Yahson & Hoolia’s 3 Hour Tour

Come visit us and you are always in for an adventure…Jason and Julia can attest to this fact…here’s the story.

A few months before we even left on this adventure, the crew of s/v Danika made plane reservations to come visit us over Christmas in LaPaz…we thought, hmmm, they have a lot of confidence in us, as we had not even left Seattle yet…but were overly excited to have them come visit. What better place to show them around than lovely LaPaz….where we first got our taste of cruising Mexico when visiting s/v Deep Playa in 2011. What we did not know was that it got cold (okay…cooler) in LaPaz in the winter….one night it got into the 50’s overnight. The water had dove into the low 70’s…what is this mess we thought. But we were committed to staying through the first of the year…although we joked about kidnapping Jason & Julia and taking them over to mainland Mexico…whaaaat? They could fly out from there:-)

The crew arrived on the 21st first flying into Cabo. They made reservations on a bus to LaPaz. When they got to the bus, it was overbooked and the driver was nowhere to be found. As it turns out, the driver was out renting a Suburban to take the overbooked people to LaPaz. They crammed 9 people and luggage into that thing with people sitting on laps for the 3 hour ride…ahhhh Mexico…they never say can’t do it here. Anywho…they get to LaPaz late, we hang out for a day or two…getting in the obligatory Shack visit and signing of the wall.

Of course s/v Danika had to poach our primo real estate on the wall at the Shack!

The next night we were of course at the Shack again, half drunk and getting e-mails from the mainland about how warm it was and when are you guys gonna get here. Jason quietly starts looking at prices to change their flights, CB nonchalantly mentions what a wonderful weather window had opened up for a crossing, I am telling Julia the funny story about how we talked about kidnapping them to the mainland….then as drunk conversations go, we all look at one another and say “you wanna’? The rest is history. The next day we haul up anchor and head out to Espiritu Santo to spend Christmas Eve. We woke up Christmas morning, had a bomb breakfast, went for an amazing snorkel in the frigid water:-) then hauled up anchor and set sail for La Cruz…359 miles to go.

Merry Christmas errybody…let’s sail to La Cruz!

We sailed the first 100 miles…then the wind shut off…and I mean we had 0 knots on the wind guage. We had to motor the rest of the way. We caught a Durado…a big one.

No fish tale, this bad boy was at least 25 lbs. First night we had it bbq’d with Julia’s awesome fried rice, next night fish tacos, next day ceviche. Then on New Year’s we finished it off with mustard encrusted Durado that fed 10 ppl…it was like the menorah fish.

We ate like kings…Julia is a wonderful cook. We met with some interesting weather the last 100 miles…lightning and water spouts…luckily we never got too close thanks to radar. On the morning of the 3rd day we arrived…oddly enough just as the morning net started and was asking for new arrivals…Julia checked us in:-) Unlike most of CB and my passages, we were well rested as we split the watches 4 ways….it was a lovely trip.

We had our required arrival toast. S/v Ventured dropped off a present for CB and we all headed to shore to reunite the troops with drinks at a local bar.

CB made some comment on Facebook about a friends tutu…she was visiting s/v Ventured and had this pretty thing waiting for CB when we arrived:-)

Whew hew…..we made it!

The next day the crew of Palarran and s/v Ventured took a bus to Sayulita…a little surf town north of here where CB and I used to go on vacation before we took a permanent vaca with no pay. We surfed and boogie boarded until the monsoon started…I have not seen rain like that since I don’t know when…neither had the locals. The streets and rivers were flooding, it didn’t let up for 3 days.

Waiting for the bus to Sayulita under the random overpass/bus stop…how do u stop the bus u say? Just jump out in front of it and the driver will flash his lights letting u know he sees u and u should get out of the way so as he does not plow u over:-)

S/v’s Unleashed, Loukia and Ventured had reservations to go to a marina in Puerto Vallarta on the 30th….we were going to join them on New Years…buuuut, due to the copious amounts of rain, a very wet boat (cause I left the hatches open when we went to Sayulita) and a cabin full of drowned rats…we decided to up anchor and head to PV. The marina we went to was damaged during the Tsunami from the Japan earthquake and had never really been repaired. CB captain ronned the boat into the first narrow slip they assigned us…we all jumped off with lines in our hands. As CB is wondering what’s wrong with these morons, noone is tying up the boat…I tell him…uuuuh, there are no cleats. We finally get a new slip…which isn’t much better as the dock was broken halfway down (and would continue to get worse over the next 3 days), but it at least had cleats and we were across from our friends.

Taking a day off from cruising at the Westin in Puerto Vallarta…can’t beat a swim up bar.

PV is a tourist hole…as is every business and restaurant around it…but we had a blast. We poached the Weston’s pool an swim up bar New Year’s eve day and ended up going out on some rich guys fancy power boat (cringe) for the New Year’s fireworks. It was a great New Years…unfortunately the next day Jason & Julia had to leave…but they were now only a short cab ride from the airport. Before they left we got to see a crocodile swimming in the marina…yowza.

On random rich guys power boat…back row: Jason, Jen, Tawn, Julia and CB…front row: Erlin (not sure what he is doing), Joanne. Brad is missing as he is taking the photo.

Really bad photo of Puerto Vallarta fireworks.

So in wrapping it up, Jason & Julia started in Cabo San Lucas, rode a bus to LaPaz, snorkled in Espiritu Santo, took a 359 mile boat ride across a sea, ended up in La Cruz, took a day trip to Sayulita then ended in Puerto Vallarta…that all happened in 10 days! What will your trip included when visiting Palarran?

Thanks soooo much guys for visiting and doing our crossing to the mainland…we missed you the moment you left. The next 18 months will be excruciating, but will go fast and before you know it you will be sitting in the Gecko Rojo writing a blog post that should have been written a week ago as well:-)

New Years 2014 as Julia & Jason realize they can now say we are leaving to go cruising next year…glad we could be there for that moment guys….luv ya!