S/V Mandolin Zihuatanajo to Barra de Navidad, 2/27/99 to 3/6/99

Zihuatanajo - Barra de Navidad

From Zihuatanejo north, we had a wonderful three day, three night sail. After sailing downwind from Canada to Mexico, we are now reminding Mandolin how to sail to windward. The winds were often light and on the nose, but, while slow, the sailing was very pleasant. At various times, we needed to motor due to lack of wind. Often this occurred when the wind was shifting from onshore to offshore, or vice versa. So, while it took us less than 48 hours to sail from Manzanillo to Z-town, it took us just less than 72 hours to cover the same territory travelling north.

Guadalajara, February 27th - March 4th

Back in Barra de Navidad, we availed ourselves of the great breakfast and coffee to be had at Banana's Restaurant. The anchorage in the Barra de Navidad lagoon is so calm it feels like your sleeping in a house. As that also makes it a safe place to leave the boat at anchor, we convinced our partners in crime, Doug and Jennifer aboard Freya, to take another inland trip with us. We were off to Guadalajara.

Luckily, Barra is also the closest anchorage to Guadalajara. Instead of a grueling 22 hour bus ride, it was only 5 hours. Hurray! And we got to watch Bruce Willis save the day in the movie Striking Distance. Grey Hound could sure learn something from Primera Plus!

Guadalajara is a big beautiful city with lots of excellent architecture, music and culture. While in Guadalajara, we attended the Ballet Folclório and the Gran Concierto de Gala at the Teatro Degollado. The Ballet Folclório is a production of song and dance from various regions in Mexico performed by students from the University of Guadalajara. The Gran Concierto de Gala, performed by the Coro Vivaldi and the Orquesta de Camara Vivaldi, was a fabulous selection of classical music and selected pieces from such operas as Madame Butterfly and Carmen. Both of these events were thoroughly enjoyed by all of us.

Guadalajara is also a "shop till you drop" city. Need a new wardrobe? Head to Guadalajara. Getting married? Every third clothing store is a bridal shop. Need to furnish a house? Head to Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara, especially if you want the artistic and unusual in your home. Need glasses? pitchers? ceramics? tupperware? woven baskets? papermaché fruit? a puppy? Head to Tonola, which has a street market to die for on Thursdays and Sundays - miles of sidewalk stalls appear on these days. We really were offered a very cute puppy for $40US. We had a fun time in the big city.

The only thing we were disappointed with was the dearth of good restaurants and cafés. Oaxaca has a number of enjoyable cafés on its main Plaza and throughout the city. Guadalajara has four principle plazas surrounding the Cathedral - North, South, East and West. There was only one restaurant on one of these plazas and two upstairs - each overlooking a plaza. For the amount of acreage the plazas represented, we expected a few more restaurants in this area. We did find Café Madrid, which has excellent morning coffee in a 1950's coffee shop setting.

March 5th - Todd's Birthday!

We arrived back in Barra de Navidad the day before Todd's birthday. Todd had a mellow day on the boat and in town. We had friends over for a shrimp dinner and chocolate birthday cake (made from scratch by Ellen) in the evening. Ellen surprised Todd with two new shirts purchased in Guadalajara. He received the book, Longitude, from Duayne and Dorthy of Raven, a bottle of wine from Colin and Del of Little Heron, and a ceramic mask made by Doug of Freya. The evening spent with friends, old and new, was the best gift of all.

March 6th

We are getting ready to head north within the next day or two. We want to be in Puerto Vallarta by March 17th for an amatuer radio exam and Banderas Bay Race Week which starts on the 18th and in which we are entered. Wish us luck with the racing. Mandolin won her division in the only race we have ever entered her in - the Baja Ha Ha. We have a reputation to uphold.

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