The entrance to Nuevo Vallarta. Paradise Village Marina is to the left (part of a luxury resort). We are to the right at Nuevo Vallarta Marina. This is an older, more economical, and very safe marina. Nuevo Vallarta is 15 minutes North of Puerto Vallarta.
The sun rises and wakes us up as it peers in through a starboard window. This is the coolest part of the day so we typically stay in bed and enjoy the slight breeze for a little longer. At 8:30am the morning Cruisers Net comes on the radio and provides local weather information and local events.
We finally figured out how to brew coffee on our boat! It takes 0 electricity and barely any space. I love funnels!
We get up and make coffee and have a breakfast of cereal or fruit and if it is not too hot we work out on the dock (I do Yoga or an aerial acrobatic excercise. Conor does a jump rope, push-up, sit-up routine).
By now the sun is high enough to shine in to the salon from the companionway which we keep open all night to encourage air flow. Unless we put the cockpit shade up immediately the sun starts to heat up the boat. I noticed an article the other day offering exercises to work up a sweat in your living room for 60 minutes. This makes me chuckle. I start to sweat just sitting down. For 12 hours straight every day! We typically feel overdressed with shorts and a t-shirt. Sunblock is applied liberally every day!
The temperature is typically 85F with 80% humidity and the heat is starting to take its toll. If you leave a sealed container out in the sun for more than a couple of hours it expands and some containers crack from the strain. We are taking measures to protect our gasoline container for the dinghy. We vent the container and cover it at night to prevent water from entering the gasoline and oil mixture for our 2 stroke engine.
Most days we work on boat projects (see photos of our boat projects here). It seems as though for every 1 project we cross off our list, 2 appear in its place! Even when our projects are finished (read we have made peace with the % of completion of our list) there is still always something to do.
In many places even the Mexicans don’t drink the water. Purified water is available everywhere. In a perfect world, you buy a 5G water bottle. When you are done, you take it to the store and trade it for a new one. In our world where we visit many different ports, every area has a different water company so we cannot simply trade our bottles for theirs and instead have to pour the water from their bottle to ours. We bought a pump to put in the top so we can easily access the water in small amounts once it is in the boat.
- Refill our 5 gallon drinking water containers. This entails taking a cart to OXXO (similar to a 7-11) and opening one of their 5G containers and pouring it in to our container with a funnel. Then we take the filled bottles back to the boat, transfer the water in to smaller 1 and 2 gallon containers that we keep in the fridge. Then we return to OXXO to refill the 5 gallon containers again.
- Work on the dinghy outboard- this is a trusty outboard, but there is always something new to check.
- Wash the bird poo (popo de pajaro) off the boat
- Go grocery shopping- this is usually a 2-3 hour event depending on where we go and how long we have to wait for the bus. We have taken 3 trips to different stores already for our summer provisioning and are almost done!
We love the days when we get to go to the grocery store- an hour in an air conditioned building! We also love it when we finish our projects early and walk 2 minutes to the beach to cool off in the surf.
Since it is so hot during the day we choose not to cook during the day. It is not uncommon to have guacamole tostadas for lunch. In the evening we try new recipes or spend time with friends. I am learning how to make bread from scratch, chipotle chicken, and how to cook with mole!
Sarah from SV Hydroquest makes pizza on the BBQ!
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Dinner in La Cruz with Lynita and Diego from SV Miramar and Mike and Marie from SV Dejala
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Yes it’s hot, but we love it down here!
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