Las Tres Marietas Islands

With our friends Dan and Daryll visiting from San Francisco we packed up the boat with other cruiser friends from Hemisphere Dancer and Sun Dancer and headed out to these islands for a day of snorkling and just enjoying the sun. We saw an enormous number of whales on the way out and on the return to La Cruz.

Christmas in La Cruz Huanacaxtle

Merrry Christmas from Tropical Pacific Mexico

                                             The crew of the SV Blue Dolphin enjoying Christmas

                                                                    Dinner at the clubhouse at the Marina in La Cruz.....near Puerto Vallarta.

Dock party Cristmas Eve. 22 Boats showed up for the Zepplin |Group Christmas party.

Presents were exchanged and this is a photo of all the participants. We won a canvas laundry bag....whoooo hoooo!

Example of the dinner tables...no idea who's these people are....so many new cruisers here!!!!

The girls loving Santa at a local beach bar!!

The Zepplin Group! A group of 22 boats from up and down the West Coast US  plus a boat from Denmark I believe

The Marina Riveria Nayarit. We stayed here for 10 days and then went to the anchorage where we stayed for another few weeks. We liked this area a lot and will plan on being here again next year as we are planning on keeping the boat in Paradise Village in Puerto Vallarta whcih is not far.

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Journey to Isla Isabel

The Blue Dolphin anchored in the southern bay on Isla Isabel around the middle of December before we headed to La Cruz to spend Christmas with the Zepplin Group. The island is a wonderful national bird preserve with frigate birds and the famous blue footed boobies. We all went ashore and hiked around....not a good time to watch the movie "birds" as there are our feathered friends....EVERYWHERE!!

Kathy loves to eat fresh fish.....cleaning, not so much! Fish was caught by Nils and Leo using a spear gun....best way! There is a small fishing camp here, a co-op and the fisherman spend a week or so here fishing then head back to the mainland. That's the "dolphin" in the background as well as our friends Aquadesiac.

Fishing camp and one of the pangas they use.

A rough way to live!

Baby Frigate bird....amazing that we could get this close! BTW, this island was made famous by Jacques Cousteau.

Male frigate bird strutting his colors trying to attract a mate.

Blue footed booby and eggs.

Call me Mister Bird !!!!

Frigate birds over the island......so many!!

Topolabumpo to San Blas MX

"Field trip", Leo and the Python Snake that resides on Stone Island near Pizza Benji's.....

Topolabumpo to Mazatlan via San Blas, January 2011

Kathy and Aquadesiac's French crewman, Leo making bread in the Blue Dolphin Galley! Awesome bread, a real treat while crusing.
Nils, Caro and Leo on the windward side of Stone Island. A hard hike from Pizza Benji's.

Pizza Benji's on Stone Island. Just a short Panga ferry ride from the old harbor....and a short walk. A large group of us from the Blue Dolphin, Seabear and Ron and Heather fron Sundancer. Many Ballenas of Pacifico were drank as well as at least 6 large pizzas of all sort of ingrediants.
Pizza Benji's HOME.

San Blas. Famous church which inspired the poem, "Bells of San Blas" by Longfellow. Intersting town, up a river. We decided to anchor in the Bay around the point to get as far away as possible from the "no seeums".....tiny bugs that make you itch a lot. San Blas is a short taxi ride from the anchorage. We were able to get fresh spring water at the nearby palapa bar.

San Blas Plaza.

Trying to get the text near the photos but this blogspot program isn't very user friendly........

Sailing Season Two

After a very busy summer visiting 7 states, the Grand Canyon, Roslin NM, Carlsbad Caverns, Kathy’s children in TX, sister in Cal and picking up parts in San Diego, we made our way back to the Blue Dolphin in San Carlos MX. Upon arrival we had a lot of work to do to “re-commission” the boat as we had prepared it for the hurricane season by removing everything on deck and “plugging” as many holes as we could. Unfortunately I forgot and missed closing all the holes on the main mast and when we arrived discovered we had a bee’s nest inside the mast. We tried to politely remove them or have the bees removed “professionally” but to no avail and we had to resort to “mass-annihilation” using a Honda generator exhaust.

It took 4 days and 2 bee stings before we were 90% rid of them.

After a week or so in San Carlos we picked up our friends and crew for this season, Nils and Carolyn, a German couple that we had met in La Paz the previous season while they were on a extended cycling trip that would have taken them from Alaska to Argentina.

After 2 weeks or so we were “on the road” again, so to speak and along with our “ buddy boats, Aquadesiac and Perigrine, we made our way to Topolabumpo, a commercial port half way between San Carlos and Mazatlan, 225 miles.