Letter-12    March 15, 2001

It's time for an update again. 

Chacala: Back in Chacala again, we had a nice visit once again. We only planned to stay a couple of days, but it took longer than that. Trinda wanted to go to Tepic to see the Weshol Indians and their wares. The first day we got to the taxi stand too late to make the trip. From Chacala, you must take the colectivo taxi to Las Varas. It is a little cowboy and farming community of about 10,000 people. It is 10 pesos for the 20 minute ride the 8 km to town. The colectivo drops you off a block from the main bus terminal on highway 200. From there you catch the Puerta Vallarta-Tepic bus to Tepic. It is 78 km to Tepic and 85 km to PV.  It took 1 1/2 hours for the ride. Tepic is up on the plateau. There is lots of farming in the neighborhood, mostly sugar cane. There is a large cane processing plant in Tepic. It is a town of about 300,000 and is the capital of the state of Nayrit. I noticed that the bus from here on to Nogales, Arizona is about $900 pesos, or around $100 US.

The bus terminal is about 15 blocks from the main town square. We caught a small bus marked Centro. It was 2 more pesos and 10 more minutes to the square. I was impressed with how clean the city was. The bus let us off in front of the Palace Municipal. It looked like an old building, but the plaque inside said 1952. Across the square was an old church. It seemed to be about an 1850's church. Friar Junipero Serria planned the Baha and Southern California Missions here and started from here to build them. 

Trinda found the Indians around the square and made a few purchases! We had come with two other couples, so we walked across town to another square, lined with government buildings. Most seemed to have had recent face-lifts. The ceilings were painted with a pictorial of Mexico's history. It was really pretty.

We had lunch in a hotel restaurant on the square. We walked back and caught the buses all the way back to Chacala with 10 minutes to spare at each bus stop! It was the last colectivo  back to Chacala at 4:00pm. 

We meet Trinda's Spanish teacher, Triney and her family here again. We invited them for a day sail. She teaches Spanish to Americans and English to Mexicans until noon eaxh day, so we left about 1:00. There was almost no wind, finally about 10 knots, so it was a real nice and easy introduction for them. Trinda and Triney made grilled cheese sandwiches for us all while Cundo and their oldest son, Gustov steered the boat under sail. I think they had a good time. Cundo is involved with the fishing co-operative, so he had to be back early. As we approached the bay and I attempted to start the motor to anchor, it wouldn't start! I thought that it was a low battery, so I turned the battery switch to both batteries so it would start. Still nothing. It sounded as if it had liquid in the cylinder head! We just left the sails up and sailed back into the same spot we were anchored before. We had a beer and I worried about the motor for a while. Then I took Triney and family back to the shore. 

I went around to the other two boats in the anchorage asking advice on analyzing the problem. One guy insisted on coming back to look at it. After checking the oil and fuel he suggested we try to start it again and listen to it. The battery acted low, so I went to make sure the switch was set to only the house battery, thinking that the starter battery being low might be pulling the voltage down. Apparently, I didn't turn the switch far enough the first time! When I set it right, it started right up.

The other boats in the anchorage thought that I just anchored under sail to impress them! I guess I admitted the opposite as I asked for advice!

Triney heard that I like chile relleanos and offered to make me some. We went to her house and had a nice dinner and visit. Dinner was a couple of tamales, rellanos, and a fried fish. I still don't know the name of the fish. Hauxanango is the name of a small red reef fish that Trinda really likes fried. It is similar to the Gulf Red Snapper, but this one was a little different.

Friday, we started off for Isla Isabela, or Matachen Bay, near San Blas, which ever comes first. As we motored along I noticed a definite cloud line to the west, but it was calm, so I ignored it, until we were past the turning point to stop at Matachen. Just after noon, the wind started to pipe up, straight on the nose. It got to 10 miles an hour shortly. Motoring 5 knots make an apparent wind of 16 miles an hour. The waves started to get bigger too. By mid afternoon, we were 3/4 of the way there, and the wind was at 20 knots, still exactly on the nose. The boat speed slowed down to 3 1/2 knots. The waves only got to about 6 feet, but it was slow and bouncy. Trinda's sinuses stopped up so she had her usual miserable sea-sickness. Muffy didn't seem to like it much either. We finally arrived just before sunset about 2 hours longer than planned. 

We anchored of the south side of the island. It is reputed to have lots of rocks on the bottom that eat anchors. We just dropped it and hoped. We rested for the rest of the day. Isla Isabela so impressed Jacques Cousteau that he did a mini series there. We took a long hike across the island to see the Frigit birds and the Boobies nesting. We took several pictures, which may make it to the web sometime. We also saw a Iguana about 18" long. He just sat in the middle of the trail. We finally touched him with a stick to get him to move off the path. Trinda didn't want to step over him! 

The island is also supposed to be an excellent place to snorkel, but due to the wind, it was too cold to try it. The water was also not very clear. Instead we meet an English couple and just visited for the day. They were going south and we north, so we may not see them again for quite some time. Trinda taught her how to do cross stitch and he and I exchanged anchoring info on the places we had been.

The wind died down so we decided to make for Mazatlan while it was quiet. We left at 4:30 PM guessing it might take 18 hours for the trip. It was a most unremarkable passage, except for the sea turtles. We saw lots of them before dark. They were brownish green and about 2' wide by 2 1/2 ' long. They just bob along and dive when we get close, like 10 feet away.

We got to Mazatlan about 10:30 in the morning. We anchored in the main city harbor instead of going up to the marina district, were most of the cruisers are. There are 3 marinas there. From cheep at 'Gilligan's Isle'=$5.40/day, moderate at Marina Mazatlan=$9.00/day to expensive at El Sid Hotel at $45.00/day! Anchoring is basically free.

The new president of Mexico has instated a lot of changes. I think he is trying to reduce the bribery, make lots of offices self-supporting and get rid of some bureaucracy. He came from running the Coke Cola Co. Anyway, we have to check in to every port we go to, as if it were the first place in Mexico we had ever been. And the charge us about $15 to enter and $15 more to exit! Besides that we have to walk all over town to do it. We can't just pay the Port Captain, we have to get a bill from him, take it to the bank, pay it and return the receipt to him.

Also, here, we just got a 10 year permit to leave the boat in Mexican waters. Without it we would have had to take the boat to another country and return at least every 6 months. We do have to leave, and get an new visa every months still.

Mazatlan has changed a LOT since I saw it in '71 when I graduated from collage and me and that other guy ( Don Gettemy) wandered around down here for a month. There are lots of hotels and things for tourists that weren't here before. I think it is a little cleaner, no trash in the streets in the main parts of town. I haven't actually recognized anything except the beach and the islands off the beach.

We took the bus up to the marinas to visit some friends. The busses here are all 3 pesos each one each trip. We walked about a quarter mile to the bus stop, the end of the line, and rode the same bus about 20 minutes to the Gold Zone. So much for what they think of tourists! We told the bus driver we were going to the El Sid Marina. He dropped us off in front of the El Sid hotel. We couldn't see any boats, and I thought that all the marinas were really close together. We could see the other marina. Trinda said she wasn't walking! She picked a cab, and he said $40 pesos to ride the half mile to the marina we could see. When we told him the name of the marina again, he got confused. He let us out anyway. He, of course didn't have change for a $50, so it cost 3 pesos to cross town and 50 to cross the bridge! As we started looking for our friends boat, it became clear that we were at the right place the first time! We did have friends here too though. We went on down to see them. While we were visiting, their neighbor said they were taking their dinghy over to the first marina. We hitched a ride for free back to where we started!

We had a nice visit there too and got home without incident.