Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico
Where does the time go?
It is hard to believe that we have been here in Mazatlan for over 3 weeks now. And what have we accomplished? For that matter, what were we supposed to accomplish? Nada!
For the last week, we have not wandered far from the marina, always anticipating that Pedro (the hombre who is building our new bimini) will show up. Heaven help us if he came while we were away and we missed our window of opportunity. We did manage to get down to the Golden Zone a couple of times, mostly to get some exercise and to get more money out of the ATMs, where we enjoyed seeing the tourists and time-share salesmen. Took a look at the beach there - a few more people around but still generally very quiet.
Golden Zone Beach
Not very many boats leaving although there have been a few new boats arriving lately - still lots of room at the marina.
February 14th is celebrated in Mexico as the Día de San Valentin, but it's more commonly referred to as El Día del Amor y la Amistad, the "day of love and friendship. We celebrated by going out for supper at the most expensive restaurant here at the marina - price is no object when it comes to the love of my life. We went all out with drinks, seafood entrees and dessert - spent 500 pesos (about $42), which is a big night out for us.
A couple of the cruisers are involved with the Salvation Army orphanage here in Mazatlan. On Sunday, the orphans put on a show at the cruiser's lounge as a fund-raiser. It was very well attended and the show, singing and dancing, was really cute. I think they were very happy with the donations - strangely enough from the sale of soft drinks and beer (not strictly speaking sanctioned by the Salvation Army). The attached picture of the crowd will give a rough idea of the average age of the cruisers, RVers and other foreigners that live down here.
The weather has been generally great. We did have a few days where we woke up to a heavy fog which did not clear off until nearly noon. With the humidity running close to 100% and the morning temperatures still hovering around 12C, the fog made it feel quite cool. Mostly though, the day-time highs are around 27 degrees and the sky is almost uniformly blue and the sun feels very warm - just about ideal temperatures for us northerners. I can see why so many of the cruisers here seem to just stay for the entire winter - although that is not our plan.
What are our plans you might ask. Well, we have decided to stay here in Mazatlan until after Carnival, which is on from March 3rd to 8th. We have bought tickets for the 6th of March for a buffet supper, with viewing seats at one of the hotels along the parade route - for once in our lives we are not going to leave someplace just before all the fun starts. From all reports this is a big deal here - for more information, you can follow this link - http://www.mexicoguru.com/mazatlans-carnival.php or just look up Carnival in Mazatlan on the web.
Since we have made the decision to stick around a while, in addition to getting the aforementioned bimini cover made for the boat, we may get some cockpit cushions made as well, and we are finally getting around to finishing off some of the bright work on the exterior. We had done most of this before we left Nanaimo but did not get around to some of the items in the cockpit, most notably the wheel.
Note: If we ever buy another boat, make sure to remind me that exterior woodwork, no matter how good it looks, is never a good idea.
We will probably be heading south just after Carnival, heading for the Puerto Vallarta area, where we have some friends holidaying around the end of March. A few of the boats that have arrived here have just come up from there and keep telling us how wonderful it is there right now (so why are they back here?). Meanwhile, all is well (what was that strange noise coming from the refrigerator just now?) and life is good!
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