It's official!!!

Sunday January 22, 2006 LOCATION: Puerto Vallarta, Vallarta Marina
GOOGLE EARTH COORDINATES: 20 39.817N,105 15.029W

It's official! We all have known for some time just what a ham Bruce can be but now it is official and documented. As of last Sunday, Bruce passed his ham radio exam and is a licensed general technician. It was a bit of a stressful week as he was talked into taking it last minute. He showed the boys his very best studying technique of cramming and it paid off. We will now be able to talk on the airwaves and participate in a few more radio nets while out on the water. We will also be able to get our email in the same form but free and unlimited time. Both are a plus.
Just like life at home, it gets going so fast around here, especially when you are in a marina, and it is hard to find the time to sit down and write. Poor excuse, I know. So let's see now, I left off when we arrived into Paradise Village Marina. Monday January 9th, our excitement there started as we entered the channel. We called ahead on the radio and phone as is customary to find out what our designated slip was before entering. Upon receiving no answer for a good half hour we decided to head in anyway and settle in once we arrived. As we entered the channel the depth quickly shallowed from 15 ft at the entrance to 7.5 feet only a couple of boat lengths in. Up ahead of us we could see a dredger in the middle of the channel. hmmmm. We draw 6.5 feet, so technically, in another foot shallow water we could be hitting ground. Not a good thing. Bruce quickly decided to turn around and as we got about a quarter of the way around, we realized we were being followed by significant 4-5 foot breaking waves. Normally that is a welcome sight to Bruce when he is paddling his board but not when we are navigating Ohana Kai in new waters. No choice now but to ride the waves in. Luckily we had passed the most shallow part of the channel and found an open spot on the general dock to keep us until they could find us our slip a few days later. We took to preparing for our guests right away and getting to know the lay of the land.
January 11th was a very significant day. Though I don't have the exact numbers in nautical miles, that day marks 6 months since we left the dock in Port Orchard and have traveled about 3,500 miles we figure. A fun feat in itself when we look back on it. It has gone amazingly fast and aside from the stories we share, the largest marker of change is the boys height that we occasionally chart. They have been enjoying life out at sea on their boat a ton but we have to admit that staying at the Paradise Village Marina, attached to the 5 star resort complete with 2 different pools,both boasting enormous alligator water slides, a small zoo complete with tigers, jaguars and birds, oh my, was a fun change. Not a lot of Mexican flavor but the boys enjoyed the diversion.
Tied up next to us was a great dock mate named Bruce Balan, who of course in small world cruising style, once lived in my home town of Los Altos. Even better was the fact that he is a writer of some wonderful children's books and offered to provide a writing class for all the kids in the docks that wanted to attend. There was a great turnout of 11 kids from around the different marina's. We all had the privilege of learning some fun poetry, writing techniques and read a few of his books. Keep your eyes open for them in the stores or at www.brucebalan.com. Matthew will personally attest to how fun they are, especially his two favorites "Pie In The Sky" and "Buoy". Though Bruce doesn't plan to cross the Pacific until next year, we hope our paths cross his again.
Tim & Janel Mason, Jake & Julie Jefferson, and the gang from KMTT the Mountain radio station safely arrived in Puerto Vallarta on the 11th as well. I cannot tell you how excited we were to see them all. A little bit of home brought to us from so far away. I should say a lot of home was brought to us if you count all the goodies stashed in the three extra suitcases they bravely carried on the plane full of treats and treasures from the grandparents. The week that followed was really a blur as we tried to fit as much as possible and squeeze every minute we could out of them. In case you didn't know. Our favorite radio station from home, KMTT 103.7, (yes, I will shamelessly plug them a million times more), puts on occasional contests and this one was a trip and concert in Puerto Vallarta. Janel's only job for a week was to make the phone call to win the trip and it worked. The night they all arrived, the Mountain put on a wonderful party complete with surprise concert from John Hiatt. The Mountain graciously included all of us in every event that followed for duration of the trip. We couldn't be more thankful. Hi to Mike West, Jennifer Orr and the rest of the gang.
Thursday we all took a trip to the Canopy Jungle tours which were amazing! It is a series of 14 zip lines that take you over and through the jungles nestled in the Sierra Madre Mountains. From the ground looking up it appeared as tiny spiderman impersonators would occasionally sling their way high over your heads to disappear into the brush and trees. From up above strapped into your harness, it was a beautiful and exhilarating ride from platform to platform. Sometimes as long as 1/4 of a mile, the zip line ride would afford you an amazing view of the jungle above and river below if you dared to look down. We spent the remainder of our days with them just hanging out and soaking them up, pool side, out on the town, or under a palapa.
We were able to get them out for a day on the boat and get Tim surfing. That lasted a couple of hours out at Punta de Mita until they could no longer deny the fact that they had seen a shark fin swimming around them. We figure it was a fairly tiny shark but shark none the less. The other great part of that excursion was our new friends Natalie & Rafael. Natalie, a home town girl from Madera, CA (near Bruce's home town) is living here in PV for fun and immersion in the language for a while. Personally, she sounds perfectly fluent to me but then again I know so little. Her friend Rafael is a local PV guy who like Natalie had never really been on a boat nor seen a whale. We were able to deliver both. The chance to watch the excitement on someone's face when they get to experience and enjoy this for the first time is priceless. Although we got back to the marina too late, hit low tide, couldn't make it into the channel again, had to dinghy them to shore, and made them late for work - it was a spectacular day!
We were sad to see our company go. And truly since then, it has been almost all business. We left Paradise Village Marina and spent a couple of days anchored back out at Punta de Mita. We enjoyed the company of our buddies on Lawur and their guest Bonnie. We fit in another day of surfing before we said our good byes to her as well and headed back into a new location at Marina Vallarta. We played parking lot jockey there for the first day as they found us a slip to last us a couple of weeks. Lawur had more fun company as Robert's father and brother visit from Austria. There are also quite a few of our friends from this cruising world here as this is the destination to use for the jump off mark to cross the Pacific. We have changed our itinerary a bit and will be departing from Zihuatenejo instead of PV. Therefore we continue to complete all our projects, plan and provision for our crossing later in April. We should leave here soon and continue our adventures down the coast.
One last unfortunate note. A very dear friend of ours, Nancy Larson, passed away this last week and it has left our hearts heavy. <http://www.legacy.com/Idahostatesman>
We are strengthened with the knowledge that as an amazing, vivacious, and loving wife, mother and friend, her relationship with the Lord was one of strength and passion. Ironically, I was trying desperately hard that same week to contact her at her new address and catch her up to speed on our travels as she loved sailing. We are blessed with endless memories of her energy, laughter and playfulness and our journeys will be guided by her spirit. Our thoughts, prayers and love are with her husband Dave, her two sons Andrew and Christopher and her family during this time. We will continue to live each day with meaning and purpose until we see her again.
until next time,
love lisa and the boys