Mazatlán in style

Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

As planned, we left La Cruz last Tuesday morning.  The passage to Mazatlán was an awkward one for us; the total distance is just over 170 miles, too far for us to do in one day and too short for two days - we usually plan on an average speed of 5 knots, which works out to about 125 miles per day.  Ideally we would have liked to leave the marina in the evening but the local thermal winds blow from about 11AM onward every day, making early morning the easiest time of day for maneuvering our uncooperative boat.  Thus, we left at 10 AM, with the plan to just go very slow.

To get out of Bandaras Bay, we needed to go directly west.  Since we had a lot of time in hand and an entire afternoon of moderate west winds in the bay, we elected to sail close-hauled, tacking back and forth with our usual disappointing upwind performance.  We sailed about 20 miles in about 5 hours, gaining only 5 miles towards our destination.  We motored for the last few miles before turning north, when the winds disappeared for the day.

We motored slowly through the night and well into the next day.  The seas were quite calm and we were treated to a stream of turtles sleeping on the surface.  Around 1 PM a west wind came up, building throughout the afternoon to around 10 knots, then dying off around 8 PM.  We were able to sail for about 6 hours on a single port tack, close hauled as always, drastically reducing sail to keep our speed to less than 4 knots to avoid arriving at Mazatlán in the middle of the night.

For the rest of Wednesday night, we motored at very low RPM to time our arrival at the Sabalo estuary breakwater at high slack tide, at 7:30 AM on Thursday morning.  This meant passing by the busy Mazatlán shipping port in the dark, but this was no big deal with both our AIS and radar systems now working.  The sun was just rising as we approached the estuary.

As expected, the winds were calm and there was no current to contend with within the breakwater.  The only hazard was the pipe for the dredging machinery that is parked in the channel, but there was sufficient room to squeeze by.

We tied up the El Cid fuel dock, where we waited for the marina to open at 8:30 AM.  We topped up our tank, then decided on where to put the boat.  In the past, when we stayed in Mazatlán, we took a slip at Marina Mazatlán, which is what we anticipated doing this time as well.

We had met a nice couple back in La Cruz, who arrived here in Mazatlán a few days before us. They had emailed us that the El Cid  marina was not as outrageously expensive as we had imagined, and the facilities were wonderful.  They were right and here we are!

Note: We had no significant equipment failures on this passage - things are looking up.

This is a small marina, part of the very upscale El Cid resort.  These are the best maintained docks we have ever seen and the washrooms and showers are excellent.  We get to use all of the hotel amenities including two large pools, one heated and one not, plus a hot pool, a private beach and many different areas with lounge chairs scattered about.  They have a laundry service and small supermarket on the premises.  There are a couple of reasonably priced restaurants at which we get a 20% discount.  They provide a free shuttle bus to their other property in the gold zone, which we have utilized to get into the busier, touristy part of town, making it easy to go out for meals or nightlife if we so desire.  Even at the full-price daily moorage rate of .75 per foot per day, this is a bargain!  It gets cheaper the longer we stay.

Yesterday, we made the journey to the El Faro lighthouse at the other end of town.  Somehow, in spite of all the time we spent here 7 years ago, we never got around to it.  It is a fairly steep 30 minute hike up the hill, but worth it for the great views over the town and harbour.

Most of our time here has been taken up with hiking, swimming, eating and general lounging around.  Looking at the weather forecasts, it appears the next potential window for heading to San Carlos won’t be until next Sunday or later.  For this passage, we would really like a good 3 day window, maybe even with some south winds for a change, as it is about 375 miles without a lot of good anchoring possibilities along the way.

{GMST}23|16.124|N|106|27.846|W|Mazatlan, Mexico|Mazatlan , Mexico{GEND}