Piggly

Where Piggly hides out when it gets rough

Afterward:  I guess you figured out we made it.  Even though after all that way the entrance to the channel was sketchy with little breaking waves every so often.  Two days later still haven’t looked at the engine, maybe it has fixed itself…That’s todays project.

PS: I suppose unless you've spent many hours trying to stay awake, staring mindlessly out at the ocean, trying not to hit stuff in the middle of the night you wouldn't understand that Piggly is a little egg timer we set to go off every so often so you know to look around and record where you are in the world.  Oddly enough I look forward to his ringing so I have something to do in the middle of the night.