Dan, Sylvie and Felix Blog: December 2011

Dear Bloginsteins,

Since we last spoke, a long month ago, we’ve traveled a grand total of 600 kilometers. Most of you could probably drive that in 6 hours but it has taken us a month. We are so slow. But we’ve been in some fantastic places that warrant long stays.

We got sick of Cabo San Lucas mighty quick, especially after our friend got his dinghy and outboard motors stolen (worth about $5k). Cabo is a heavily developed ultra-tourismo town and we wanted to get the hell on with our trip so after we bought a bunch of supplies and headed east. Our plan was to sail straight across from Cabo to Mazatlan, 400 km crossing; the furthest we’ve been from land yet. Ladies and Gentlemen we finally had a proper sail. We sailed 96% of the crossing and loved every minute of the wind and swell. Conditions were ideal for Ustupu and she really shined.

The first destination on the mainland was Mazatlan. We anchored in the historic part of town at an old decrepit yacht club called Club Nautico. Here is what Sylvie remembers about Mazatlan – she is yelling as she says these things:

-Smoked marlin and tuna from the massive old style market
-Ummm
–Wandering old Mazatlan and the hills by the marina
- The sweet market (again) which contained no ukuleles. We read a book from the 70’s that said the Mazatlan market had an entire guitar section, but when we got there Sylvie was severely let down to find that there were no musical instruments, let alone a ukulele. I suppose it’s technically possible that our 40-year-old info was obsolete.
-Tostadas
-Not being able to understand enough Spanish to determine if there was meat in the food she was ordering, and then eating around meat (little pieces of bacon and weiners) in meals she’s ordered.
-Surfing Playa Bruja

All in all Mazatlan was pretty sweet and we can see why people get stuck there for months.

On a side note, we were warned by people in Cabo San Lucas to be careful in Mazatlan. “Bad peoples in Mazatlan”. And back home we were warned to be careful in Mexico in general. So far in the month we’ve been here we haven’t seen anything to indicate that there is any danger for tourists in the regions we’ve been to. Yes, we’ve been staying smart and avoided seedier parts of town, especially at night. But the violence that’s going on is almost strictly drug cartels vs. cartels vs. government. Tourists just aren’t what they’re interested in. I’m not saying there’s no violence in Mexico against tourists or that no one’s getting robbed or targeted, but I will say that I’d rather spend the night wandering the streets here than lots of places in the US.

Next town we hit was San Blas just south of Mazatlan. We anchored in the Mantanchen Bay about 10km from San Blas. San Blas is where I finally renewed my love for coconuts. A simple yet somewhat obsessive pleasure for me is fresh coconuts…. the ones that are freshly cut off a tree and some guy with a 2 foot machete cuts the top off and you drink the milk with a straw and then he cuts the rest open for you to scoop out the meat. My god it’s refreshing on a day when it’s 90 degrees out. San Blas, for us, was all about swimming at night in the phosphorescence and lots of dinghy exploration.

The following bay was Chacala, which was similar to Mantanchen Bay except we could swim to shore from the boat. But the rest of the time revolved around getting coconuts and going for hikes.

After Chacala we spent a night in Jaltemba hiding behind an island from the swell and wind. The water was crystal clear and we snorkeled for the first time. We saw tons of fish and got stung a lot by little jellyfish. It was a beautiful spot.

And that brings us to our current anchorage called Punta de Mita. Within an hour of leaving Jaltemba we caught the best fish of the trip, a handsome albacore tuna. It was a perfect fish for 2 people and it yielded 3 meals. We go coo coo for tuna tacos. As we rounded the point for our destination we started seeing these perfect curling waves. We looked at each other and kept asking if this place had good surfing. It should be mentioned that surfing is a big part of this trip for us. I brought my board from home and Sylvie had planed to buy one in Mexico. Thus far the surfing has been spotty and mediocre. Our surfing morale went sky high after we anchored here however. The first thing we did was paddle in from the boat to a rock break on the main beach in town. Well I paddled and Sylvie swam in on her noodle, a normal scenario amongst Ustupians. Right off the bat I caught a wave and we knew we had arrived. The next morning we rented a long board because it was a small but long break and we were in surfing heaven. We surfed again and again and Sylvie bought a sweet little 7’ board in town for a great deal. We then met a couple, Corey and Lisa from Colorado who were awesome folk. Corey wanted to get rid of his kayak and he offered it to us for free. How could we say no. So we went from being deprived of water toys to inundated all in the span of 3 days.

But alas, the swell has died and it’s time to move on. We’re south bound again to explore the rest of Bahia de Banderas.

Toodeloo Blogeyboos.

Dan, Sylvie & Ustupu