From Janet:
19 December
It's really, really windy right now. And it's raining!!! We're not quite sure
what happened... we were in La Cruz this morning and decided we needed to head
out into the bay to charge batteries (by running the diesel) and use the water
maker to make some fresh water. We decided to head to Punta de Mita, which is
the other place where we anchored with Ben when he was visiting. We were looking
forward to more surfing and snorkeling -- the visibility underwater here was
fantastic. By 2 p.m. the wind was starting to build, and by the time we were a
couple miles offshore we registered 20 knot gusts with our handheld wind meter
(which is really not a lot!! But it is the most we have seen here so far).
Near our approach, we were eating sandwiches for a late lunch because who wants to anchor on an empty stomach?, and I put a pile of jalapeno chips onto Eric's plate. Not the best idea as they started to blow all over the place. And a dollop of mustard actually blew from the side of the sandwich onto Eric's shirt. Anyway, the waves breaking onto the beach looked way too scary for surfing, and riding the dingy in would be pretty insane. There were about eight other sailboats scattered around the moorage, one catamaran, and one large powerboat. Even though the weather was crappy, we decided to go for it as it was too late to head back to La Cruz anyway. Anchoring was a bit challenging but we did just fine. We were trying to stay equidistant from the catamaran, the powerboat, and the nearest sailboat, but the wind was blowing so hard that I had to circle back twice around. I also couldn't stay pointed into the wind for very long, because each time the wind caught one side or other of the boat, it blew us around. So Eric was out on the bow for a while waiting for the right time to drop the anchor. The wind is still blowing at 15+ and it's raining, but we've been here five hours and it seems to be holding well.
Another powerboat came in to anchor next to us, and they had an automatic/electric windlass (drops and retracts the anchor). They dropped anchor the first time and didn't like something about it, so they were pulling it back up. The two guys on the bow yelled when the anchor cleared the water line, but of course no one could hear anything because the wind was blowing so hard. So it kept retracting and it smacked right into the fiberglass. So they headed off to the other area to anchor, tail between their legs so to speak. It's always nice to have someone around to make us feel better about our skills.
Anyway, we have an alarm on our GPS that tells us if we has moved. It was set for .02 nautical miles (about 120 feet) and it has gone off three or four times, but we have about 175 feet of anchor chain out, and the wind has shifted so we are still fine. Eric just reset the alarm for .03 nautical miles. Our hope was to go to Yelapa tomorrow which is on the other side of Banderas Bay. But the wind is blowing from the north which may make that an uncomfortable anchorage. It's not a great anchorage anyway as there is a steep drop off shelf not far from shore, but we hear there are moorage buoys you can tie off to. We'll check it out depending on the weather.
On Thursday we should be heading in to Puerto Vallarta by bus to meet Ben's
friends who brought us some parts we need for the boat.
Last night we watched our first movie on the boat -- Castaway!! We had both seen it a long time ago. Actually the first time I saw it I was in Tanzania and all of the dialog parts had been cut out so I didn't have much of the background information. For some reason I thought it was based on a true story, but they never said anything about that before or after the movie so I guess not!
Earlier that day we headed into Philo's for breakfast and spent a few hours online, then walked around town for a while. We went into a Huichol craft Center. The Huichol are an indigenous group that has lived in the mountains for centuries and are famous for their beadwork. We went into a small grocery store and bought a grapefruit, an onion, some tomatoes, yogurt, some bread, and a couple bananas and the total was 35 pesos or about $3.50. Pretty cheap. There was a lady outside of the store with a huge grill set up and she was roasting half chickens that looked and smelled really really good. We were really tempted but it wasn't that close to dinnertime and we didn't think we should carry it around in the heat not to mention the dingy ride back to the boat.
I was thinking about it for the rest of the day though. When we finally got
back to the boat, we started the motor to charge the batteries, and I noticed
smoke coming from the engine compartment. The alternator belt had frayed and
melted all over the place. It was the wrong size anyway but we were hoping it
would work for a couple more days. We really need to charge, so Eric jumped back
in the dingy, got back to shore, and went to a few hardware stores. He found
some narrower belts which seem to be working now. I should have told him to
bring back a couple chickens! Damn!