Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year!

Marina Las Hadas, originally uploaded by seaparents.

Hello All,

We hope everyone had a Happy Holidays and finds everyone well. We are currently in Zihuatanejo. The trip was very uneventful. After Barra de Navidad, we were off to Manzanillo, which was only a day trip. We anchored outside of beautiful Marina Las Hadas and cleared into Mexico officially as Seaparents. We stayed for several days while I searched for a generator to no avail. We finally left because of the 8 or so ski boats and jet skis that were playing a game called let's see how close we can come to hitting the catamaran. We prepared ourselves for our first overnight sail and hoped to be in Marina Ixtapa in 36 hours or so. The first night went well with Brady and I alternating 4 hour watches. The bad part was the lack of wind. We motored for about 8 hours the first day/night. The following day, we also made no progress and around 2 A.M. I opted to tuck into the nearest anchorage (Maruata cove) for some rest. We left the following morning under power again and motored most of the way to another anchorage (Caleta de Campos). We were going to stick around to check out the town, but the wind came up to around 15 knots and we were off. We sailed at 6 knots for most of the day, but again we found ourselves floating on a vast lake. Motoring again through the night we made Ixtapa on the morning of the fourth day. Hoping to get a hot shower and a marina slip proved to be not possible as they could not accommodate the width of our boat, so off to Zihuatanejo, which was an hours motor to the South. We thought we could park it for awhile, but for all you would be vacationers, pass on Z-watt. The water in the bay is green and raw sewage flows in from the river. I was still hoping for a generator, but after filling up on diesel, water, gasoline and food, we will be off to Acapulco with two intermediate stops along the way beginning tomorrow or the next day. The weather is balmy, the family is doing great and we still are waiting to hear from many of you via text message, e-mail or skype regarding the latest updates and rumors from home. Glen, thanks for the text, keep em' coming. To Jimmy Leo, sorry to ruin it for you, but the hair policy out here is way better than back home. Ha! Hasta Luego for now,

Los Vagabundos Medinas

Tenacatita

Canopy covered tour, originally uploaded by seaparents.

Leaving Tenacatita

As I sit and reflect on our wonderful stay in Tenacatita I am greeted by a mother and baby humpback whale. What a fitting departure from our amazing time in this quite beautiful bay. The last few days we had heard the whales song as we swam, not knowing they were only miles away. Tenacatita was not only a pretty setting with whales, it was new friendships, soccer/volleyball games on the beach, great snorkeling with the kids, long nights of watching stars, and of course homeschool. We even had a sleep over for the kids with Mackenzie from Ohana. It was hard to leave the new friends behind. Everywhere we go I want to take everyone with us. “Come on, don’t you want to go to Costa Rica. It looks so amazing,” I cry in hopes that all will follow. (AKA Ohana:) But, it was time to head south to make sure we are out of the hurricane zone before the next season begins. I was told that Tenacatita was an incredible, but I could not imagine how great it would be until I spent two weeks there. Thank you everyone that we got to know. We will miss you lots.
OK on a less serious side. This boat life ROCKS!!!!! I am so glad that all of you non- boaters do not know how freakin’ cool this life is because then the anchorages will be packed. Selfish I know, but I don’t think that this would be as fun with thousands of people at every beach.
Minute by minute up date- We are now motor sailing into Barra de Navidad. I say motor sailing, but I should restate that with MOTORING. Anyway, the water as we enter is filled with jelly fish and snakes. Fun, I can’t wait to go swimming. I have heard Barra is not somewhere we are going to want to stay long unless we spring for the $150 a night slip at the dock. Other than that I was told lots of bugs, a nasty lagoon and now the snakes and jelly fish. Good times. We are going to try out the anchorage outside the lagoon at Melaque, so we will keep you posted. I am going to use Troy as the test dummy for jelly fish and snake since he thinks they don’t look that bad. According to Troy jelly fish are only bad if they are BIG.
Your crazy adventurer friend, Brady

Southbound and Down, Loaded up and Sailin'!

We have been a little out of internet range, so sorry the blogging has been scarce. Much has happened since we last filled you in, but we will try to remember it all in order.

We had our friend Todd visit with a crew of 14 on top of our 5 (we actually were not sure if we would all fit, but Seaparents floated on ). Todd please delete all the photos you took of Brady’s BUM. To Joel and Jodi Green, we are so glad that we got to see you and are sorry we could not spend more time. We had a wonderful cruiser Thanksgiving with new friends, lots of food, and great live music, and thanks to Mark from Younger Girl, we had lots of laughs as wellJ). Family was definitely missed, but this was very memorable for us all.

It was all a whirlwind as we left PV for good (I think around the 3^rd of Dec.). Time has lost its importance, so I wish I could give you an actual date, but we have totally lost track of the date and the days of the week. To all of our new found friends, and we don’t say this lightly, thank you all for everything. Hasta Luego Roberto & Mabel, Aloha Maluhia, and farewell for now to Younger girl. For our departure, we decided to join a regatta across the bay. If the point of a race is to make all the other boats look really fast, well then we did awesome! At the end of the day, it was so much fun and a wonderful way to start the beginning of our trip. We only went to La Cruz and spent the night for free in the new marina. The following afternoon, we left with the regatta to Punta de Mita, which is the northernmost point of Banderas Bay. We brought up the rear again, but the margin was clearly decreasing J (also, our auto pilot compass stopped working-SWEET!) After a few beers at El Dorado, we were ready to go the following day. Fortunately, the compass issue was a loose wire and we left as planned. The 39 mile trip south outside the bay to Ipala was uneventful except the waves were bigger and the wind was a bit stronger. We hit 9.5 knots (a personal best). Ipala was small but secure and we stayed for two days to work on home school. We decided to head for Chamela, which was 50ish miles South (This with no handheld GPS. Our new Garmin shot craps) I still had the boat GPS, but it showed us sailing over land, which I was pretty sure that we were not doing. We motored the first two hours until the wind came, but we averaged only 3+ knots for two hours. I soon realized that we would not make Chamela before dark if we did not motor the rest of the way. I also did not realize that we would not make it either way if the wind picked up to 27 knots on the nose and the seas built to 5-8 feet. The kids slept through it all and Brady assumed the fetal position on the outside bench as I motored for 10 hours in the dark with no good GPS position. I am convinced that Google may one day rule the world since I used the coordinates from the GPS combined with Google Earth to enter Chamela in the dark. Not the best plan, but we did not want to stay out overnight in less than stellar conditions. All in all, we made it to our anchorage safely and resolved to make no more night entrances.

After meeting new friends from Sapphire and Rockstar, we left for Careyes (12 miles South) a few days later. The guidebook said that it was a tight anchorage, but I did not know that it meant our dinghy would fit well. We passed on Careyes and headed South (15 more miles) to Tenacatita Bay. The winds built to 20 knots and we sailed along at 7.5 almost right to the anchorage.

Tenacatita is beautiful and today was a wonderful day from start to finish. We started out on a self guided jungle river tour in the dinghy. Our friends from Rockstar and Sapphire, lead the way through the mangroves. The mangroves were filled with beautiful snowy egrets, herons, and bright red crabs. The sky disappeared behind the canopy of trees. The roots of the mangroves stretched up all around us. At the exit of the river we made our way to a beach palapa restaurant for lunch. After hot cakes, fresh fruit and chilaquiles, we snorkeled in a beautiful aqua cove that is known as the aquarium. The dingy ride back was uneventful, but just as majestic. At the end of the trip we relaxed under a palapa with a nice cold cerveza. Really, this day was an educational field trip for the girls, but who said you can’t have fun in school. A dinghy from another boat, whose name I can’t remember right now, showed up this afternoon as I was cleaning the bottom of the boat. They were towing their kids around the bay on a boogie board. After our kids all took a turn on the board, it was time to sit and finally write a blog entry. We are headed across the bay tomorrow for our first grocery trip since leaving the security of Wal-Mart. We are going to stick around here to catch the kids up on school and then head South again.

P.S. I can't get the photos to load, but we will get them posted...*&%!

Ta-Ta for now,

The Medina Clan

A Word From SAM

I have had so much fun on the boat and have seen so many dolphins. It is like a whole other world on water than land. We have also seen a few whales. We are leaving wednesday on a race and skipping the last part. Then we are heading south. Living on a boat is way different than living on land. One of my favorite animals is a sea turtle. My favorite part of the boat is that I get my own bedroom. It is really cooling off. Some nights now I get under my covers. One thing I miss is friends and visiting family.

love,

Samantha.

Surprise, Charlie D and family are in PV

Troy and Charlie, originally uploaded by seaparents.

It never ceases to amaze how small the world really is. So, it is Ashley's birthday and she gets to determine the itinerary for the day. After trips to the OXXO (convenience store), the beach, and the pool, she wanted to go to Wal Mart to look at toys. Who do I run into, in Puerto Vallarta-Mexico-at Wal Mart? None other than than Mister Charlie Drennan and family (former co-worker) for those who are saying who? right now. As it turns out, they weren't staying too far away, so we motored the boat (still no sails at that point) in front of his hotel and anchored in a rather shady spot so that we could drink (which included getting busted by security for imbibing from the hotel all inclusive only stash courtesy of the law breaker Charlie!), catch up on all things job related, and watch the girls frolic for hours. They joined us again the next day for a dinghy ride to the local marina for dinner before bidding us farewell. Thanks Drennan Family for a great time and we hope to see you soon. The following day, I found some straggler business cards from old friends and sent them some e-mails. I found out that a high school friend and his family will be coming down on the 20th and staying at the next hotel over. We hope to visit with them and sing it's a small world after all :) Finally, some great news. After a month long hiatus from sailing the ocean blue, we are back in business! I scrapped the old sail track and cars for a new system after losing faith that we might ever sail again. Not cheap, but nine long hours after we started, the rigger and I toasted Pacificos to a working mainsail. The following day, we promptly headed out into the bay and sailed to La Cruz for a night on the hook. We had boat school this morning and sailed away this afternoon in 15 knots of wind. We reached a personal best boat speed of 8 knots (woo hoo!). We are off again tomorrow for a sail with our friends from Maluhia after I fix the broken toilet pump. The to do list is drawing to a close and we are still hoping to head South around the 30th. We will continue the posts when we can and hope everyone is well.

Hasta la pasta

Troy

Oct 2009- guests

Thank you everyone for visiting. We had a blast and can't wait to see you in the future. We hope to continue having friends and family join us in our adventure/ new lifestyle. Just let us know when and we will tell you where we will be or if we get somewhere amazing we will wait for you. Miss you all, Brady