2/2015 Mazatlan

After a wonderful month in La Paz we sailed across the Sea of Cortez which is about 180nm. We initially went ~10nm outside of La Paz to a beautiful anchorage out of a picture book or stock photo to put on your laptop. We left to travel further south on the Baja side towards Muertos where we spent the night and left before sunrise to sail across towards Mazatlan. We had a beautiful sail and landed 32 hours later. We carefully navigated the very short (a few hundred yards) channel which is also very narrow. For sailors this means lots of surge. Lots of water trying to squeeze through a small space. To add to the excitement, there is a dredger that works the narrow channel as it is an estuary and the silt builds quickly. We radio’d the Port Captain for the status and with a little bit of nail biting we entered the channel, whisked by the dredger, and found an end tie to rest Namaste. We secured all her lines and took in our surroundings of palm trees and resort style ammenities. We were quite excited since my mom was flying in a few days after we arrived so we wanted to explore quickly to get an idea of things to do. 

Mazatlan is a big city which took some adjusting on our part. Buses are readily available and cheap-they even have “tourist” buses that have AC and cost a few pesos more if you chose. The buses go all over the city which is convenient. Our first day out was hot and humid which we were not used to as La Paz was cooler (70’s) and we were experiencing 90% humidity and 80+ degree temperatures. Needless to say, tempers were short as we tried to figure out where to go. We regrouped over lunch.

To make things interesting, Carnival was also starting which means the city becomes a huge party. My mom flew in and we got her checked into the El Cid Marina Resort. She had a great room that looked out towards our boat. Journey moved in for the 2 week visit. 

We settled into a routine, met some great friends at the marina, and had a great visit with mom.