Xmas in Mazatlan and our trip to Isla Isabella

After a good crossing from La Paz we arrived in Mazatlan. A bigger city than La Paz and more sprawled out. It has a rejuvenated “Old City” which is very charming with a town centre surrounded by cutesy restaurants and lots of night activity. This seems to be the norm in Mexico when all of the families come out for the evening. It is another very “cruiser friendly” port.
We tied up at Marina Mazatlan which was the first time alongside since San Diego so had the luxury of washing the boat down in fresh water and plugging into power .
We immediately got into the cruiser culture, biking on Sunday mornings to a local palapa for breakfast, sharing rides to get groceries and going out to dinner with fellow cruisers. Caught up with several boats we had not seen for some time. We found a single sideband radio one of the cruisers was selling and had him help us install it. We now hope we can get better radio weather reception, something which had been frustrating us and we had become aware that as we travel further away from civilization will be invaluable.
We joined up with Toni, Barry, Roland and Toni’s mum Laura who is visiting them from Mozambique. We had a Xmas eve dinner on the boat with them and spent time with them seeing around Mazatlan.
The marina was alive with festivities. A local orphanage has choreographed a performance of singing and dancing which they take to various places, including the marina to raise money for their care for the following year. They were delightful. Local cruisers caroled in the evening and then we had a pot luck Xmas dinner which was a lot of fun. Ken became the surrogate Poppa of some of the young girls (quite a few family cruising families were tied up with us) and had them all dancing and visiting us for the rest of our stay there. We had a movie night for the kids on our boat one night and ended up with seven of them watching Madagascar. New Years Eve was at a local restaurant where we had dinner dancing and a bonfire on the beach and fireworks to follow.
It was a great holiday season and although we missed our family we were able to talk on Skype to all except David who was having Xmas in the Philippines. Kristen headed to New Zealand via Australia and much to hers and Kyle’s relief Adelyn became the model baby on the plane. Of course my Mum is delighted to have them there for a month.
Finally the radio was installed and we set off with Barry and family to head off to Isla Isabella.
After a 90 mile night sail we ended at a small Island off the coast the next morning. This proved to be one of the highlights of our trip so far. This Island is a national park and is protected. Jacque Cousteau had done research here. It is totally covered with amazing bird life, iguanas and whales all around. It is probably the closest thing to the Galapagos I can imagine. Frigate birds, which have an amazing profile in the sky are everywhere.
We went for an incredible walk across the Island and one had to be careful not to step on the booby’s nests. The frigate birds are in the trees and you walk right up to them. The males have a bright red puffer sac under their beaks which they puff up when they want to impress females, they certainly impressed this one!! We found green, yellow and the elusive blue footed boobies. A cute bird in a cave we identified as a tropic-bird. We sat and watched a whale performance from the shore. Gave the star a perfect 10 score as he cavorted and breached. There were 3 others but they seemed more intent on feeding than entertaining. A large group of iguanas rest in an old half built building.
We went for a dive but the water was a bit stirred up so wasn’t as clear as we would have liked.
The next day we snorkeled and were rewarded with much clearer water and a pile of colourful tropical fish. Every dingy trip ended up with a whale chase. We would see them in the distance and take off trying to catch up with them which was successful as long as they were not on a hurried mission to wherever they were going. We took the kayak out and had some great explorations with it.
There were a small number of other cruisers there some local fishermen with pangas and some research students from the University of Guadelope. We finally felt as though we had really arrived at the place we had envisioned for ourselves when we set out on our voyage from Canada and are looking forward to discovering more exotic locales.
After a few days we headed back to Mazatlan to drop off Barry and Toni and we will then head back down the coast to San Blas, our next stop.
We had an enjoyable dinner with some Mexican friends of Barry and Toni’s for an evening before leaving Mazatlan so it was great to join a real Mexican family in their home. Hopefully as my Spanish improves we will immerse better with the local culture. The dinner was a celebration of Jacque from USA's birthday and Ari our host has a wonderful tenor voice and entertained us. As in all Mexican celebrations loud music is good and louder is better!!!Every coffee shop and restaurant has blaring music
I bought a kilo of large fresh shrimps for $7 to take back to the boat and a glass of fresh squeezed juice with the juice of 5 oranges for 80cents. I am writing this at an internet cafe which makes wonderful capucinos (they solved the frothy milk thing!!) but the TV is on some soap opera which is blaring to compete with the passing traffic.I have decided that the number of shoe stores relates directly to the condition of the sidewalks--I have gone over onto the side and pulled out the leather of 2 pairs of sandals so far which I need to get fixed.
My Spanish CD lessons continue—up to lesson 11 and now know how to ask lots of questions but not ready for too many answers. Ken got waylaid with the installation of the single sideband so after Toni and Barry leave will hopefully get back to it so I can converse with someone at my own level.
We hope all of you had a great Xmas and have a prosperous New Year—ours promises to be richer in activities than money!!!