Arriving in Mazatlan

Again, we made it to the next port safely.  This time we had a fabulous sail the 190 miles from Cabo.  We made it in just about 48 hours.  It did get a little pokey at times, because the winds were at times very light, but we made up for it when the wind came up beautifully.  Although we could have chosen to turn on the engine and motor when it was really slow, we decided to just drift along and see what happened.  We were not on a schedule or in any sort of hurry. And were we glad we did, because we saw some unbelievable sights.

First, we noticed some fish jumping out of the water.  They turned out to be a "school" made up of 14 bonito, each one about a foot long and proabably 3-4 pounds. (Bonito are small members of the tuna family.  In my opinion, they are not the best eating fish.)  They spent the entire day swimming around and around the boat. They are really pretty fish - silvery with blue blue and black racing stripes down their backs.  They swam in perfect formation and I decicded that synchronized swimmers must model their routines after these fish. After zigging and zagging in perfect formation, they would split off from each other in all directions and then began jumping out of the water. It looked like they were dancing.  I have never seen anything like it.  We saw a big sea turtle, several marlins, and the inevitable whale spouts.  The weather was warm and sunny, and I actually got to sail in a  bathing suit for more than 20 minutes. Both of us got plenty of sleep, and the watches went well.

Mike got to see something I cannot imagine. A little background is needed. There is a form of plankton and other forms of sea life that look phosphorescent at night.  The boat's wake glows, and if you flush the toilet, sparkles circle around the bowl.  Dolphins cutting through the water make glowing, sparkling streaks as they pass.  Anyway, Mike was on watch, and all of a sudden there was a huge glow under the boat that was as big as the entire boat.  It was a whale or very large fish swimming beneath the boat, and it scared the hell out of him.  He said it looked like either extra terrestrials or like when the lowriders put neon lights under their cars.  I want to see something like that.  There were also thousands, maybe millions of tiny little red crabs swimming about - they looked like tiny cooked lobsters and swam on their backs.  And to top things off, we saw a whole bunch of nautiluses - shellfish with cone shaped shells (sort of like a fancy snail shell) all clumped together floating along.  I had no idea what it even was - Mike told me.  It looked like something out of a science fiction movie. 

We are currently (as I am typing this) drifting along just outside the harbor waiting for the channel to open.  They are dredging and it is only open for going in and out between 2 and 3 p.m.  It is 12:30 now.  So we took showers, had breakfast, straightened up the boat, and now we wait.

I am excited to be here.  I went to Puerto Vallarta about 20 years ago, and about five years ago (I think) I went to Cancun. Other than that, this is my first time on the Mexican mainland.  I think we might stay here a month or so as there are somethings that need to be fixed on the boat (the anchor windlass) and this is a good place to get that sort of thing done.  Now that we will be at a marina with access to unlimited internet access, I will post some pictures on here.  I figured out how to do it, but without a good consistant internet connection it takes too long.

Well, I had  better get ready to take off into the harbor and our new marina slip.  I hope we have not forgotten how to dock!