Tuesday, December 10 – Dawn on Monday was ominous, with a red glow behind deep gray clouds.
We’d changed course, so now the swell was coming from the behind us and the wind chop from our port side. The swell was large and created a lot of motion, but the intervals were far enough apart that it wasn’t terrible. The wind chop, on the other hand, was big: 3 – 5 feet of breaking whitecaps on our beam. Every once in a while, a wave would hit the pilot house windows. The combination of waves from two directions made it uncomfortable, though not terrible. We definitely needed to hold on tight when we walked around the boat. Sea conditions more or less stayed the same all day.
We ran at high RPMs (1800 – 1850) all day to ensure that we make it into port before dark. Eric is shooting for a 2pm arrival, so won’t have to worry about running out of light if there is some unforeseen delay with docking.
It was hot, humid and overcast during the day. We were disappointed that we only had two days of ideal weather. Temps were pleasant at night.
A flock of birds followed us for a big portion of the day, circling around the boat. Our guess is that they were hoping we were a fishing vessel that would throw out fish scraps. We had a lot of dead squid on deck and we’re surprised that the birds hadn’t eaten them when they were circling.
Our new DC watermaker had issues today. It had a probe error, but was still making water. Eric will have to look into it. Here’s a twilight photo:
During the night, the clouds changed to scattered, and we could see the luminous, half-full moon and patches of stars. The stars we could see were incredibly bright and dense. We also passed an island on our port side during the night, which blocked some of the wind chop and made the ride better.
By morning, the birds were gone. They must have finally given up on getting fish from us. Although one left quite a bit of poop by the anchor area.
We entered Banderas Bay at about 1100, which is in the corner of mainland Mexico where the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez. The ride immediately smoothed out. Our destination was Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, located in the north-northeasten portion of Banderas Bay. La Cruz is a small town about 9 nautical miles north of Puerto Vallarta, which is also in Banderas Bay (but oddly enough, in a different state).
We arrived at the marina at about 1330. Much to our chagrin, there was a dinghy in our slip. There were people working on the boat next to us and walking around the dock. Eric called out to ask them to move the dinghy. Someone did, and docking went smoothly.
Eric and Keith plugged into power and did a quick rinse down on the boat before heading to the marina office to check in. The next stop was the Port Captain’s office, a short walk from the marina office. It was already closed for the day.
Our custom is to have a celebratory meal at the end of every passage, so the three of us had lunch at the restaurant closest to the marina entrance, called Ballena Blanca. The meal was wonderful and exactly what we needed.
It had been a week since Christi and Eric had a full night of sleep. They were exhausted. We headed back to the boat and had an early night.