Tasty Coincidences

1-14-13 – Punta de Mita, Nayarit, MX

As you may remember from past blogs, we believed that we drank the last good beer in Mexico a while back.  This was especially hard on Elizabeth as she really likes good beer and there is none to be had here in Mexico.  Me on the other hand; I certainly miss my good beer that we had become accustomed to in the States, but let’s be honest; I’ll get by with whatever you’ve got.  So Pacifico and Modelo it is, with the occasional treat of a Bohemia or a Negra Modelo.  We have actually discussed where we should go in the States to potentially get our Visas renewed, and the decision mostly revolves around where a good brewery is.

Punta de Mita

As you can see from the SPOT tracker map (last post or on the right) we have come up from Punta Ipala to Punta de Mita and are spending a few days here.  It’s a large anchorage that we are comfortable in.  We’ve been here before and know what to expect.  This time we dropped the hook waaay out from the beach just to have no conflict with anyone else and sleep good.  I get the binoculars out to see who is around us and what do you know; there’s s/v Willow off out port bow.  Willow, an awesome little Pacific Sea Craft Orion 27, (or Wendy the lady who is single handing her down the coast) was a friend of a friend we met on the Baja Ha Ha.  We had talked to Willow over the VHF on our trip South and we saw her pull into Cabo San Lucas, but never met her.  Then in San Jose del Cabo we had dinner aboard s/v Alcyone and Willow was there as well.  We had a nice dinner and then went our separate ways.  300  miles and six weeks later; there she is bobbing at anchor right in front of us.  Another case of “It’s a small world”.  We eventually made it over to say hi and get reacquainted as we would be hanging out behind her for a few days.

Me, Elizabeth, Francois, & Ken on s/v Mariah

Next “It’s a small world” moment:  As we are talking to Wendy one afternoon a boat comes sailing into the anchorage and we see that it is s/v Mariah.  We know him and he sees Autumn Wind, but we are not on her.  He then coincidentally passes close enough to Willow to see us and Wendy.  We wave etc.. and he goes to anchor.  We met Ken on s/v Mariah in the California Delta for the Delta Doo Dah many months ago when we had first left the dock back in California.  Since then we had seen him on the Ha Ha but didn’t stay in touch.  Then, same story here, there he was.  He had single handed straight from La Paz and after four days out he pulled into this anchorage at the exact time we were sitting in out dinghy talking to Wendy.  Interesting to say the least.

Happy Elizabeth with her IPA

So none of this is really the story.  Later in the week Ken made his rounds and asked many of the people in the anchorage over for happy hour and a surf movie.  We of course accepted and also told Wendy we would pick her up in our dinghy for the ride over to Mariah since she hadn’t launched her dinghy yet; and these dinghy things are sort of a pain to put together and get in the water.  Wendy had taken the liberty of reading our blog and when we showed up she casually leans over and produces a cold California brewed 22oz micro brewed IPA of all things.  We probably looked like little kids on Christmas getting our first bike from Santa.  We had all but written off ever having a good beer, let alone a good IPA – Elizabeth’s favorite, until we went back to the states.  The people who own Island Brewing Company were friends of Wendy’s and before she left they had given her a six pack of these little beauties.  She had been saving them for special occasions and now 2 months later she gave us her last one.  The beer was delicious and I must recommend Island Brewing Company in Carpentaria, CA.  somewhere in Southern California, near Santa Barbara I think. Next time we are in the area; who knows when; we will definitely be looking them up to say hi.  If they give beer to cruisers then they must be good people.  Needless to say we were happy sailors and we had a nice get together.  So there were a lot of coincidences that lead to a very happy moment for us.