We departed Mazatlan and headed out for another night time run under a full moon and plenty of stars. The seas were larger than we had had for awhile. We settled into our watches. Amazing how easy it has become to get into the routine.

We arrived in San Blas at about 1230 hr. Another new experience was to be had. Stern and bow anchoring. We discussed how we were going to accomplish this and set out to achieve. All went well when a fellow boater yelled from their boat "We are not stern anchored and you are in our swing room." So up came the anchors and we moved to redo the anchoring technique. Well we now know how to stern anchor. We didn't budge the whole night.

We have now reached Paradise. We are tropical, jungles, fresh tropical fruits.

San Blas is a small fishing village of about 12,000 people on the Pacific Coast of Mexico located between Puerto Vallarta and Matzalan.

In 2002 San Blas was hit head on with Hurricane Keena, a category 5 hurricane. The government have given the people infrastructure money to help but it is still quite apparent in many of the buildings. In 2006, three fishermen from this area were rescued on a lancha near the Marshall Islands after 9 months lost as sea. There is a plaque for their death crossed out in at the docks.

We decided to take go on the jungle tour. We saw crocodiles, iguanas, fish, turtles, and so many bird types it would take awhile to research. It was a lot of fun and at the end was a fresh spring fed watering hole to swim in. After seeing the crocs I opted NOT!

The next bay was Chalata. A beautiful place that you could spend a long time in just relaxing. Crystal clear water. But we must get to Puerto Vallarta to meet up with Murdo who flew in from Vancouver.

Our next leg has led to the best Whale watching expedition one could have.

Humpbacks are very acrobatic, often breaching high out of the water and then slapping the water as they come back down. Sometimes they twirl around while breaching. Breaching may be purely for play or may be used to loosen skin parasites or have some social meaning. Humpbacks also stick their tail out of the water into the air, swing it around, and then slap it on the water's surface; this is called lobtailing. It makes a very loud sound. The meaning or purpose of lobtailing is unknown, but may be done as a warning to the rest of the pod. Humpbacks lobtail more when the seas are rough and stormy. Slapping a fin against the surface of the water is another unexplained humpback activity.

The humpbacks migrate south to Banbera bay to have their young and teach them how to survive before heading back North. There had to be hundreds in the area. You would definitely not pay money and see no whales if you went whale watching here.

We are staying at a marina in a small fishing village North of Puerto Vallarta. The temps are now 90 during the day going down to 70 at night.

A fellow firefighter Lawrence and his wife Carol had us over for dinner. Again nice to see faces from home. We will have them down to the boat later this week and possibly take them out fishing.

We took the local bus into the airport. It was very interesting. A father and son got on the bus and started playing instruments and singing. (For money) very nice voices. Cost us $1.20 to take the bus for a 40 min ride. It would have cost us $45.00 for a taxi with no experience.

We have friends from the yacht club in Vancouver coming for dinner. They are down here for a holiday.

The plans are to rent a car and go inland to see the sights of the local towns this week.

Momentarily the company that I do the pictures with on the blog is under construction so I will add the pictures later on in the week.