Merry Christmas!!!

We spent Christmas and Christmas Eve on SOMF, having our share of really good food and listening to Christmas music!!  Christmas Eve morning, while trying to light the propain on the stove to make some coffee, we ran out of propain.  We were pretty nervious not knowing if we were going to be able to fill our propain bottles on Christmas Eve, but we had to try.  We halled the bottle down to the dinghy then up past the marina and out to where taxi's stood.  Ezequiel, our taxi driver who spoke great english, new right were to take us, and it was busy.  Everyone needs propain to cook Christmas Eve dinner, he informed us that tonight was the major celebration for Mexicans, then they sleep all Christmas Day cause of to much Tequila and Cerveza's.  After lugging the (now heavier) propain bottle back to the boat Jerry was able to make homemade Chicken Pot Pies, that were delicious, while we had "Becky's" Pain Killers and caught up on Burn Notice on the computer!!

 Christmas morning we woke up to a present under the tree left by Santa, yeah we were hoping he would figure out our GPS cordinance here in Mexico.  We know this bailey's was left by Santa cause it is way out of our cruising budget, so thanks Santa, we had a great morning drinking our coffe with baileys and listening to the morning nets. 

Our present awaiting us under our Christmas tree!!

 After watching a Christmas Story, a SOMF tradition it was time start cooking for dinner! 

Poor Jerry, I always make him and the animals wear the hats for pictures!!

 On Monday, Jerry and I want grocery shopping at Mega (the major market closest to La Cruz) and saw that they had Rib Eye cuts of steak, so we went back a couple of days later to get a roast.  We asked the meat counter man for a roast with two bones and he went back to the back and came out with two entire roast, we then tried to explain that we wanted about half of one of the roast with at least two bones in it.  He then started to cut away at the bones we quickly got him to stop that and again showed him where to cut and to wrap it up as is, no cutting the fat or bones away.  Finally with our poor spanish and the butchers lack of knowldge of American roast cuts, we  got our three bone in Standing Rib Roast!!  Christmas Day Jerry packed the roast in rock salt (the salt we found was  little smaller than rock salt, but worked) and boy did it turn out perfect!!

Our Christmas Table on SOMF!!!  We had the wonderful roast, along with green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with brown suger, garlic and cheese mashed potatoes, homemade pumpkin pie and plenty of vino!!!







Yes I made a pumpkin pie, and I have to say it turned out wonderful!!

 We enjoyed a wonderful night on the boat, with a wonderful sunset over the La Cruz anchorage!!

Puerto Vallarta!!!

On Thursday Jerry and I spent a day in Puerto Vallarta, we got on the bus around 10am and didn't get back to La Cruz (by bus) till 10pm.  We had a great day sightseeing, especially since it is the holiday season and it is all decorated!

The beautiful nativity scene on the malecon

How did they do that???

Got to love the coca cola tree!

These pinatas are all over!

We first went in and looked a smaller church that was more on the outside of the centro area!



We then went and looked inside the main Cathedral, it was so beautiful for the holidays!!

The sculptures along the malecon were amazing!!

Rest Time!!

Had to have the $1 margaritas at The Cheeky Monkey!!

Now those are some mushrooms!!

The Hangout Bar, what fun!!

On the malecon there are talanted men who construct these beautiful sand sculptures.

Farmers Market in La Cruz!!

They have a lot of markets in the Banderas Bay area going on different days of the week.  Sunday's in La Cruz, Thursdays in Nuevo Vallarta, a couple more that I can't think of. 

A wonderful band playing at a Sunday Market!!

We could not have better weather!!

There is also never a shortage of other things going on here.  At Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz there is Mexican Train Happy Hour on Fridays ( I won the free margarita last week...Yeah!), they also have movies at the amphitheatre on Wednsdays and the week of Christmas they are doing a womans tea gift exchange, and are having a christmas boat light contest.  Unfortuently they are only for the boats in the marina, but I am going to be a judge.  Around town there are always happy hour specials, music jams, open mic nights and lots of good food. 

Jerry and I have decided that most likely we are going to do Christmas on the boat for a couple of reasons, one we love being on the boat with the boys (Skeeter and Shiraz), two many of the places in town are closed for Christmas, and most importantly we will be able to listen to the Packers - Cubs game on Serius Radio.  Go Pack Go!!

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season!!

Christmas is comming!!!

Well we have been in here in La Cruz anchorage about 7 days now and have really been enjoying ourselves, except for some of the rolly nights we have had.  I finally got to put up our Christmas decorations on the boat..Yeah!! 

We went to the farmar's market on Sunday morning that has all had made items and organic veggies.  Sunday afternoon we had a great time with SV Mita Kulu watching the Packers game...Go Packers!!

The official Packers bar in La Cruz at Huanacaxtle Bar-Cafe'

Yum...the Cubana and Giant Burrito!!

La Cruz!!

After having a great couple of days swimming and kayaking around Santiago Bay we pulled up anchor around 1 am on the 7th to head the 152 miles to La Cruz in Banderas Bay.  We chose to leave at that time because we wanted to go around Cabo Corrientes at night time, due to this area having strong winds sometimes.  We had a great 31 hour motor up to Banderas bay, we did have to slow down once in the bay due to some cruise ship traffic and then fishing boats leaving in the morning.  We dropped anchor around 8:15am with about 20 other boats in the anchorage. 

love watching the turtles

anchorage and La Cruz marina

when we anchored there are tons of little bait fish jumping all over!!

After lots of hard work, Jerry has finally got the 1000w generator that Jerry's dad has given us working.  This has been a life saver for us since our big generator is not working...Thanks Jerry Sr.!!!!

Santiago Bay!!

After a last minute trip into town to say Happy Birthday to Sergio we pulled up anchor (by hand) and left Zihuatanejo around 4:30pm.

band practice out by the bus stop!!

Surgio gave Jerry these luers that he maks as a thank you gift.  We love Surgio, if you are going to Zihuatanejo go see Sergio at the resturant Valeria 2 on the malicon.  He know everything about that town!!

We pulled around Caleta De Campos anchorage at 8:15am the next morning, looking at the anchorage it was really rolly and a very deep anchorage, so we decieded to move on to Santiago Bay by Manzanillo which was about another 120.9 miles.  We had a great trip up to Santiago Bay, we went through two different shipping channels, so we had to keep our eyes open.  We arrived in Santiago around 8:10am and dropped anchor, we had plenty of places to anchor because we were the only boat in the large anchorage.  We got the dinghy into the water and took a trip around the bay, there is also a great snorkeling area of the beach.  In 1959, a category 5 hurricane caused a great deal of damage and loss of lives to many coastal towns in this area.  Included in the damage was the 300 foot, steel "San Luciano".  This cargo ship sustained damage and eventually sunk directly off the beach of La Boquita. 

Yummy dinner at a calm anchorage, Yeah!!

We love all the activities on the beach, and there were a lot!

brightly colored table tents up and down the beach

They had a protection over the area they called " The Aquarium" which had a large coral area!!

What you can see of the sunken ship above water

SV KONA arrived into Las Hadas in Manzanillo Bay two days later, which is about 4 miles around the bay.  One day we took the dinghy over to Las Hadas, so we could use the dinghy dock instead of beach landing in Santiago, and took the bus into Manzanillo for the day of shopping.  We had a great time, got a few provisions and then had a very long and wet dinghy ride back.  Yeah don't think we will do that again. 

wonderful produce market!!

Moving on!!!

Well yesterday I spent the day cleaning bird poop off the cabin top, deck and a lot of the teak side rails.  I being an animal lover, am getting really sick of the Boobies birds here, they sit up on our spreaders and taunting the dog and then crap all over.  So it took about 2 hours to scrub and clean the deck and still did not get it all off, what the heck.  While I was busy doing that Jerry, still trying to rest his back, was working on our little watt generator, since our main one is not working.  He got it running for a little while, but then it stopped, so one more time to clean our the fuel lines and he will try again.  We enjoyed a nice evening on the boat with Joan and Tim from SV Kona, then had a good nights sleep to get ready to leave on Thursday for our next anchorage Campos.

This morning in preparation for leaving, I was getting ready to put the last of the water jugs into the tanks, when I noticed that a boobie bird was up on the spreader.  I went to go try to get him to fly away, with no luck I gave up and went to finish filling the tanks.  I guess I pissed him off, the SHIT on my head, yes I said it that stupid bird pooped on me.  Now Joan has told me that it is supposed to be good luck, so we will see, but at the time it did not feel so lucky.  Now after taking a long shower, finished putting in the water, tying down the rest of the stuff on deck, getting the bottom of the boat cleaned we are ready to leave.  We have on stop to make on shore to go see our friend Sergio who has been a great help and friend to us while in Zihuat, then we will lift the hook around 4 pm to head our 75 miles north.