Manzanillo, Marieta, and Puerto Vallarta

by Bob

On Sunday we went to Manzanillo, and anchored off the resort where they filmed the movie "10". We planned to do some diving, but the
water was murky. More red tide. It was pretty wavy around the rocks. We ate (at a restaurant with metal utensils), slept, and took
off.

We arrived at the Marieta Islands a little before sunup. I was driving, everybody else was sleeping. The radar showed islands a mile
or two away from where the maps did. That was really strange. I thought our radar might be broken.

Eventually I figured out that the maps were wrong. There is one book that had a different GPS location for these islands. That one
was correct. Good thing we slowed down to wait until we could see.

We anchored at West Marieta Island. I lowered the anchor at about 25-30 feet, then backed up to make sure it was set good.

While those lazy bums were still sleeping, I kayaked around the island. It was really neat and a little scary. There are a lot of
rocks sticking up around this island. There are a lot of caves and holes.

There were big swells coming in from a couple of directions. Sometimes it would sound like an explosion when a wave would hit a hole
just right. They would splash up 50 feet high sometimes. There were birds all over the island. Sometimes they'd dive-bomb the kayak.
I think they were just being friendly.

Later on we scuba dived at the boat. I followed down the anchor chain and found the anchor at 50 feet, next to a big rock formation.
It had slid off the rocks into the sand at 50 feet before it held.

Then we headed 20 miles to Nuevo Puerto Vallarta and stopped for the night. The next day Adam and Patty flew back to Oklahoma. That
meant we had to do some paperwork with the port captain because they like to keep track who's on the boat. Then we got diesel and
headed toward Cabo San Lucas.

It's now 8:00 am Thursday, and we're about 1.5 or 2 hours from Cabo San Lucas. We've been motoring against the wind almost all the
time since Puerto Vallarta. Last night we moved from 83 degree water to 66 degree water. That is a huge difference! I guess we're
into the water coming down from California now.

Pictures coming soon!