SailingKnitter

GONE! We are going to be outa here tomorrow morning before dawn! Got our Mexican resident (FM3) Visas! Got food, water, diesel, gasoline, laundry, and the amibition to get sailing south again. It's kinda sad to leave the tiny town of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle that we got to know so well, but wanderlust kicks us in the butt and with our new Mexican resident visas now in hand, we're hoisting the anchor again.

"Goodbye" to the construction in the harbor, the smelly pelicans, and the working fishing boats. We moved the boat out of the harbor yesterday and back to the open anchorage so that our buddy, Danny on sailing vessel Cyclades)can clean the grass skirt and barnacle forest that we've grown on the bottom of Niki Wiki in the last few weeks again.
The dinghy landing beach has disappeared into the bowels of a huge backhoe/shovel digger, so we have been trying to land where the pangas tie up. Eeew - the little ramp is littered with fish entrails, blood, oil, diesel, and whatever you can imagine. Wading thru the stuff in the dark is quite un-nerving. Our attempts to park the dinghy at the stationary piers was disasterous. We had a passenger (a little tipsy, yes) fall off of the dinghy into the black water while trying to climb up to the pier - and it wasn't even low tide. There is no way to get to the pier except at high tide.

Enough. Now, some photos from the Bucerias Festival of their patron saint: We'll start with the decorated pangas (fishing boats) that come in from La Cruz to be blessed up at the church. Thousands of people flood into Bucerias for a whole week of festivities, culminated by this floatella and parade with horses and kids in costume. There are carnival rides for the kids, many food booths, candy, drinks, toys, and all sorts of interesting things to see and buy. The prices were temporarily inflated for the influx of tourists so we didn't buy anything.
On the knitting front, I've finished the GIANT pair of socks for my nephew, Jon (size 13). Both these socks and the boring gray pair were shipped via UPS Global "Overnight Service" from Puerto Vallarta to California. Overnight? Well, it was the only service available. Overnight? Well, in Mexico, that means you should expect it to arrive in about a week (keeping my fingers crossed). The shipping cost more than the yarn! But, it makes me happy to keep my boys' toes warm. While we were in town checking out our Mexican visas and mailing packages, we grabbed a shot of Jonesy next to a banana tree. The large red blob at the end of the stalk of baby bananas is the flower.

And last, before we sail off into the rising sun, a photo of three of us cruising ladies enjoying a morning on the (now quiet) beach in Bucerias and doing some shopping.


Debrah (sailing vessel Cyclades), me, and Cindy (sailing vessel Mal de Mer III).

It may be a few weeks before we can blog again as we are heading down to some remote anchorages. Stay tuned!