Heading Home

The anchorage at La Cruz is delightful, and we spend the afternoon recovering from our trip. Bill finds that the jib furler is easy to fix in daylight, when he is not being sprayed by every wave. It is close to dark when we finally launch the dinghy and head into town. There is a wonderful marina in La Cruz in the final stages of completion, but the road into town is all torn up. We trudge through the construction headed for Xocolatl, a restaurant that has been highly recommended to us. Not only is the food claimed to be good, the location is high above the town with a sweeping view of Banderas Bay. We find the restaurant but are dismayed to find a sign reading “Sorry. No credit cards”. We are out of pesos after our anchor adventure and here in the Puerto Vallarta area things are not as inexpensive as breakfast was in the remote anchorage of Bahia de Chamela. The owner offers to let us come back and pay tomorrow, but we are uncomfortable with that offer. One never knows what tomorrow will bring, especially on a boat. Since we do need to get cash sometime, we might as well get it now before sitting down to dinner. We ask where the nearest ATM is located, and the owner says the only one in town is at the gas station. He points at some lights down the road. Thinking he can make the trip faster by himself, The Captain suggests that The First Mate wait for him at the restaurant. Happily she does, sitting at a table overlooking the sweep of Banderas Bay, sipping a glass of wine, savoring the evening. The Captain returns almost an hour later eager for a beer. The gas station was 2 km down the road!

Dinner proves to be wonderful. The staff is attentive, and we enjoy the evening overlooking the bay.

One more Savor Day and then we will head into Paradise Village Marina to begin the clean-up and prep work that will enable us to leave Avante on her own for a while down here. We see Deb and Greg Baillie’s “Lion’s Paw” anchored near us and dinghy over to see if they are free to head out to dinner that evening. We suggest heading up the hill to the same restaurant as last night. The view over the bay is impressive with all the lights at night showing the sweep of the bay. It’s a delightful final evening to our first Mexican cruise. We discuss our various adventures in dealing with and living on boats especially in foreign locales, and we muse about our various travel hopes and plans. The Baillies plan to sail south to Costa Rica and then head west to the Pacific Islands. Wonder if we will ever do that? It is a dream.

Several weeks ago, we received this photo from our Telluride snowshoe group. As dynamic, healthy and happy a picture as it is with so many of our friends enjoying a beautiful hike on a gorgeous San Juan Mountain’s day, it did not pull us or tempt us to want to return to winter weather. We were tropical waters bound! Swimsuits, warm waters, sand, not snow, were on our minds. With Avante now in Paradise Village Marina, with clean up work begun, our minds now are turning northward to our mountains, our friends there and home. Avante will be secured until the end of March when we return for another two months. We will then sail toward new horizons and explore the Sea of Cortez, but at the moment as we clean and scrub, it is the jagged horizon of our San Juan peaks that is on our mind. Here we come!