Today was our 42nd wedding anniversary and we spent it flying from Tucson to Mexico by way of Houston. We arrived at Manzanillo airport early in the afternoon and took a 40 minute taxi ride to Barra de Navidad (translates as Christmas Sandbar) where Raven was anchored in a lagoon along with forty plus other yachts. Rod collected Mike, me and our suitcases which contained not a single item of clothing, but were full of repair parts for the boat, especially our troublesome inverter – the contents of our luggage caused quite a bit of consternation with the customs officers at the airport). Finally we were back aboard after our aborted cruise of last January.
Raven was sparkling clean and prepped for our arrival. The pantry was stocked with goodies from the French baker who sells pastries, baguettes, quiches, etc. all from his small boat to the resident yachties anchored in the lagoon. Raven’s fresh water tanks were full to the brim, not by virtuie of using our watermaker (lagoon water too dirty) or topping off from the marina’s hoses (water not potable), but by dint of Rod buying large quantities of bottled water in town, delivered by locals in a panga and poured bottle by bottle into Raven’s fresh water tanks (which by the way, hold some 600 gallons!). Her hull had just been freshly scrubbed clean of marine growth by a fearless diver who was not deterred by the presence of a resident crocodile population.
During what little remained of the afternoon, we took a little walking tour of the nearby town of Barra, full of souvenir shops and big crowds of people on the beaches as it was Easter weekend. However Rod had been hanging out in Barra for the past two months and was ready for a change of scenery – so we had a quiet dinner on board, went to bed early, and were ready to embark early the next mornng on our passage north to La Paz.