We just arrived about an hour ago and found the FREE INTERNET! I’m in heaven and it will be hours before I emerge from the aft cabin, surely. We went around Punta Mita last night right at sunset and anchored just in the lee of the point for the evening, then headed inside Banderas Bay (that’s where Puerto Vallarta is) to La Crux. As we pulled into the anchorage here, trying not to freak out because there are no less than 10 gerzillion boats anchored in a very small area, we were yelled at by several other tris and now that we’ve gotten our senses back, we realize that they all know the boat from its humble beginnings in Rio Vista, up the Sacramento river delta. Three cheers for Rio Vista! The boat’s fame evidently precedes us. We anchored inside all the other boats (multihulls have low drafts) with all the other tris and it turns out that the boat directly behind us we know from the marina in Rio Vista, and two others right around us know the boat (if not us). Wild and crazy, I tell ya.

We attempted to send posts to the site via satellite phone but it didn’t work. Gotta figure that out. I’ll post them following this. I know you all were clamoring for the boobie photos.

One other thing of note: there is an excellent radio station here: 104.3 University of Guadalajara radio station. We found them last night when they were playing a show that might have been called “All Tarantino, All The Time.” This morning when I turned it on, they were playing only French rock. I hope we get this station all the way to Costa Rica.

We arrived in Mazatlan at 5:00 this morning just in time for carnival.

Our fishing luck seems to have turned around. We hooked two sierras on our way into Playa Bonanza. We got one on deck but the other fucked off with our rapala. That thing cost $20 and only caught 2 fish. Oh well, I guess you have to expect it. Hopefully it will be a bonus for some mexican fisherman.

We left Punta Bonanza at about 7:00 toward Mazatlan and just as we were rounding the northern tip of Isla Cerralvo we caught 2 bonito. We threw one back and left the lures in the water. Later we caught our first dorado which made a great breakfast especially since we had butter. Mmmm. Butter. Mmmm. Dorado.

We left with a norther because we didn’t want to end up motoring the whole way. The wind was nice 15-25 kts nnw but the seas were pretty ugly. 6-8 ft and steep (about 5s).

Day 2 was better. Especially because we caught our first yellow-fin tuna. I had to wake up Cheyenne to steer while I reeled it in. However, cleaning the thing in those seas was a mess. I was completely covered in fish blood. Yummy though so it was worth it. We’ve been having seared tuna for every meal with no end in sight. The bonito will have to wait.

We got back to La Paz Saturday night, took some excellent showers, abused our flush toilet privileges, and went out for tacos and refrigerated beer. The next day was Sunday and we spent the morning listening to Bill’s Net and then headed out for more tacos and various boat supplies. Bill has a half-hour or so discussion net every day on channel 21 starting around 7:30am. He usually lists off some headlines culled from various internet searches and the BBC, comments on them, and then invites whoever is listening to come ahead with their own comments. Pepe is the first to comment every day. “Pepe go.”

Today was a slow news day, or else Bill missed this morning’s BBC news. “So anyone try out that stuff, ‘tor… er, tongue-fu’? Supposed to be some sort of soy curd. You eat it. Anyone know anything about this stuff?”
… Silence …
Someone speaks up finally, “Do you mean … tofu?”

Mind you, the discussion was previously all about Cheney and how there were women with Cheney and the shot guy (makes you feel like you’ve been out of town when you come back to discover that Cheney shot some dude in the face and nobody seems too concerned) and how they were not the wives of the men and just who were these women anyway. Then Clinton. The tofu thread was a short-lived one but actually enticed some of the boat women to comment. We’re back to typical topic matter with the Patriot Act now and the boat men have taken over once again.

Yesterday while loading some gasoline cans into the dinghy, this guy came over and started talking to us. We chatted about the Port-a-bote, then where he lived previously—he had lived in Maui for several years and then San Francisco—and if he knew this person or that person. Then we get to talking about where in San Francisco he lived, and he mentioned the Boat Club, which was just up the street from where we used to live, and we said something like, “Oh! We know a guy from the Boat Club!”
“Really? Hey who do you know?”
“This guy named Joe Cool.”
“Really. [pause] How do you know Joe Cool?” Each word carefully measured.
“We met him on this guy Mark’s boat and blah blah blah” Chat chat chatterson…
“Um. I’m Joe Cool!” And clearly do not remember you.
He looked very different from the last time we saw him. But he remembered Mark and Mark’s boat and it all came back and he filmed us a bit with his camera to make sure he would remember us for next time. We decided to meet up with him in Tenerife when we get there, or at least look up his buddy at the kiteboard shop. This is the third person we’ve met along the way connected with the marina at Rio Vista where we bought Time Machine.

Anyway, we plan to hang around town for just a day or two, stock up on food and fuel, and then if the weather looks good, head across the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan. It’ll be a while before we get back to La Paz and so the remainder of time not spent scouring town for supplies will surely be spent stuffing ourselves silly at all our favorite street food stalls.

We’re back in La Paz! Home of the La Paz Cruisers Net, a radio “info” hour, with lost and found, who’s coming and going, weather, tides, stuff for sale/trade, etc. Every so often the net gets taken over by the chatty mcchattersons and degenerates into gossip or specific snarking about this or that and we of course never miss it if we can help it. This morning was dominated by the epic saga of Raoul’s sore throat. Blow by blow details of the progression of this extremely rare and unique variety of strep throat, heretofore named Streptococcus Raullius, which doesn’t respond to any normal antibiotic, nor does it respond to any run-of-the-mill doctoring. No no. Raullius requires special $80 (US!) antibiotics (did he mention they must be very very strong and not any normal antibiotics?), which may be obtained by only one very special doctor in La Paz (additional personal anecdotes and the doctor’s name, spelling of name, and telephone number is now given about seventeenthousand times for everyone who didn’t quite get it the first time; this takes an additional fifteen minutes) who was thankfully astute enough to identify the important nature of this illness. Betsy from Qayaq (a doctor, unfortunately for her this morning) I knew must be pacing up and down the walls of her boat near the start of the antibiotic “advice” and it took about 20 minutes for her tortured voice to come on offering clarification on a few points.

Now we’ve degenerated to, “Is today… Wednesday? Or Thursday?” Luckily the highly contagious Raoul knows that it is Wednesday (because he knows he does the radio hosting on Wednesdays). I would make fun of the question, “Is sweetened milk the same as evaporated milk,” if damned if I didn’t ask the very same question a week or so ago when sifting through all our weird cans left over from the apartment departure and which we ended up bringing along.

Anyway, we’ll be around these parts for the next couple of days continuing our ice cream flavor research at La Fuente and finishing up our sweep of taco stands across town. Details will follow.

Arrived La Paz at about 3:00 PM. We’re headed to shore in search of tacos and tequila.

More later…