Looking back on the last of our Mexican days in the sun

April 20 to May 4, 2009

Bahia Santiago and Las Hadas, Mexican Riviera and back to La Cruz and Puerto Vallarta

Bahia Santiago: 19 Degrees 06.61’ N, 104 Degrees 23.60’ W

It was Easter Friday as we pulled into Bahia Santiago on the Mexican Riviera. I could not identify with the word Riviera, until now. Around the bay on either side were steep cliffs on which beautiful whitewashed houses clung. The bay was blue, the beach a wide half-moon of beige-yellow sand, palapa eateries on either side of it, and in the middle smart villas with bougainvillea, palm trees, and a few condos. We came in as far as 25 feet and dropped the anchor. The waves crashed on shore. Music to my ears.

Of all things I played the Chieftans’ Santiago album: Pilgrimage to Santiago; Txalaparta, Arku Dance, El Besu, and Dueling chanters, Galician Overture, Gaudalupe, and Minho Waltz. Somehow this music made connection.

Throughout our stay we motored our little wooden dinghy, Zulu Dancer, into the beach every day--using the tiny outboard engine we bought in Santa Barbara for 2 bottles of wine-- braving the waves sometimes broadside on arrival, hitting the beach with a bump and clumsily landing, getting smiles from the Mexican families enjoying the sight.

The beach was wall-to-wall-to-wall with families under colorful umbrellas with coolers full of cold drinks. The tables were laden with chips, salsas, and vendor products such as clams, shrimp, sculpted mangoes, pineapples with papaya spears, ice creams, and horrific bright-colored candy floss. It was a colorful sight day after day: human beings lazing in the sun, encased in sand, swimming in the breakers, children shrieking with joy, young men singing along with Mariachi musicians. The Tequila bottle emptied. Money for music.

Then came Easter Sunday and all was dead quiet on the beach until late afternoon. Many families were in church. The Mexicans are devout Catholics. We enjoyed the sanctuary of the bay. Peace. Quiet. The birds sang.

This was our holiday too. At last we declared one. No work on the boat. No battling the barnacles. Swim every day. Shower at the beach. Have a late lunch at the Oasis restaurant on a huge deck under a wonderful shady palapa a stone’s throw from breaking waves. The light breeze always cooled us as we sipped margaritas and savored good food: shrimp in chili verde for Russ; salad greens with goat cheese, peppers, tomatoes, apples for me; hot corn pudding for us both. Watch the people, watching people.

Of course I have not photographed smog, burning garbage, excess garbage from campers along the lagoon that Russ saw. This is a one-side-of-the-street picture. No matter where we were though, the Mexicans and Mexican families were only gracious. Always there were smiles. No machismo.

Easter holidays on Santiago beach, Manzanillo: Mexican Riviera.

The Easter holiday beach scene: packed for two weeks.


Time for action from the man at the Ceviche cart: an order is coming up!


The tres Senors are one with the sun and sand: ZZZZzzzz time.

Vendor carts on the beach at Santiago bay. Up and down, up and down the beach they
push these carts until the sun goes down.


One of many well-designed houses on the beach front at Bahia Santiago.


Start with a Bohemian before lunch at the Oasis restaurant. I’m looking a little salty. Excuse
the plunge.


Russ engrossed in the written word as usual. Chicken fajitas take the sideline. He has one
of Garen’s sons’ shirts on that were discarded. Pretty fancy!


Zulu anchored in the background of Bahia Santiago: smoke plumes cause mucho, mucho pollution. Notice a lot of these pictures are hazy.


Twilight on Bahia Santiago.


A last sunset over Bahia Santiago, taken from the decks of Zulu after a long, long day on
the beach and a week’s stay. These last-day sunsets always tug at the heart. But there
are more to come.

Las Hadas: 19 degrees 06.06’ N, 104 degrees 20.67’ W

Las Hadas, one bay over, in amongst the fancy hotels was a switch! You could feel the Riviera. The Las Hadas hotel was an architectural sight to behold , as was the whitewashed Dolphin Cove Inn, and others hanging off the edge of the “cliffs” ablaze with bougainvillea. It reminded me a little of the Amalfi coast in Italy.

Easter holidays were happening here too, with lots of people enjoying themselves. There was nada happening at the office of immigration where we went to get our exit visa. “Come back Monday,” they said with a smile.

So in the mean time, I would swim in the calm clear water, find shade and read from Carl Safina’s Song for the Blue Ocean, and saunter up the long stairs to the Paradise restaurant at the Dolphin Cove Inn to sip on blackberry margaritas and enjoy corn chips with cilantro-tomato-onion salsa: scoop up the salsa with a chip, squeeze lots of fresh lime juice on it, pop it in the mouth, take a sip of margarita and look down on Zulu at anchor in waters blue. Feel the breeze. Breathe deeply and sigh with satisfaction. Is this a vacation or not?

Russ met me at the Paradise restaurant to watch the sun set. He had come back from the long dusty bus ride to the Capitania des Puerto’s office and other Russ-wanderings and walkabouts. His back was killing him. Resolve? Hey put an extra shot of tequila in his margarita. And then another in his second margarita at the 2- for-1 happy hour.

I would think rather a couple of ibuprofens with water would work, and then some yoga stretches, a rub with arnica cream, and a lie down with a pillow under the knees for support. My prescription did not sound good to Russ.

As the tequila got to work, he became more engrossed in discussing ideologies with an elderly (that’s what we are, I forget) women from Portland, who is living here and studying Spanish. Charlotte has been an elementary school teacher in Oregon; Texas; San Jose, Costa Rica etc., for many years. Her ex-husband was into mergers and acquisitions, and made a lot of money then went off with a young bimbo who is now spending his money like wild fire. The conversation was getting too deep for my light head. So I wondered down to a table on an outcropping of rocks close to the water to enjoy the sound of breaking waves.

After an hour of listening to the water, I see Russ emerging, back pain apparently gone, and ready for the dinghy ride out to our anchorage. Night has come. Usually he gets in first, then I do, then I put my beach basket in last as a safety net. This time it has my computer in it and the process should not have changed. But it did.In I get. Being a wooden dinghy, it rocks a bit on entry. Then I grab my basket with the precious computer and lay it on the bow seat. Next Zulu Dancer is rocking violently, the basket slides off to the edge, it hangs precariously, and I grab the handles. The boat rocks back and forth scarily!!!. It is going to overturn!!! Why? Guess who has fallen into the drink?

Russ, with his tequila cure, slips and falls into the water trying to get into the dinghy from the dock at the Las Hadas hotel. Then he hangs on to the side for dear life and brute forces himself into the boat from water level. This boat was on the verge of going over.

How did we ever make it back to Zulu anchored out? Crash land! Bob up and down. Rock back and forth. Grab the lines. Put the basket on board, pull myself up. Another Tylenol PM moment for me!!! I think I will lie down in my bunk with a pillow under my legs and think yoga and hug my computer!

Now from a dizzying height you get the feel of a Riviera.

Walk way to the Dolphin Cove Inn, where they serve delicious blackberry margaritas.

Restaurant Paradiso where Russ self prescribed additional tequila in his margarita for back pain. The lower tier with blue umbrella open is where I sought silence away from deep discussions to listen to the water.

Picturesque site of Zulu from the Restaurant Paradiso: second from left at anchor.

Approaching the Las Hadas hotel anchorage, outside their marina where smaller boats tie
up Mediterranean style. Quite the hotel design! We anchor outside.

Zulu lies to the left of the “fleet” at the Las Hadas anchorage. The early morning smog has
lifted . Until then, sadly you could not see these mountains! Thank goodness the wind
changes direction.

Close up of another section of the Las Hadas hotel.

The tame beach in front of the Las Hadas hotel. Good for kiddies.

La Cruz de Huanacaxtle: 20 degrees 44.94’N, 105 degrees 22.111’W.

The barnacle bee is up Russ’ bonnet. He’s been diving under the boat.

“The keel is laden, as is the backsplash area!”

“We have to go back to La Cruz and haul the boat out for a bottom paint job before going to the Marquesas.” He says with determination.

I give in and north we go, gunk holing into Tenacatita and Chemala, before reaching La Cruz.

The saving grace in re-anchoring at Tenacatita was that Chipper, my friend the dolphin with a chip out of his dorsal fin, came back to visit the boat. What joy! That night I leaned over to see where he was. There were schools of fish creating moving light under the water. When Chipper broke the water the fish broke too, creating a firework-like phosphorescent light show. Magic moments.

Coming into Chemala, one bay up from Tenacatita, I saw a seagull perched on top of something in the water. As Zulu approached the bird flew away. I could see it was a huge turtle. It got an adrenalin spurt as we passed by closely, and its short little legs were paddling fast forward! Its sweet wrinkled neck protruded for the high energy get away. How priceless an image.

We got to La Cruz at 3:00 AM local time. I scanned the shore through the binoculars for anchored boats. Not one to be seen. The shore was all alight. We dropped the hook. In the morning we awoke to about 20 anchored boats and a huge unmarked buoy. So much for the Nikon night visionless binoculars.

The haul out saga took many turns. Too many to log. We’ll haul out Monday, May 27. No we won’t because word has it the yard’s reputation is for skinning you alive.

Take the bus the long dusty route to Puerto Vallarta and get their story. Yes they can do it, but the local paint will not be compatible with what we have on the aluminum hull. Call Zaratoga, the marine store that supplies paint in Puerto Vallarta. Yes, they say there IS a compatability problem between Interlux 33 and Pettit Vivid. So get into Alturo’s Pontiac Firebird and zoom all over town looking for paint. Alturo, a young savvy, well built chap who does contract work at the yard brings his side kick along to translate. Juan is skinny with big black glasses on and a painters cap askew on his head. He is quiet and well mannered. Alturo is the cool cat fast mover.

Drive on the wrong side to avoid the speed bumps, halt a tourist in her tracks. “Mexican driver coming through,” Alturo says.

All to no avail: Interlux 33 does not exist here. Bump into Alturo’s brother in-law. He runs a delivery service of goods from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta. He might be able to get us the paint.
Call Ben Harris at Lake Union Boat Repair in Seattle and ask him to call the Interlux 33 rep. He does and the rep says there is NO compatibility problem with Pettit Vivid paint. Also that we still have about 6 more months of life on current bottom paint. We are now at the 360 degree information point. Full circle.

We will not haul out, rather get divers to scrub Barnacle Bills and sea grass off the hull. We will buy the Pettit Vivid paint at Zaratogas and haul out some place in the South Seas like Tonga or Fiji. That was the decision made with the first bird call.

Haul anchor outside La Cruz and come into the lovely new Marina, away from Puerta Vallarta’s dust and congestion. Tie up and breathe the cool air. Enjoy the showers and yacht club pleasingly furnished with computer hookups and WiFi. Have a cold beer looking over Banderas Bay. Breathe a sigh of relief.

Returning to La Cruz was not all frustratingly for naught. Celebrations for Cinque de Mayo start a week early. The little town of La Cruz put on its best show. And I left my camera behind to just enjoy. There were Patronales parades: young people who were dressed peasant like with peacock feather headdresses playing drums and walking in dance formation; followed by a brass band; followed by a red truck adorned with beautiful lily flower arrangements and with a real live people nativity scene; followed by townspeople (a lovely women beckoned me to fall into the formation); followed by two men shooting off rockets. Watch your heads!

There was a huge stage erected and free seating to watch wonderful Folkloric dancing: beautiful costumes and stories performed and music played, and the finale was a fiery Mardie Gras dance with bright, shiny, snazzy costumes, masks, and effigies on top of long poles.

The town’s people were dressed to the nines: especially the young women in tight pants or short skirts and high gold or silver shoes. Little children were excited. There was a Carnival set up and DJ doing the loud, loud, Mexican DJ thing. Block your ears. The sound is horrific.

A little girl in a beautiful white dress was crying loudly as her mother yanked her hand. Eventually she got the point across that her one fur boot had fallen off and she was being yanked with one boot on and one sock bare to the dusty ground.

The street food stalls were set up to sell BBQ’d pork, chicken, peppers, onions on tortillas. Tables were set on cobbled side streets surrounding the square: there were bowls of radishes, beans, cucumbers, salsas, different hot sauces. Deserts were fried bananas, flan, strawberry parfaits. A bar stand was set up on the dusty road. Everyone was so well behaved, respectful, enjoying themselves and others.

The cherry on the festive night was a fireworks display lighting the night sky at midnight. Eyes and smiles were big beholding it all. Ooooh. Aaaaah. Woooow. Forget about safety let the sparks fly. Boooom. Booooom Booooom.

Riding our dinghy back to Zulu, I carried images of some of the cruising people we have met so far and the characters swirled in my mind’s eye: Dan the buck-eared slight-of-frame single hander with a broken arm and small boat in great need of repair he was taking to Ensenada; Jerry from Juneau with projects so great they kept self perpetuating and who sold us the outboard engine for two bottles of wine; Elden from Portland who had no real destination in mind, and who was waiting for his girlfriend who had been hit by a car and had to have her leg amputated; Lester from South Africa on Freebird who is a single hander minimalist to the nth degree with no tooth and no interior in his steel-hulled boat, but who is self reliant as no one else can be and always carries a smile through his steel-gray eyes and who’s son had been tragically killed in a motorbike accident; Hal the Norwegian and Kathy from Portuguese-Irish stock born in Shanghai off the down-at-the heal catamaran from Canada who introduced us to the blackberry margaritas at the Dolphin Cove Inn, and whose figures were rounding out by the day from total relaxation and overindulgence; Katherine and Paul from Portland who felt so blessed the University of Washington doctors had successfully given Paul a new lung so he could live a few more years; Chakra, the beautiful red-haired Czech women and Eric with the professional glasses from San Francisco, well mannered, well informed, and well dressed; Adam from Maine with his delicate wife and sweetheart little girl, Lulu, who replanked the wooden boat from Turkey, later to find out the yard he did the job for reamed the boat owner to the point where he would not pay in excess of $40K on an unitemized $70K bill and so the troubles began and the boat sits high and dry in the yard; and so many, many more to include the well healed and tied-to-the-dock sorts and some from the mega motor yachts, who don’t normally associate with sailing yachtsman.

I carry two other images with me too, which I could not photograph. One of a woman framed in a cut-out section of a white wall watching the parade. The sun shone on the brilliant white wall and on her brown face and pale blue dress. She untied her long black braid and ran her fingers through her shiny hair, which fell around her shoulders framing a tired, lined face. She cupped her face in her hands, elbows supporting a portrait of all portraits captured only for the moment in time.

The other was of an indigenous Indian women and her small son in the busy streets of Buceria. She was slightly built, tiny, and had a colored cloth slung over her shoulder filled with her products for sale, and embroidered bags of all shapes and sizes hanging from her arms. She held her little son’s hand, who walked close by her side in the hot, hot sun. Both had a section of papaya in their free hands and were eating the delicious fruit off the skin as they walked, the yellow flesh of the fruit contrasting with the golden honey-brown skin of their hands and faces. Lips wet with nectar. Tired eyes showing energy refurbished. Enjoyment. Refreshment.

These images I carry across the miles to come, looking back on the last of our Mexican days in the sun, with so much more to come. Slowly the Sierra Madres mountains surrounding Banderas Bay disappear in the night. The ocean calls!

In crossing it I will remember Carl Safina’s words from Song for the Blue Ocean, his startling encounters along the world's coasts and beneath the seas...

The promise: that any honest inquiry into the reality of nature also yields insights about ourselves and the dramatic context of the human spirit. For each of us, then, the challenge and opportunity is to cherish all life as the gift it is, envision it as a whole, seek to know it truly, and undertake--with our minds, hearts, and hands--to restore its abundance. It is said that where there's life there's hope, and so no place can inspire us with more hopefulness than the great, life-making sea--that singular, wondrous ocean covering the blue planet.