Mazatlán
| N 23° 16.062' W 106° 28.119' | |
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It is Saturday Dec 3rd and you’re probably wondering what happened to those kids??? It’s hard to find time to get on the computer, as there are pools and hot tubs to be used here.
We had a great sail from Los Frailes. We left at 4 am and had really strong winds when we came out of the anchorage. But after a few hours it dropped down enough to put up all the sails, and we had one of our best days of sailing yet! The trip across from Los Frailes to Matazlan is about 170 miles, which means 36 hours of transit time. We sailed until midnight, then we motor sailed till 1pm when we pulled into Matazlan. The only mishap is when I ran over a fishing long line that got caught under the rudder. The fisherman who the fishing gear belonged to came over and cut us free.
We are moored at Resort El Cid in Matazlan. They have a small marina and we got a slip for a price that is actually not a bad. The first thing we did, once the Sandpiper was moored, was to run down the dock and jump into their pool! They have two pools and a hot tub here. The pools are really cool, and one has a cave you can swim through! This is the nicest marina we have been to. It would be easy to just stop here and never leave.
There is a harbor office here that did our import permit. And there is a laundry here that will do your laundry for not a bad price. Town is really easy to get to as well. Just jump in the bus for about 70 cents. There is even cable TV at every slip!!! There are several different marinas here. The other big one is Marina Mazatlan. It is just a little less in price, but with no pools.
We spent thanksgiving over at Marina Matazlan, as they had a big Thanksgiving dinner for the “cruisers” here. There were over 100 sailors there, and they had a live band and fireworks. You can check it out on Letronic latitude. Also, check out all the new photos on our photo album.
As our last email from Los Frailes, our HF radio was toasted. We tried to have it repaired here. But looks like it is totally broken and we will have to replace it with a new one. That will probably not happen till we get to Puerto Vallarta in December. So we will not have email from the boat until then.
When we went to the electronics store over by the cruise ship terminal, I saw a Coast Guard ship tied up there. Amy and I went over and it was the USCG Cutter Rush out of Hawaii. My friend Duncan was onboard, and we surprised him. He had no idea we were out here and we had him over for some drinks pool side.
Right now we have WiFi in the marina and have internet on the boat. We bought a WiFi amplifier in San Diego before we left, and it has taken me this long to finally get it working.
Another reason for the delay in our updates is that we traveled to the interior of Mexico and rode the train at Copper Canyon. It was a six hour bus ride from here to Los Mochis, then another two hour bus ride to El Fuerte, where we stayed to night in a small hotel.
The buses here in Mexico are really nice and run 24 hours a day. We got on the first class train the next morning and rode for 6 hours to the town of Creel. The train ride is really cool, if you like trains, It s a slow ride up the canyon and lots of stuff to see. There are over 100 tunnels and many bridges. You can even look down and see train cars that fell off the tracks. We stopped at the town of Creel and got another hotel that provided dinner with our room. Then we hopped back on the train at 1pm the next afternoon.
We were traveling with friends from another boat Voyager, Neil and Jackie who are both from England (check out their website). We took the economy train back. It was really not much different then the first class train, except is had no bar or diner car. We got back to Los Mochis at 11pm, then hopped on the bus and got back to Matazlan at 5am.
Our plans as of right now are to stay here through the weekend and then head south next week, weather permitting, for Puerto Vallarta.
See you there!!
Tom & Amy
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