Category Archives: Cruising Life

Describes an experience regarding the boating lifestyle of our travel.

Welcome to Ixtapa, Guerrero, Mexico

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On Bruce’s watch, in the wee hours of the morning, there was suddenly a loud banging sound. Bruce woke Eric up. Eric went outside to investigate and saw that the base of the VHF antenna had come unscrewed. What the heck? That is something we have not been checking too often. Eric screwed the antenna back in and went back to bed.

Much to our surprise, at around 0500, the seas laid back down. We couldn’t believe it. We just assumed it would be rough all the way in. We didn’t get to enjoy the calm seas for long, though, because we pulled into Ixtapa Bay at about 0830 local time. Even from the distance, we could see Ixtapa was incredibly built up. There were several high rises along the beaches and expensive looking homes built in close proximity to one another along the cliffs.

Again, our electronic charts were definitely off, and again, we entered the channel using a combination of electronic charts, the cruising guide charts, and a print out of a satellite photo of the area. But the hazards in this bay were definitely easier to see, as was the channel entrance. The channel entrance is also significantly bigger and no one was swimming in it. Entering the short channel was a piece of cake. The first picture is looking right from the channel entrance, the second is looking left.

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We were directed to a slip and told to pull in forward. As soon as we were halfway into the slip, we knew it was too small. Déjà vu. This time we Continue reading →

Passage from San Juan del Sur to Huatulco – Days 2 and 3

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Day 2

It was a smooth ride until around 0430, when the wind picked up to low 20’s. After dawn, we moved closer in to shore where, where the wind was only 1 4 knots apparent and the seas were smooth. Man, talk about a drastic difference! No wonder they advise running so close to shore. It was another gorgeous, cloudless day.

Eric saw a turtle this morning. What made him notice it was he saw a bird standing on the water. Not sitting, standing. He did a double take and realized the bird was standing on a turtle that was swimming in the water. Eric tried to get a photo, but the bird sensed the camera being turned on and flew off. He took a photo of the turtle, but you can’t really see it in the photo. It looks like a smudge. Christi thinks she may have seen a turtle shortly afterwards, but isn’t sure. It was farther out.

At 1300, Christi also saw bird standing on a turtle. We had thought it was a freak occurrence the first time, but now we think it could be a common behavior. As she was watching the duo, suddenly a four foot sailfish leapt out of the water in the distance. It smashed back down into the water and a couple seconds leapt up again. It jumped at least Continue reading →

Exploring San Juan del Sur

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Yesterday morning the water taxi picked us up and 0730. We picked up Mike and the three of us went out to breakfast at an American style coffee house/café/bookstore. Mike ordered French toast and it may very well be the best French toast we have ever had in our lives. It was dipped in vanilla custard instead of the usual milk and eggs and topped with apple slices sautéed in a delicious brown sugar and butter sauce. To die for good.

Then we walked around town a little more, checking out a few shops. Unfortunately, Mike hadn’t completed his paper, so we had to cut sightseeing short. It was OK though, downtown is small, and we were pretty sure we had seen most of it when we turned around and headed back to the hotel. Something that we found particularly amusing was an ox drawn cart was parallel parked in front of a small store between two cars.

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At the hotel, Mike went to work on Continue reading →

Welcome to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

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Continued from two days ago”¦ We took a moment to take in the surroundings. While the outside of the bay looked almost desolate, the inside is quite built up. Just like on the outside, there seem to be a lot of trees that all look dead at the moment, with very little greenery. Directly in front of us was a nice beach lined with thatched roof buildings that we would bet are restaurants. The hills above are mostly built up, as well. It looked to be primarily residential. Most of the homes are unique, but we could see a couple of track housing developments. The tightly packed track homes with their identical roofs almost looked like a scar on the hillside. On the southeast side (our right) there was a commercial looking port building and boat yard. To the northwest side (our left), there were expensive looking houses and several mid-rise concrete buildings under construction. The top of the hill had something weird at the top of it. Eric pulled the binoculars out and saw that it is a half built statue, probably of Jesus.

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In the bay there were Continue reading →