Now this is more like it......

Evening in Matenchen Bay, but am going to backtrack and talk of the voyage to get there. While Mazatlan is a neat town, and the weather was perfect, the marina area felt like middle America and somehow not the Mexico we were looking for: of great beaches and quiet villages. Cabo was scary with the hustle, Mazatlan a real working city, and we were craving the non tourist experience and ready to leave. People told us that it would get better as we went south, and they were right.

Leaving Mazatlan.......

Lisa and John and a little lady waving goodbye to us as we leave Mazatlan. The little lady is in her 80s and still living on board though their boat is for sale. We were off on another overnight trip to Matenchen Bay, south of San Blas and the day went by fairly quickly, with some jib sailing, but wind mainly on the nose. That is getting to be the pattern, and scientists are calling this strange weather, La Nina. Robert likes the night watches, and Aaron seems to, also, but I got up and was more than a little uptight about the hundreds of fishing boats all over. It looks like the stars have fallen and become green, red and yellow lightning bugs on the water. Determining how fast or how slow they are moving, as we are doing up to 6knts under power is tricky.
Our dock in the marina held just about a dozen boats and we got to know each other fairly well.


We go to bed with the boat wet from a dew that seems to wring itself out of the air and find the morning dew heavy and dripping from the boom.


The dogs have learned to use the fake grass and look at us with pathetic looks when we take them to the poop deck while underway.





Right is the estuary that makes up the new harbor in Mazatlan as we are leaving.


We were there too long, but somehow manana time caught up with us.

Right is one of the shrimp boats off of Mazatlan, which is showing faintly in the distance. Imagine running through a moonless night, pitching and tossing, trying to figure out the what hundreds of little lights mean in front, to the side and all around you. Praying helps. It helps a lot.

The calmness of the water is typical - some swells when the on the nose wind comes up.

Aaron driving us out of Mazatlan - we are finally on to next step of the adventure.

Years ago, I borrowed Neale's VW and Mark and I drove from Mazatlan to spend a few months in San Blas, a small town north of PV. I remembered a small square, and three miles south, an empty beach. Mark and I had hired a panga to take us up the river to a fresh water spring, that was a more than refreshing oasis. Little did we know then that there are fresh water crocodiles in the estuary, but we loved the cool fresh water.We kept seeing something that looked like large black dolphins, arching out of the water, and blowing mist -something we don't see dolphins usually doing. Little whales.

And then there was Matenchan Bay, in the morning. I jumped right in and got right out. It was brisk and people we met later, who live south, said that the water was unusually cool this year. We proved that statement - but found a long, lovely beach all around the 5mile bay, and palapas and restaurants, on the beach I remembered as isolated and lonely. Ismael fed us twice, with giant pitchers of limoda - the best drink for hot days.

Small yellowtails surrounded our boat in the bay......we anchored quite a ways out, in 18' of water so not be eaten by the noseeums. The first night was magic, and the second, windless. They found us. We itched and scratched and decided to get out of bug land and head to Chacala.

We could have spent a week there easily...as this bay was telling us that we had really arrived in mananaland
-beautiful green mountains surrounding the bay, and a beach that went on forever. We were able to beach the dink easily but the muscle guys had to pull it way up the beach to cable it securely to a broken down restaurant. Someday we will go back, but armed with bug spray, and nets.

When Mark and I were there, the hotel would spray every night, a deadly mixture of DDT and some awful smell. While the town has grown, more cars and small hotels, and magic Matachen has developed some, the bugs have not changed. Yet there was more than enough to convice us to keep going, to find more remote beaches and bays. Our dream of so many years came true, itch and all.