We've visited San Blas on two previous occasions as day-trippers from Matanchen Bay (see our November 14, 2011 or March 26, 2012 posts for information on local tourist activities). During this trip we spent three nights at the little local marina waiting out some weather, which gave us the opportunity to spend some less-touristy moments in this sleepy little town.
The town of San Blas is a fishing and beach tourism town, with heavy emphasis on the fishing.
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| The Fleet |
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| And More Fleet. . . |
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| And The Smaller Businessman |
Even the tourists fish:
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| Celebrating Revolution Day |
Our previous visits had also left us with the impression of a town that is hot, dusty, and not very tidy. This trip we confirmed that after a rain it is hot, muddy and not very tidy. And while San Blas deserves its reputation as a place where jejenes (no-seeums) can be found, our experience was less buggy than that reputation would lead one to expect. Maybe we're just more liberal in our application of deadly bug repellant than others???
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| Lush Vegetation Can = Jejenes (No-Seeums) at Sunset |
While San Blas may never thrive as an international tourist destination, as a weather watching port it was a great place to hang out. The municipal market carries everything one needs for provisioning (including some yummy little pork chops to grill . . . ). Though we were reminded that shopping in the Mazatlan mega-market had made us lackadaisical about exercising "provisioning best practices" when we found that a box of juice purchased at the San Blas market had expired several months before.
During our three nights at the Fonatur marina (Fonatur is one of the entities that operate the government owned marinas and boat yards in Mexico) we had sailboat company only one night - other storm watchers that departed early on the day the rains came. We hope they enjoyed their trip.
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| A Sleepy Day At The Marina |
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| Local Wildlife, Hanging Out On the Dock Lines of A Neighboring Sport Fishing Boat |
Our Telcel Internet connection was fast and on the day of rain we sat in the cabin with the fans whirring and caught up on some boat-bit Internet orders for our upcoming Thanksgiving visit to California.
The weather passed and the storm didn't develop - so . . .
Happy Anniversary To Us! -- November 18, 2013
On the morning of the 24th Anniversary of The Happiest Day of Our Lives (as Molly reminds Bryce from time to time . . .) we woke to beautiful weather and a prediction of good sailing conditions. We decided that Twenty-Four was The Canvas Anniversary, and that we'd make the most of it by sailing to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.
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| The Lucky Groom |
La Cruz is too far from San Blas for a day sail during the short-light winter months so we decided to motor to near-by Matanchen Bay, anchor for the afternoon and sail to La Cruz over night, arriving mid-morning. Not a bad plan - but we didn't stick with it.
As we left San Blas the weather was so perfect and the winds so nice, light and from our stern, that we decided to just keep sailing and not stop at Matanchen. Abracadabra sails so well using only our smallest (80%) jib -- why do we lug around that huge 140%-er anyway? Within an hour the wind rose enough that had we been using the larger sail, we would have been furling it to a smaller size. Our little jib proved to be perfect for the job at hand.
We sailed the whole 62 miles to La Cruz.
Our anniversary toast was with Diet Coke and Coke Zero, and our anniversary dinner was a lentil and sausage salad. We were accompanied by a 92% moon (according to our navigation system) which looked full to us. Sometimes it was rolley. Sometimes it wasn't. We had 25 knot winds, and we had 4 knot winds. All in all it was a great sail.
La Cruz -- November 19
We set anchor in the La Cruz anchorage at 03.15 in the light of the almost-full moon. There was very little breeze, so we were able to sleep the deep and dreamless until about 07.30 (08.30 in La Cruz as we had crossed into another time-zone). By mid-afternoon we had entered the marina, fueled the boat and were tied up to the dock; shaded, napped, lunched and showered -- and signed on for Year Twenty-Five.
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