Chacala then La Cruz

Chacala then La Cruz

 

The quintessential Mexican Riviera anchorage. Small town, a little rolly of an anchorage if you don't use a stern anchor, music playing from palapas, cheap fish tacos and cervezas and great people to meet.

 

Here we met Rob and Lynn on Aldebaran, a large ketch they have been sailing for quite a while, so we got some great pointers on ketch sailing. We also met Johnny and Jen on Summer, they, as well as Rob and Lynn and others, are the ones that convinced us to spend the summer in the Sea (of Cortez). We would have missed some of the best cruising ground in the world. We have read, on more then one occasion, that people that have done both the Caribbean and the Sea, that the Sea is better and not to be skipped. We have also read about the differences, the Sea is cheaper, mostly calmer weather, more laid back, and a little older crowd. We have met another couple (in La Paz) that are spending the summer in the Sea too and know Summer. We hope to spend some time with both of them and learn some secrets to living off the bounty of the sea.

 

While sitting up in our cockpit having drinks (this is a common evening pastime) with Rob, Lynn, Johnny, and Jen, we spot a boat that we have seen at our last few anchorages. I told Becky earlier, "if we see that boat again, we have to invite them for drinks". They loaded up their dingy (3 of them) and headed into shore for dinner. As they past us Becky yelled for them to come over, they did of course. They were all from Germany and there is no way I could remember their names (partially because I suck at names anyway and these were not as simple as Rob, John, Lynn, Jen, Bob, Sue, etc and partially because I am writing this a month later) sorry. Anyway, they stayed and chatted for one drink (one of Becky's drinks so you know how that goes) and then left for dinner, we haven't ran into them after that.

 

The people that we have met have been the best part of cruising life style. I WILL be writing a post just that and other things about this new life we are living very soon.

 

From Chacala we headed for La Cruz for three weeks, what a three weeks! Way too much to write in detail about but here is the short of it - we finally hung out (on purpose) with other cruisers and met tons of great people and made some good friends that I know we will keep in touch with. One couple, Steve "Wiki" and Nikki on Penn Station left La Cruz the day before we did but are headed to French Polynesia. We talk on HF just about every day while they are making the "20 plus" day sail. They are out in the middle of the pacific by themselves, they've got guts that Becky and I don't have yet, good on them. We found a "cruisers" bar/restaurant (Gecko Rojos) that by the second time there it was almost as if we had walked into SANGA, just further south. I found myself playing darts every Monday and Thursday, Becky help the bar tenders learn some new drinks and they taught us more Spanish. They wouldn't let me order any drink or food in English even they that spoke great English, it was very cool. We got the stainless work done that we wanted, new lifeline railing, seats on the stern, and davits, now we're style'n and it's a lot easier to launch and recover the dingy (we still have not named our damn dingy), we also got and installed a new autopilot (keeping the old one so I can still fix it and have a backup) that we have named Ray. Ray is one hell of a crew mate/helmsman. After La Cruz we kind of just trucked it back towards Baja for La Paz stopping over night at Chacala and Mazatlan where we ran into Mike and Nia on Azul, who we first met in La Cruz and are friends of Summer and Penn Station and will be spending the summer in the Sea as well.

 

We are not sure how long we will be in La Paz, but heading up into the Sea of Cortez excites us and we can't wait to see what the next 6 months brings.

 

 

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