Legacy Sailing 

We decided to spend another year in Mexican waters so that we could take some land trips into the interior of the country.  We made the first of these from San Carlos in our car to the Copper Canyon country. Most cruisers take the train through the canyon, but since we had the dogs with us we drove across the cordillera to Creel and Divisadero and then back to San Carlos via Chihuahua, El Paso and Tucson.  Our experiences are recounted elsewhere in "The Road Less Traveled, Copper Canyon by Car" and in Gallery 33.

After a further delay dealing with a broken inverter we finally escaped from San Carlos with a passage straight to Puerto Ballandra on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez.  We moved a few miles to Agua Verde and then on direct to Mazatlan back on the mainland side of the Sea.  We had so much bad luck with equipment that we nicknamed this our "breakdown cruise."

We spent a month in Mazatlan fixing the broken things, adding three new solar panels to our array over the cockpit, and renewing our FM-3 visas.  We enjoyed Thanksgiving and seeing friends in Mazatlan.  Pictures and more info is in Gallery 34. In keeping with this year's pattern we made another long passage direct to Tenacatita from Mazatlan.  Unlike many passages, we actually had pretty good winds and got to sail about half the distance!

We settled into Tenacatita for the next 10 weeks where Chris acted as the "mayor" of the cruisers. We really enjoyed staying close to Tenacatita with just a few trips into Barra de Navidad for supplies.  More info on this period is in Gallery 35.

We sailed back into Banderas Bay on March 1 and settled into Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta for a one month stay.  Our friends Anna and Wade flew down from Alaska to dog and boat sit while we headed for Florida by plane for our niece Kristin's wedding. Family and wedding pictures are in Gallery 36.

Since we were safely in the marina we rented a car and did our second inland trip of the year to Guadalajara.  We had a great time staying in a bed and breakfast in Tlaqepaque, visiting Lake Copala, and the town of Tequila from where the liquor originated.  Pictures in Gallery 37. We stayed in Nuevo Vallarta until the Banderas Bay Regatta at the end of the month.  Although we didn't do as well as we would have liked in our class, we did finish 6th overall out of the 35 or so boats.

Then we were off to La Paz with a three day stop in Mazatlan waiting for a weather window.  Upon reaching La Paz we paused for a few days for Heather to research local stores and to catch up with friends.  Then we pushed on up the Baja coast to reach Escondido in plenty of time to meet Chris' mother.  Joan arrived on time and we enjoyed touring the local area by car and then we set off north again.  After a stop in San Juanico to update our offering on the cruiser's tree we headed straight to Santa Rosalia.

From Santa Rosalia we made another overnight hop up to Isla Salsipuedes.  Last year this was a favorite anchorage, but this year the changeable winds saw us reanchoring four times in 24 hours!  Needing a rest we head next to Puerto Don Juan, a completely protected hurricane hole anchorage.  Three nights there and we were ready for something new so we headed to Estanque off of Isla Angel de la Guarda where we anchored in "the Pond."  The pond is a deep bay inside a very shallow and narrow entrance.  It offered good protection, but was short on aesthetics.  From there we headed for Punta Willard on Isla Tiburon and after another overnight to Bahia San Pedro just north of San Carlos.  From there is was a quick day sail back to San Carlos where Legacy will rest on the hard for the summer.