Countdown started

Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico

The trip from Edmonton to Mazatlan went extremely smooth, in spite of all our worries over our excess  baggage.

Our very good friend Val took pity on us and gave us a ride to the Edmonton airport - otherwise this would be an $80 taxi ride.  We arrived in plenty of time for our departure, encountered no line at security, and were able to have a leisurely lunch before boarding our direct flight to Mazatlan.  We left on time and arrived on time, a 4-1/2 hour trip arriving at 6:30 PM.  Customs in Mexico were extremely friendly and our luck held as we pushed the magic button and received a green (go) light.  No one was interested in our huge collection of bags except for an industrious porter who transported them to the taxi line.  We managed to squeeze everything into a car and were whisked away through the nightmare of road construction that is Mazatlan, arriving at the marina around 7:40 PM.  Here we were immediately met by one of the marina security guards who piled all our bags onto his golf cart and took them to our dock.  In all, we almost never handled our own luggage until we were at the boat - pretty sweet!  After stowing our bags on board, we even had time to indulge in a pizza at one of the local restaurants before crashing for the night.  It really makes it easier when the entire flight is in a single time zone.

Now, we are faced with the daunting task of preparing to leave Mazatlan.  After more than 3 months since we have left a dock, we have pretty well forgotten everything we knew about sailing this boat.  Also, as you can see from this picture, you never know what goes on on your boat when you are away - this is the boat next door to us, whose owners left for the summer no more than 3 weeks ago - the birds have already made a home in a rolled up bimini cover.  I saw no evidence of similar activity on our boat.

Some of the preparations on our list include buying some new fishing gear (a new rod, line and lures, etc.), making sure the dinghy is sufficiently lashed down on the deck, filling our fresh water tanks, and doing some provisioning.  We hired Ruben, our friendly neighborhood diver, to scrape the barnacles and crap from the prop and bottom of the boat and replace the non-existent zincs.  I finally got around to wiring up our old spare 40-watt solar panel as a "roving" panel which we can throw on top of the new bimini.  In practice this does not seem to be adding any more than a single amp, but every little bit will help I'm sure, when we are in the Sea of Cortez this summer.

The weather here is noticeably warmer and more humid than when we left.  Temperatures are around 30C during the day and fall to the low 20s at night.  In order to get re-acclimatized, we have returned to our old habits of taking it easy, including coffee and bagels at the Calypso cafe each morning.  Most of the people we had been hanging around with when we left for Edmonton are gone now, but there is a fresh new crop on the docks, most just passing through on their way to La Paz and the Sea of Cortez.  That is where we will be going too, as soon as we feel ready (the countdown to departure has started).  Right now, both Sue and I still have the remnants of the colds we picked up in Edmonton and I would like to see these cleared up before we start on the 2 or 3 day passage to La Paz.  So, life is good and likely to just get better.

{GMST}23|16.25|N|106|27.2833|W|Marina Mazatlan|Marina Mazatlan{GEND}