La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

We left Paradise Village Marina on January 9th for a short trip to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, which is on the North shore of Banderas Bay. Our main purpose in sailing to La Cruz was to refuel (as one might expect, there is no diesel in Paradise). After visiting the fuel dock, we noticed lots of available slips in the beautiful new marina (Marina Riviera Nayarit) and decided to take a berth there for the night so that we could explore the town of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle (La Cruz).

We had a great sail from PV to La Cruz. Barry Crosby, a friendly Canadian we had met in PV, came along for the ride. Here is Barry at the helm.

Visiting La Cruz turned out to be a lot of fun. In the afternoon we stopped by Philo's Bar, which is a famous cruiser hang-out, and met Philo, Philo's girlfriend, Philo's mother, and Philo's girlfriend's precociously musical son. Philo is a well known musician in these parts--perhaps not as well-known as Jimmy Buffett, but cut from the same mold. His most famous lyric goes something like this:

I've been thinking 'bout Mexico
All of the places that I wanna go.
Pretty senioritas and cold margaritas
(I forget the rest, but you get the idea)

So of course we needed to return to the bar that evening to see Philo and his band do a set. What a kick! The band was rocking and the place was packed--mostly with cruising couples--who were absolutely grooving to the music. Truth be told, there was a slightly geriatric feel to the audience. A lot of the men were grizzled-looking sailors, and their wives and girlfriends looked (how to put this delicately) like they had a few years of foul weather under their keels, and could handle more. But we were all into Philo's tropical vibe. It was one of those magical live performances that captured perfectly the mood of the place and time. It might not have been Margaritaville (although quite a few margaritas were consumed),but it was the Mexican cruiser's equivalent. A highlight for me was when Capt'n Deb, the sixty-something skipper of a 60-foot trawler, sat in with the band playing a washboard. Philo's girlfriend's son, who looked to be about 10, got to show his stuff as well.

Click here to hear one of Philo's tunes.