Barra de Navidad

At the lookout over Barra

From Tenacatita it was a quick hop down the coast and around the point to Barra de Navidad. We anchored Samadhi off of the village of Melaque which is just North of Barra on the other side of the bay. Melaque was great! We found the most amazing barbecue chicken (cooked over hardwood charcoal "logs")! We also enjoyed some Mexican shaved ice, one of our favorite ways to cool off.

After spending a day touring Melaque, the next morning we headed over to the Barra de Navidad lagoon. We stopped for breakfast at the local French bakery where we enjoyed fresh croissants and other viennoiseries along with coffee. We're not sure why there is a French bakery in Barra, but it was delicious! We poked through the (touristy) shops that line the quaint cobblestone streets but didn't find anything compelling enough to buy.

After touring Barra de Navidad "proper", we headed across the lagoon to the Grand Bay Resort. The Grand Bay has an attached marina that is very well sheltered. This would be a good place to wait out a storm system. Yachts using the marina have full access to all of the facilities of the Grand Bay Resort, including 27 holes of golf, pools, waterslides, etc. etc... We took advantage of the pools and waterslides before heading to the golf course for lunch.

Barra is an extraordinary place, I wish we had more time to stay... but it's time to keep moving South!

Memories of Barra de Navidad

Tenacatita

The Jungle Ride

We departed La Cruz de Huanacaxtle in the evening. Our late departure was not an accident. We had a date with Cabo Corrientes and its reputation for strong winds and currents demanded respect. Thankfully we had moderate swells of less than 6' and only an hour or two of cross seas. Once we were safely around the cape in the wee hours of the morning, we set our course for Tenacatita.

Tenacatita is a small beachfront settlement on the Costalegre (coast of Jalisco) located about 27 miles northwest of Barra de Navidad. Tenacatita is a wonderful change from the "big city" of Puerto Vallarta. Arriving in the early afternoon, we anchored in a shallow bay, well protectected from the prevailing Northwest winds that blow so steadily here.

Playing on the beach

We lowered the dinghy into the bay and headed up the river for our "Jungle Tour". The jungle tour (as it is called by cruisers) is a dinghy ride up the river and into a lagoon behind the beach at Tenacatita. The river is narrow and filled with mangroves. In places the mangrove trees grow over the top of the river turning it into a tunnel of lush green vegetation.

Alexander and the Sand Pyramid

We grabbed lunch at one of the beachfront restaurants. Alexander and Nicholas immediately rushed onto the beach to build sand castles. I must say, out of all of the beaches we have been to in Mexico this had the best sand for building castles. Alexander demonstrated this by building a sand pyramid, then picking it up and carrying it around! Nicholas built a "wet sand" tower that was almost a meter high before we called him over lunch!

We stayed in Tenacatita for two days enjoying the quiet (we were the only yacht) and the natural beauty surrounding us.

¡Hasta luego La Cruz!

Maria and the boys

We're just now closing up the ports and hatches and doing all the last-minute buttoning up required before putting out to sea. It seems like ages--heck, it has been ages since we last cruised to a new port of call! We can hardly wait.

The boys had a special visitor this afternoon. The lady who runs the business center came by to give the boys farewell gifts! She gave them puzzles and games to keep them entertained on our passage. She's really been wonderful, chatting with the boys while they've studied in the yacht club.

It's strange to have grown so attached to a place that isn't really home. There are so many people here in La Cruz that we'll miss. Still, we're very eager to put out to sea once more and feel that peculiar brand of freedom that cruising on the ocean brings.

Mas fiestas!

Working against the tide

Today we decided to take in some culture. The boys did some Calvert in the morning and then we decided to take a traditional Sunday afternoon drive. First we stopped for delicious bírria tacos in town. Then, bellies full of delicious beef, we headed north to the village of San Pancho.

San Pancho is a small pueblo just north of Sayulita. The locals tell us that Bucerias used to look like this 30 years ago. We had a great time looking at all the Huichol handicrafts and playing on the beach. We came back the long way via Punta de Mita, stopping for fresh pineapple and green coconut.

This evening we had a special treat! To celebrate the end of four days of frolicking, virtuosic flautist Horacio Franco played a gala concert at the amphitheater here at the marina. It was amazing! It was just him and a cellist. They played everything from 14th century medieval to Bach and Vivaldi to Lennon and McCartney.

Now it's time for bed. We're hoping to receive our package from the States tomorrow. After that, we just need to finish getting Samadhi ship-shape, and we can get underway!

2 down, 1 to go!

Nicholas works on his composition.

This time around the boys had a little under 3 months to complete three 22-lesson "units" of Calvert. As of this afternoon, the boys are happy to announce that they have submitted their Lesson 100 tests to Calvert! Now we've got over a month before they leave to visit their mom, and only one unit to go!

Alexander's teacher Mrs. Soyke warned us that this set of tests and the next ones are the hardest in the course, but we're very confident about the boys' performance. To quote Nicholas, "Bring it on!"

It's going to be such a relief to be able to scale back the amount of time the boys spend on Calvert. We're looking forward to 5 very kick-back weeks.

The excitement of cruising: Fixing the stove.

When people think about cruising to warm places aboard a fine yacht, they probably don't envision what life is really like. Here is a brief sample:

Aboard Samadhi V we have a fantastic 4 burner gas range with an infrared broiler in the oven (to cast the perfect caramel glow onto your Creme Brulée). Unfortunately, one of the four burners decided to malfunction. After some time of cooking on only three (so difficult!), it was time to dig in and find the issue.

The stove is equipped with flame sensors on each burner. The flame sensors detect if the stove or oven flame is inadvertently extinguished while the gas supply is on. Since propane is both heavier than air (fills up the boat) and explosive (makes the boat go away), these are important safety measures. Safety is good, but in our case, the flame sensor for one of the burners has decided to stage a revolt. No matter how we try, the stove would dutifully shut off the gas to this burner even though it was lit.

I performed surgery on the stove, carefully removing about 30 tiny stainless screws. After the screws are out, you can lift the top surface off of the stove exposing the delicate "guts" (technical term).

Force 10 Range Guts

Once you have exposed the "guts", you must go about figuring out how the thing works. Our stove did not come with a service manual that covers the flame sensors. What I discovered is that each flame sensor is a thermocouple. The thermocouple powers (directly!!) a tiny electromagnet that apparently has enough oomph to hold the gas valve open. I started by testing the tiny electromagnet, which tested good. Next, I tested the thermocouple itself which did not produce a voltage. Normally, this would indicate it was bad. Upon closer inspection, I found a tiny bit of white corrosion at the base of the thermocouple. I cleaned the corrosion off and tested again. Lo and behold! The thermocouple was working!

Terribly impressed with myself, I removed and cleaned each thermocouple in the stove. I, then, reassembled the thermocouples with a corrosion blocking product to (hopefully) avoid this in the future.

After carefully reassembling the stove with its myriad micro-sized stainless screws, two hours later, I declared official victory!

Just imagine how much easier this is than calling a repairman "back home". Makes me wonder why everyone isn't out here cruising.

Next time, I'll share my adventures with the plumbing leak under the guest cabin's berth... Woohoo!

"Star Wars Saladin" the Musical!

Intense fighting action!

Today we were privileged enough to see the world premiere of the Alexander and Nicholas Koken puppet show musical spectacular "Star Wars Saladin". The boys were brilliant. You can check out video and stills and promotional materials on our Flickr pages.

Go boys!



The Stills

The Video and Promo Materials

Visiting Las Islas Tres Marietas

Alexander and Nicholas at the bow

To celebrate the boys' completion a unit of Calvert, we took Samadhi out to the Marietas islands. We had a fantastic day filled with fishing, bird watching and hermit crab chasing. The highlight was seeing all the blue-footed boobies.

Check out Kelly and Phillip's Flickr streams.


We're trying out this new PictoBrowser gizmo. Let us know what you think.



Phil's Flickr Set


Kelly's Flickr set

La Fiesta Patronal de La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

Nicholas and Alexander at the Corral

From 25 April until 3 May, La Cruz hosted its quadrennial festival to Santa Cruz, its patron saint. There were carnival rides, raucous partying, ballet folklórico, blaringly loud music, bottle rockets, games of skill and chance, and lots of church services and ceremonies. It all culminated in an amazing rodeo will locals riding bulls and horses dancing to a twenty-something-piece norteño banda.

You can see more photos on our Flickr pages:

Kelly, Phil, and Nicholas.

The boys are sailing their dinghy again.

Taking the boys out sailing

After a long sabbatical, the boys' Fatty Knees sailing dinghy has been relaunched!

Alexander and Nicholas will be taking it out daily while they work on their sailing skills. La Cruz Marina offers an ideal location to provide sailing instruction in a sheltered area. We are using the large Marina Basin as the training area. There aren't any yachts in the basin so the boys can sail freely. Tomorrow is exciting because we are doing capsize and recovery training!