We hopped in the dinghy and zoomed across the channel to the water taxi dock on the Piedro Blanca side referred to in English as Stone Island.
We tied our dinghy to the water-taxi dock out of the way of the taxis. No one seemed to be sure if we were allowed to use the dock, but in the end someone agreed to look out for our dinghy in exchange for a tip. This seems pretty typical of Mexico. Vague rules, but being polite and trying to speak Spanish with a propina (tip) seems to go a long way.
We spent most of the day sitting at El Velero on the beautiful beach behind Stone Island and Goat Island. As the cruise ship visitors began to leave, the palapa restaurants also began to close up and we headed back to our boat attracting some curious stares from the water taxisi as we got in our (tiny) yellow dinghy.
The main harbor at Mazatlan is a busy port. Tour boats, fishing and shrimp boats, panga, party boats blaring various kinds of music along with much larger vessels. The Baja ferry, tankers, and cruise ships all come in and out of the port only 200 yards or so from where we have been anchored. Our dinghy is definitely one of the smallest craft to operate there. We always wonder what the cruise passengers think seeing us on our sail boat as they go by on their day tours.
Other things we’ve had fun doing in Mazatlan were visiting the lighthouse (El Faro), the old observatory (El Observatario), the largest aquarium in Latin America(El Acuario), walking the Malecon (it is a nice boardwalk that stretches 13 miles along the waterfront city, and strolling through the public market. There’s always interesting things to see.
We’ve spent part of each of the last two days preparing to leave in our next weather-window (Nov 14). We’ve rearranged how we’re mounting the kayaks, installed some of our last deck lines and safety lines, and filled the diesel tanks that we keep on deck as reserve fuel.
Our passage across the mouth of the Sea of Cortez is going to me more or less a straight line for about 200NM. Honestly, it will be a relief to get across to Baja!
We frequently mention weather-windows: Every day we download forecasts based on global weather models. A period of favorable weather in a sailors preferred direction is called a weather-window. In our case we want to go North. For about 72 hours starting the morning of Nov 14 winds coming from the North will lessen.
Late on Nov 14th all the models are warning us of conditions the may cause sea-sickness. We’re not sure how to interpret those warnings but we’ll probably find out soon. With that info, its time to dig out the sea-sick meds! Our doctors were very generous with providing us with an array of anti nausea/motion pills and patches. Their recommendation was “try them all and see what works and report back”.
The morning of Nov 15th winds should be much lighter and we will likely be motoring. After 72 hours winds will increase dramatically and we hope to be in La Paz where it seems likely we’ll have to wait for another weather-window which may mean staying for at least a week. Stay tuned!
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