Cerveceria del Pacifico

One of the best, can't miss things that we've found to do in Mazatlan so far is the Pacifico Brewery tour. Pacifico Brewery was started by a couple of German's 110 years ago here in Mazatlan,this is now one of the smallest breweries so they only bottle 163,000 cases of beer a day here for the Mexican market which sells 4.5% rather than the 3.2% that gets sent to the States from one of their other breweries. The tour is free and very informative, the tasting room has one of the best views of the city, so take the 4pm tour and get a good view of the sunset while you are up there and best of all, it's all the free beer you can drink in the hour or so they let you hang out up there before kicking you out.

El Gallito Bar

Complete with live crowing chickens

Think we would of consumed a lot more free beer if we hadn't had spent the afternoon before the tour drinking Pacificos in the nearby bars, someone lied and told us the tour was at 2pm, so we had some time to kill.

Looking out towards the harbor

Life is Good!

Mazatlan

Well we did it, made the jump from La Paz to Mazatlan. It's 190nm from Bahia de los Muertos to Mazatlan, we did it in 32 hours. Had good winds almost the entire way on the beam 6-8.5 knots for 24 hours straight. Seas were pretty sloppy though and I did get seasick. I finally broke down and went and bought medication for the seasickness, it's something I usually don't think about when we are ashore and since I don't get seasick that often, I kept putting it off, but now I think it'd be better to not risk the suffering anymore. I'll let you know how it works out. 

Approaching Isla Creston near the entrance to Mazatlan Harbor

Cruise Ship leaving the harbor

Met up with old friends Lenard and Wilma and new friend Dino we are all heading south from here to Isla Isabella and Puerto Vallarta

We anchored the 1st night at Stone Island anchorage just below Mazatlan's harbor, it was very calm and quite there, got to catch up on our sleep. Moved over to the Club Nautico anchorage inside the harbor the next morning as it's much closer and much easier to get to town from here. Spent some time checking out the city and local establishments, the downtown market has just about anything you could ever want or need, well except for aged cheddar, dark chocolate or IPAs.

Catedral Basilica de la Inmaculada Conception

Pool and 12 peso Pacificos at Bar Olimpia

Magnificent Frigate Birds fighting over shark guts

Puesta del Sol from where we anchored at Club Nautico

Len,Wilma and Dino had already been here for a couple weeks, so they were pretty much ready to leave when we got here especially since Lenard had his portaboat dinghy stolen while anchored out near Isla Venados. We hung out with them for a couple days before they left and had a great Thanksgiving dinner with them. Wilma ended up doing most of the cooking and we bought 3 roasted chickens to go with it, good food, good friends, beautiful weather, who could ask for anything more.

We've decided that it's too cold here, it's been in the 50s at night, so were going to leave soon and keep heading south, try and catch up with the Midnight Sun and Hadar. Isla Isabella is our next stop followed by San Blas then Puerto Vallarta before Christmas. Isla Isabella is a nesting ground for many different types of seabirds and has some of the best diving and snorkeling on Mexico's Pacific coast.

Under Sail

Finally, thanks to Maja, a photo of Arctic Tern under sail.

Don't Put Too Much Faith in Your Chart Plotter

Chart Plotter shows us passing right through the island

Isla Gallina was actually a few hundred yards to the east of the boat

Spent a few days last week visiting the islands of Espiritu Santo and Partida. Beautiful anchorages and lots of visibility. Did a little snorkeling, lots of colorful fishes.

Hurricane season is about officially over, we were lucky, no storms crossed our path at all. We were told by one of the locals that the arrival of the bright yellow butterflies, mariposas amarillas, signals the end of the hurricane season and we started seeing those a couple weeks ago. It's starting to cool down especially at night, and this is indicated by the fact that the cat has returned to his habit of sleeping with us, which he hasn't down since rounding the cape back in August. I hope this also means that he's going to stop shedding. They also say that October is the best month for diving with visibilities of up to 100'.

I've been working on getting my Scuba Certification, so far it's been a lot easier than I imagined it would be. Would have been done by now if I hadn't caught a nasty cold, waiting for my head to clear up so I can continue with the training. Being underwater and seeing what's around you is a much better feeling than being on top of the water and having no idea what's under neath.

Isla Partida

Morning sun comes up between the two islands, lighting up this east facing cliff on the west side of Isla Partida

Isla Espiritu Santo

Isla Gallo and Espiritu Santo in the background