In Mazatlan

We have spent over two weeks in this friendly, beautiful city. We were greeted warmly by members of the cruiser community who live in the marina. Some of them stay here year around, others winter here and spend summers in the north, still others, like us, are just passing through. They have been a tremendous resource--helping us find parts needed for boat projects, educating us about nearby cruising destinations, and encouraging us to explore. On our first day, Cap'n Mike of Sea Wolf took us down to the harbor, explained how to use the bus system, and pointed out various sites. We have been using the buses on a daily basis to go all over the city.

We signed up for Spanish classes at a local language school. Claudia and I had a private class with our own teacher, Rosie, who quickly assessed our (limited) Spanish and helped us learn more. We received 2 hours of instruction every morning, after which we went out for lunch in one of the many local restaurants. This city is famous for seafood. We are especially fond of the camarones, which go particularly well with Pacifico beer, which is produced locally.

When we arrived we were exhausted and grumpy--ready to give up the so-called cruising lifestyle. We quickly recovered, however, and have had a lot of fun here. We had Thanksgiving dinner with a big group of cruisers at the marina and have met a lot of truly interesting people with boats. We have met fewer Mexicans, although we really like our Spanish teacher Rosie.

I've spent some time on academic projects. I revised a manuscript for Jurimetrics, and I wrote a short article for Law & Human Behavior, so my sabbatical, while recreational, has allowed for a little productivity.

At this point we are looking forward to moving on. We will head south for Isla Isabella tomorrow.

Our only complaints are about the facilities at Marina Mazatlan. Our dock was a long way from the bathroom and is right next to a restaurant, Fufu, that continually has open mike nights. This provides us free entertainment every night, which is largely good except for one thing. Every aging rocker who passes through does a set at Fufu and they all do a version of a song we have come to loath through over-exposure--Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.

The first symptoms of JBO (Jimmy Buffett Overload) appeared in Claudia during the trip down the coast of Baja. We listened to the "Margaritaville" channel on Sirius Satelite Radio for hours on end (as seemed appropriate), until Claudia screamed that if she heard another Jimmy Buffett song she would, well, scream. Fortunately, there are about a hundred other channels on Sirius. But it was impossible to change the channel on the live music at Fufu's. Claudia and I kept a running tally of MTM (minutes to Margaritaville), and it was rarely more than 60. Some of the performers do it several times a night. I know it is considered a classic (of the palapas and beer genre of popular music), but you can have too much of a good thing. I'm so conditioned that when I blew out my flip flop on the Malecon I immediately started looking for dangerous pop-tops, and new tattoos.

Below are some pictures of Mazatlan. The unfortunate sailboat Dream Catcher dragged anchor during a hurricane last Fall and was wrecked. We are having a great time, but intend to be long out of hurricane season.