Two years?! Yup, I know right? It’s hard to believe! In May of 2014, Brian retired after 20 years in the Marine Corps and I quit my job of 17 years. We sold or donated most of our possessions and entered the Baja Ha Ha cruisers rally that October, sailing to Mexico on our 34ft sailboat, Indigo. Before leaving on this stupendous sojourn, the skeptics were in abundance.

“Wow, you sure you want to live on a boat full time?” (No, but we’re going to risk the attempt in order to escape the rat race for a while and see some of the world.)

“What about pirates?” (Haven’t seen or heard any stories of such on the West coast of Mexico.)

“I could never live with my husband in such tight quarters every second of every day.” (I do, and it’s no problem…I have my side of the boat and he has his.)

“How are you going to get food?” “Are you going to have to fish every day?” (We eat better in Mexico then we do in the States. It’s cheaper. Fishing not required.)

“No way, I’ll give you 6 months, tops. You’ll sell the boat and come back.” (…they’re still waiting.)

“You CAN’T do that!” (We CAN and DID.)

So… what’s the verdict?
Two years are gone, but we have no regrats. Not a single letter. Yes, we still enjoy living on a boat. No, we haven’t strangled each other, yet. Yes, we still want to continue the journey... we just don’t know where to, or when, or for how long... you can’t make these decisions lightly.

Stats
I have been asked (hounded, actually… sheesh… alright already) for an overview of our time here in the Sea of Cortez. So here are the stats after two seasons of cruising in Mexico:

Miles traveled:  (2yr totals)
2496 miles

Hours at sea:
575 hours on the water = 225 sailing hours + 350 engine hours since we left San Diego
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Nights / passages at sea: 14 total nights (a night meaning dusk 'til dawn) / 9 total passages
3 nights straight, San Diego to Turtle Bay (Longest…and uber-tiring)
2 nights, Turtle Bay to Bahia Santa Maria (Worst. Big waves = mental breakdown. I don’t know if I can do this!)
1 overnight, Bahia Santa Maria to Cabo San Lucas (Getting warmer. OK, we can do this. Truly felt like we accomplished something!)
1, Cabo San Lucas to Bahia de los Muertos (First tropical anchorage… “Ah, now THIS is cruising!”)
1, Playa Santispac to San Carlos (Brian’s best - sailed all the way, dolphin escort, no motoring!)
1, San Carlos to Playa Santispac (Marya’s cranky crossing, moonless night, no fun steering)
2, La Paz to Mazatlan (Our crossing w/Starfire was great! Finally learned how to sleep while sailing.)
2, Mazatlan to Playa Bonanza (Marya’s best - perfectly calm, skating-rink water, 24hrs straight motoring! Can you tell the difference now between my perfect crossing and Brian’s? Basically: motor vs. no motor.)
1, Punta Mangles to San Carlos (Now we are old hats…no biggie.)

Islands Visited: 6, Coronados, Danzante, Carmen, San Francisco, San Jose, Ispiritu Santos

Anchorages Visited: 44, many of these more than once

Favorite Anchorages:
Marya’s favorite anchorages – Isla San Francisco, Puerto Los Gatos

Brian’s favorite anchorages – Bahia de los Muertos, Caleta Mezteño

Best sunsets – Caleta Lobos

Best snorkeling  – Marya - Bahia Cobre, Brian - Los Gatos

Best week of seclusion – Caleta Mezteño, 2nd  Ensenada Grande

Clearest water – Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante

Best beach hotel – Bahia Candeleros

Best kayaking – Can’t decide: San Juanico, Agua Verde, Candeleros, Ensenada Grande, Honeymoon, Los Gatos – all good

Best tide pool strolling – Agua Verde

Coolest rock formations – Puerto Los Gatos

Best wildlife sightings – Isla Coronados (jumping mobula rays all evening), San Marte (more jumping rays and fish) and Bahia Cobre (fish galore and a bighorn sheep)

Most picturesque anchorage – Isla San Francisco (west)

Best cliff hike – Agua Verde; 2nd – Isla San Francisco

Best canyon hike – Steinbeck’s canyon in Puerto Escondido; 2nd – Ensenada Grande

Best rocky beach – Isla San Francisco (east)

Best sand beach – Playa Bonanza

Best shell beach – Punta Chivato

More Bests and Worsts, Firsts and Tidbits:
Most difficulty anchoring – Punta Mangles (due to strong winds)

Trickiest anchorage – San Juanico (multiple shallow reefs, plus someone inevitably has taken the good spot!)

Easiest anchorages – Coronados (south)

Anchorages we’ve entered in the dark – Timbabiche (first), Bonanza

Anchorages we’ve left in the dark – Timbabiche, Caleta Lobos, Ensenada Gallina

Anchorage in which we’ve re-anchored in the dark (not recommended) – San Juanico

Best anchorage for norther’ protection – Playa Santispac

Anchorages we’ve had all to ourselves – Lobos, Mezteno, Ensenada Grande (believe it), La Raza, Gallina, Amortajada (south)(where the biting no-see-um’s hung out, no wonder it was empty), Colorada, Perico, Coronados (south), Honeymoon (south), Mangles, Pulpito, Santispac, Santa Barbara, El Burro

Shared with only one other boat – Timbabiche, Punta Salinas, Cobre, Bonanza, San Francisco (east)
This endearing characteristic of the Baja Peninsula (lack of people) is why we enjoy it so much.

Best night’s sleep anchorage – Puerto Escondido
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Worst night’s sleep – San Juanico (south swell caused us to re-anchor); Partida (idiot power boat dragging anchor)

Worst anchorage of all time (experts agree) – Bahia Amortajada (biting jejene’s)

First tropical anchorage (wow, we can see the anchor!) – Bahia de Los Muertos

Rolliest anchorage  – Los Frailies (so bad we didn’t even set the anchor, kept on going overnight), 2nd – San Juanico (see worst night’s sleep)

Windiest anchorage – San Evaristo (unexpected night blast), Playa Santispac (30kts but we knew it was coming and it wasn’t bad)

Worst beach – Ensenada de la Raza (I wouldn’t call this a “beach”, more like a mud pit)

Anchorage most happiest to arrive at (after sailing 2 nights in uncomfortable seas) – Santa Maria

Worst anchor neighbors encountered – Ensenada Grande & Partida (the two most populous spots)

Unsurpassed fish taco shack – Lupe and Maggie Mae’s in San Evaristo

Best bay if you like bees – Ballandra on Isla Carmen

Cool ghost towns – Bahia Salinas, Punta Salinas


Marinas:
Best Marina Ever – Camp Pendleton Marina

Best Mexico marina overall – Marina Costa Baja in La Paz ties with El Cid in Mazatlan, Palmira a close 2nd

Best pool – Marina Costa Baja

Best internet – Marina El Cid

Worst internet – San Carlos (1st yr, they’ve since stepped up to 2nd best!); Marina Mazatlan (2nd yr)

Best and ONLY Cable TV – El Cid

Best swimming beach – Costa Baja

Best (and hottest) place to do boat projects (like a refrigerator) – Marina San Carlos

Best marina for: canvas work – El Cid; varnish – Marina Mazatlan; engine repair – Palmira

First Mexico marina – Cabo San Lucas

Most expensive – Cabo San Lucas

Loudest – Cabo San Lucas

Cheapest – Puerto Escondido Moorings at $10/day; 2nd Cheapest – Marina San Carlos

Most cruiser-friendly – Marina Palmira

Best wildlife viewing – Puerto Escondido

Most remote – Puerto Escondido

Most resortish – El Cid

Nicest marina admin. – (aside from Camp Pendleton) Marina Palmira ties with Marina Mazatlan

Most surge – El Cid

Least surge/best weather protection – Costa Baja

Cleanest bathrooms – El Cid (hands down)

Best shower facilities – Costa Baja open-air showers at the resort pool ties w/ El Cid, but Palmira now comes in close 2nd with their brand new facilities

Worst bathrooms – Marya - Marina Mazatlan; Brian - San Carlos (the men’s bathroom is just BAD)

Marina restaurant with the most consistently good food & still cheapish – Hammerhead’s at Marina San Carlos

Favorite restaurant (but expensive) – Marina Azul at Marina Costa Baja, La Paz

What's on the agenda this season?
We will be spending the entire winter in La Paz this year (with our friends who are coming down on the Ha Ha) in order to explore the area further. There’s just not enough time to see everything in each anchorage even after two winters. Los Gatos, San Marte and San Francisco are must return-to’s to name a few; we missed several coves on Ispiritu Santos such as Gabriel, Candeleros and El Cardonal; I still haven't visited the baby seals of Los Islotos nor the whales in the Bay of LA.  After that, maybe we’ll have seen enough and want to move on down further south. Who knows? Since the majority of world cruisers we meet declare the Sea of Cortez as the best cruising grounds around, we are not in a rush to go anywhere else just yet... 

Thoughts on life at Marina El Cid after two weeks:

Happenin’ Hotel
While Costa Baja Resort in La Paz is woefully lacking in tourists (except during Christmas and Easter), El Cid seemingly has no trouble keeping rooms filled to capacity. People are everywhere…in the pools, walking around, dining in the restaurants, frequenting the coffee-shop. Seems like every half hour, yet another tour boat heads out to sea: to the nearby island for snorkeling or beachcombing, whale watching tours, sunset cruises, banana-boat rides, mini-speed boat rentals. A pontoon boat leaves every 15 minutes, ferrying folks back and forth across the channel to the beach. While busier than we expected, this is a resort geared toward families, newlyweds and retirees, not spring-break-drunken-teenagers. So the people here have been great, just a lot more of them than we are used to.

Peculiar Photoshoot
One day nearing dusk, we heard (and felt) a professional photoshoot (wedding pics) going on in front of our boat. We “felt” it because the model was leaning on our boat. They didn’t ask. We were on board, but I don’t think they knew. Not cool. You just don’t lean on a stranger’s boat (unless you are talking to the owners), just like you don’t lean against someone’s house or motorcycle or car. But they weren’t hurting anything… so we didn’t protest.

Of course I didn’t think of this ‘til it was too late… I totally should have photo-bombed them…slowly and stealthily raising my head up through the forward hatch, eyes wide, hands against my cheeks, mouth forming a big “O”…you know, the classic Home Alone face. Darn it! Life is full of missed opportunities.

Daily Bingo
Poolside bingo occurs nearly every day at noon. From our boat, I can hear the game captain announcing each letter combo over loudspeaker in English, then in Spanish: “B5” / “bay cinco”, “M21 / “em-ay veinte y uno”. On the bright side, it is a good way to subliminally ingrain Spanish numbers into my brain. After that, the pool-party music starts. “Celebration” and “Macarena” again, yippee. Thankfully, the beat dies after 5pm. Unless there’s a wedding. Or fireworks. Or both. But then the real racket begins…the surge.

Say No to Surge
Bingo aside, Marina El Cid has numerous great attributes, but the single biggest downside is the surge. Since the marina is so close to the mouth of the breakwater, we get an unimaginable amount of surge due to the tide rushing in and out of this shallow area… not to mention all the tour boat wake activity. Indigo is constantly in motion, pushing and pulling against her lines… lurching this way and that. Sometimes I feel we may as well be at anchor. At Palmira we bounced up and down when it was windy; here we move side to side, all the time.

So we’ve frequently been waking up to groaning and moaning and grinding (and not in a good way).
At first, we kept Indigo secured well away from the dock, as per usual. But the resulting motion and creaking noise of lines stretching beyond their ability was too much to endure. Regular lines always loosen over time – but here, the forces of nature slim that time-frame down to nothing.

Wanted: “Surge Protectors”
After a few days, we began to notice something: people who have been here awhile use ratcheting tow webbing to wrench their boat super-snug against the dock, more-or-less minimizing the irritating movement and preventing line noise. We’d never seen tow-ropes used anywhere else. Usually you don’t want to be locked tight against the dock, grinding your fenders against the hull paint – eek, makes me cringe.

Throwing away conventional practice, we have tightened up to the dock as much as human strength allows…and it has helped tremendously. Still, last night at 3am, Brian wheedled me out of bed (I was already awake) to adjust lines that had loosened just enough to cause a most-unsleepable-through line squawk. We are now contemplating getting some of these…surge protectors.

Rope-Soaper
Additionally, I am soaping ropes every few days. Don’t laugh. Seriously, it’s an actual thing. I don’t know if anyone else has already named it, but if not, there it is. Rope-soaping is necessary to solve certain squeaks. On the sage advice from my boater friend and former boss Cindy, I keep a bar of Irish Spring handy to smear all over parts of the lines or chafe guard that rub against our hawseholes (holes in the sides of the boat through which we tie the boat to the dock). This immediately ceases the maddening creak of rubbing lines, minimizing sleepless nights, and thus irritated mornings… until it wears off in a few days. I should start soaping other boats’ ropes…as a courtesy.

Noisy Nights
On top of the surge chaos, there’s the bilge pump that goes off multiple times a night in a nearby boat making a distinct mechanical “er, er, er” sound exactly 38 times (yes, I counted) before it stops and starts up again a half hour later. Then there’s our neighbor’s boat hired hand who loudly rummages around in the dock box at 5am before washing the boat down every other day. And the dock ramp, a mere 4 feet away, which grinds the metal ramp on dock concrete every few minutes as the tide pushes it back up against the dock - like a slooowwly dying mechanical bull. Add to that the booming fireworks that occurred every night from Christmas to New Year’s…ay caramba! Not much REM sleep!

Marina Life = Noise
I have finally come to the realization (after all this time)… marina-life is LOUD! It’s too bad I can’t tolerate ear plugs.

• At Cabrillo Way Marina in San Pedro the wind noise and banging halyards defied belief, add in the occasional gunshot;
• At Spring Cove Marina in Maryland we had the transient party power boaters who wanted the entire town to enjoy their poor taste in music;
• Cabrillo Isle Marina in San Diego was directly across from the airport – enough said;
• Cabo San Lucas had its 6am refueling panga pandemonium and nightly pirate ship dance-fests;
• San Carlos had its daily drunken-singing-bachelorette-party-sunset-cruises and a boat who only listened to 80’s TV show themes …”Come and knock on our door…” (I secretly didn’t mind so much);
• At Palmira we endured the pterodactyl macaw and Taylor Swift enthusiasts;
• Costa Baja had the Fun Baja tour boats flitting in and out all day, plus competing restaurant musicians;
• Even our awesome and typically quiet Camp Pendleton Marina had military amphibious vehicles raising a ruckus in their high-powered speedboats (OK that IS their JOB); but let’s not forget the civilian jerk with the excruciatingly loud personal hovercraft. And I must not fail to mention a certain someone yelling "Tack!" all weekend-long through her bullhorn at the poor sailing students:)
• I have no illusions about our own contributions to the typical marina melee. We were the cause of many such annoying disturbances ourselves while getting the boat ready to leave. Between the sawzall, electric drill, and circular saw... the banging and hammering and tinkering noises... not to mention all the expletives launched at some such uncooperative boat part...I'm surprised we weren't yelled at through the bullhorn! (and probably deserved it!)

Conclusion: there’s just no such thing as a “quiet” marina. Living in a house is SO much more peaceful!

Happy with Our Stay at El Cid
Other than the surge and the busy activity of the marina, we’d definitely stay here again. The hotel is lovely and clean; the semi-tropical grounds are well maintained; we have magnificent beach access; the restaurants are very good; there’s a bus stop right out front; the dock water is potable (not always available in Mexico); the pool is warm and sparkling and the hot tub is HOT. Plus, we get free access to massive fluffy pool towels. And the internet ROCKS (for Mexico) - El Cid DOES have the corner on the market so far.

Major plus: the bathrooms. It’s ridiculous how much a hot shower and clean restrooms make me happy… not to mention reliably flushable toilets (you don’t realize how much of a luxury that is until you come to Mexico).

After being here for two weeks we found out there’s even a TV cable plug-in at the dock box. What? You mean we can get ACTUAL LIVE TV… like, in English? Next trip: Home Depot to buy a cable cord so Brian can catch up on his news shows. On second thought, maaaybe we should remain in our blissful head-in-the-sand, mostly news-free universe.

And now for another nap. I sleep better to the thumping beat of The Macarena than the erratic whine of The Dockline Grind.

Looking for a Window
Around Dec. 18th we started looking seriously for a weather window to cross to Mazatlán. Winds in La Paz have been abnormally high with barely a break in the action. It’s been cold there as well - in the 60’s! I know…It’s just downright intolerable that I had to break out my jeans and sweatshirt.

When I talk about a “weather window” that means we need favorable winds and seas for a certain length of time. In this case, we need a minimum of 3, preferably 4 days of benign winds. Part of that window includes time for letting the seas calm down from the previous blow, plus 2 full days of travel, and some slop time in case of a delay or the weather pattern moves quicker than predicted. Since we left San Carlos we’ve rarely seen a window that long. It seems impossible that we will get so lucky.

The Gift
It just so happens that a slight “window” was our Christmas gift. Wind maps from SailFlow.com show the big norther dying down on Tuesday the 22nd. It should be a good passage all the way through Friday, Christmas Day. But the blustery weather ramps right back up again on Saturday. Uggh. Gotta get in on Friday for sure.

Rest Stop
On Tuesday afternoon Dec. 22nd, we began our trip. First and only stop: Caleta Lobos. Think of this anchorage as a highway rest stop, only 10 miles/2 hrs out of La Paz. Our reasoning was simple: get out of the marina. It will be easier raising anchor in the dark than maneuvering out of a marina and up the narrow La Paz channel at night. We can meet our buddy boat from Costa Baja, Jeff and Breezy on “Starfire”, at the anchorage. Getting together to plan the next day’s crossing was imperative. Plus, we could easily coordinate our departure and mentally prepare for the passage.

We arrived at our “rest stop” excited to finally be leaving port, headed for parts unknown. It was a beautiful day: blue sky, light winds, the anchorage was lovely and serene. All was well with the world. Our buddy boat Starfire wandered in a ½ hour later and we met on our boat to strategize. Later, while eating dinner in the cockpit, we enjoyed a peaceful, moonlit evening at anchor. The perfect beginning to a perfect cruise. Then it started…

Trampoline Bed
Around midnight, the wind picked up. Night winds in La Paz are specifically called Coromuels. They are unpredictable timing-wise, but usually emanate from the south or southwest. Unique to the La Paz area, they are generated by cooler winds from the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula funneling through the mountain gap to the warm waters of La Paz. Evening Coromuels can last for a few hours or all night, causing uncomfortable wind waves until they cease.

Well, this Coromuel was the gift that keeps on giving. The wind began from the west, instigating moderate west moving wind waves, a direction for which our anchorage was wide open. On top of that, after 4 hours of this, the wind then switched to the south, which means we now pointed south, with westerly waves rolling right into our side. All…Damn… Night.

Sleep was almost impossible as the boat rocked side to side as it sat beam on the waves. Bouncing up and down from the south winds, rolling side to side from the remnant west waves, Indigo was a washing machine and we were the helpless load of clothes. I literally dreamt my bed was a trampoline. Repeatedly, I woke up from a fitful half-sleep swearing my body actually took flight off the v-berth after bouncing so hard. My only consolation prize was that I miraculously did not get seasick from all that ocean motion.

5am Takeoff
The alarm rang at 4am. Uggh. Is it really time to get up already? Soooo tired. But even we “retired” people sometimes have a schedule to keep. Despite my fatigue, I held my crankiness in check and made coffee and cereal while Brian prepped the boat for departure. The freakish midnight winds and waves had not dissipated. At all. At our 5am launch time, the moon was just setting. Indigo and Starfire: rockin’ and rollin’ and raisin’ anchor in the pitch black together… this was beginning to be a crappy crossing.

230 miles and 2 days
From Caleta Lobos, we headed southeast to Mazatlán. No more rest stops. Motoring or sailing an average of 5kts, this 230 mile passage should take approximately 46 hours.

I started out at the helm, steering anxiously surrounded by darkness, oscillating awkwardly side to side. Indigo uncomfortably rode beam-on to the wind waves for over an hour. But as we rounded the corner into the San Lorenzo channel, the sun rose, our angle to the waves eased and the motion wasn’t as bad. The farther away we traveled from La Paz, the better our wind and waves. We shot across the top of the Cerralvo Channel to the north tip of Cerralvo Island, sailing with 12-17 kt winds on aft quarter (in other words, a really nice sail). Past the island with 200 miles to go, we were finally out in the Sea of Cortez. Our winds lightened considerably with favorable sea conditions…just as Sail Flow had predicted. Ahhhh. I relaxed.

Buddy-boating
This will be our 7th “passage”, to us meaning one or more full nights at sea. But it will be the farthest we’ve gone offshore. On the Baja Ha Ha rally, we only were ever 40 or 50 miles from land at any given point. Crossing the southernmost and widest part of the Sea of Cortez, we will be exactly 100 miles from terra firma center-sea. We are happy to be buddy-boating with our friends on Starfire. It’s a little more fun to be in VHF communication as well as within visual sight distance with another boat on such a long passage. Gives you a warm fuzzy knowing someone else is out there.

No one but us and Mr. Moon
And there was literally nobody else out there for 200 miles…no lights, no other sailboats or fishing boats, no dolphin escort. Once, at night, we passed a tanker by about 2 miles and another large freighter out much farther during the day. We briefly glimpsed a whale catching a breather about a ½ mile to our stern. Other than that, we were alone with the sea and the stars…and the MOON!

Aside from our Christmas present of a wonderful weather window, our other gift was a gorgeous full moon coinciding with said window. On Christmas Eve (our second day of the passage), the blindingly-bright full moon rose before the sun set and stayed with us until after the sun gloriously rose again on Christmas morning as we pulled into Mazatlán. We had an entire night of exquisite moonlight to guide our way...every minute; now THAT’S the way to sail. What synchronistic timing. A 100% full moon on Christmas Day is a rare celestial event in and of itself, last occurring 38 years ago.

Pretty Perfect Passage
Despite our rough start, we could not have asked for a better passage. We alternately motored and sailed depending on wind strength. We slept well; we ate well; the wind waves were low most of the way. Thankfully, it was not a Cranky Crossing like last time. Christmas Eve Day we happily sailed to the Christmas sounds of Mannheim Steamroller, Johnny Mathis, The Muppets Christmas (my personal fave) and various old school icons like Burl Ives and Perry Como. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Too Fast
As Christmas Eve evening began, our perfect light winds increased. The now 12-15kts normally would have been good sailing conditions as we were flying. But we needed to arrive at Mazatlán near dawn. So we reefed and double reefed and still flew at 4 kts towards our goal despite our best efforts. At this rate we’ll get there at 1am! I hate when that happens. When you really need to get somewhere, you don’t get enough wind; when you just want to slow down, you get too much!

After a while, the wind eased and we ‘snailed’ our way towards land under reefed main and no jib, poking along at 2.5kts… on purpose. We arrived 10 miles out from harbor at 4am Christmas morning. Still dark, we needed to wait until sunrise to head into port. So we bobbed about in the lumpy remnant wind waves for 2-1/2 hours, the current pushing us slowly in the general direction of the port at about 1 kt an hour. I could have crawled faster. As soon as the sun peeked out, we began our final motor to the marina.

Timing is Everything
The lumpy wait was worth it. We were so glad to have a well-timed entrance to Mazatlán marina harbor at exactly high tide. 3 issues: dredging, shoaling and tidal flow. The marina harbor entrance is super narrow (shockingly so). It shoals quickly and therefore needs constant dredging. So timing a port entrance at high tide in the morning is important. Mid-tide is reportedly only 7ft deep according to the marina. Arriving inside the channel at 8am, we saw 18ft. But this was a very high tide, caused by the full moon. One cruiser told us they hit sand at low tide the day prior - 4ft! Yikes. He luckily was able to back up but needed to dangerously skim the dredge, passing by its long hose with a mere foot to spare.

That’s another problem, the dredge. We’ve heard it currently runs from 10am to 2pm and then again from 4-5pm or thereabouts. Running dredge = no entry = bobbing outside for hours ‘til it stops. Problem is, when it stops, it’s now low tide time… or it’s dark. Just can’t win. Current advice from multiple sources: stay far to the left/north side of the channel, hugging the dredge, to avoid shallow water in the opening, whatever time you arrive.

Complicating matters, we’ve heard rumors of a 4kt current running as the tide goes out. Currents can drastically make docking difficult pushing the boat around.  Not fun. Later on in the morning I could see flotsam floating down the channel towards the sea at a rapid pace, verifying there is quite a current running. Not to mention all the tourist boat activity in these cramped quarters once the hotel guests wake up. So, all around, coming in at high tide sure seems like a solid bet for the best possible conditions and we were pleased with our good timing.

We made it!
We even survived a bit of harried docking at Marina El Cid. Performing a squat and shallow S maneuver in the VERY narrow fairway to get into our slip, we nearly clipped the anchor of one boat. But, the important thing is… we made it and were thrilled just to have not hit anything. (Not sure how we’re going to get back out again, but we won’t dwell on that subject.) We checked into the marina then made a bee-line to the hotel restaurant for much needed coffee and waffles for $10, just steps from our boat. Oh joy! Methinks we’ll eat here… like… every day.

After exploring the tropical hotel/marina grounds, we enjoyed a restful afternoon in the arms of a warm sparkling pool and even hotter hot-tub. Oh yeah, I think I’m going to like this place. No infinity pool like Costa Baja, but El Cid has TWO pools (with waterfalls and Playboy mansion like grotto under the falls…without the Playboy bunnies) and a huge hot tub AND a swim-up bar. Along with fellow buddy-boaters Jeff and Breezy, we finished the day by savoring in our successful crossing with a celebratory Christmas dinner. We made it to Mazatlán! Woohoo!

First item on our agenda: Star Wars!