When I last did a real update we had just finished Christmas at Philo’s in La Cruz. After that excitement we had a wonderful visit with a friend (Nanette) from Tom’s work days and her family. We visited them one day at their fancy resort on the beach in Puerto Vallarta then had them out for a day sail on Sunny. Unfortunately we were so busy enjoying ourselves and catching up that I forgot to take any pictures :-( It was a wonderful visit and hopefully they had a good time.
Just prior to their visit, we took the bus up to the botanical gardens, the last summer’s rains left the garden lush and beautiful:
We couldn’t believe the color of these Philippine jade vine flowers:
Lots of beautiful flowers:
We then flew up to California for a two week whirlwind visit with family and friends. We started in Southern California and had a nice visit with my (Carolynn) Mom and Brother. Then up to central California to see my Sister and her menagerie; she has 7 horses, 5 cats, 4 dogs, a husband, and lots of beautiful landscaping to take care of. I don’t know how she manages but everything seems to work. Actually one of the horses and one of the dogs is ours that Libby is so wonderfully taking care of. Hey look, I remembered to take a few pictures :-)Libby with the dogs, they wouldn’t stay still long enough for a good shot:
Here is my Smokie playing with the new puppy Buckaroo:
Here’s Brahim, muddy but doing very well: 
And finally, a panoramic view of their ranch:
We then took a scenic trip up the valley and over to the coast up to Santa Cruz to visit old haunts and memories. The surf was really up and the surfers were out in force:
We finished the visit at Tom’s mother’s place up in Cupertino. It was wonderful seeing everyone and getting all kinds of goodies not available in Mexico, though the budget sure did suffer :-)
Back in La Cruz our boat and cat Ginger had been well taken care of by Katrina (Thanks!!).
We provisioned, filled the diesel tanks then did an overnight passage to the laguna at Barra de Navidad. This was a very nice, calm and protected anchorage, though the unmarked channel getting into it was very narrow. Luckily we had some good GPS waypoints so we didn’t touch the bottom. The anchorage however is very shallow and each day at low tide we were firmly in the mud! It’s soft so no harm done (and no danger of dragging). It also got very crowded (47 boat at max), but everyone anchored well so there were no problems.
Barra is a pretty and very clean beach town, but a bit too touristy for our tastes:
One of the great things about Barra is the French Baker. Every morning a French guy visits each of the boats in the lagoon selling fresh baked pastries, croissants, etc:
The obligatory sunset picture: 
We then sailed from Barra to Las Hadas anchorage in Manzanillo. Las Hadas resort is a sureal fairy tale setting perched on the cliffs above the anchorage. Built in the 1960 and based on a Moorish fairy tale called the fairies, the resort was one of the nicest and cleanest we’ve seen in Mexico, and rivaling anything we’ve seen in the United States:
We has thought the anchorage in Barra was crowded, it had nothing on this anchorage! Prior to going cruising we would have guessed that you could get 8 to 10 boats safely anchored in the tiny spot. Now we have gotten more used to crowds but at one point there were 22 boats here! And many were as big, or bigger than us. Here we are at a restaurant overlooking the anchorage, it doesn’t look that crowded from this angle; hmm, maybe some boats have left:
After a few days in this pretty spot, we did a long 34 hour passage to Isla Grande then to Zihuatenejo. This is a busy touristy bay with lots of ski boats towing para sailors and a cruise ship in port, but we haven’t yet gotten off the boat so I don’t know what the town is like. I believe there is a wifi signal I can get into so hopefully I can post this entry.
We plan to spend a few days here then do a several day passage to Acapulco.
Cheers,
Carolynn, Tom & Ginger
