Puerta Vallarta with friends

Kellie's comments-I think we've been a little lax lately about sending updates. So here is the rundown on the last week or so. We received a terrific welcome into Banderas Bay by the resident group of Humpback whales. What a great way to end our 48 hour trip across the Sea of Cortez. We spent a week at Punta de Mita, the northern most end of the bay. Wyndeavor was there and various other acquaintances passed through. The anchorage suffered from a bit of swell, but Peter built us a "flopper stopper" and that set things to right. -Flopper Stopper: device suspended off a long pole into the water to dampen rolling. For those of you engineering types, you'll have to e-mail for details. Suffice it to say, "Macgiver strikes again." On Sunday, we took Imagine out to the Tres Marietas with the Wyndeavor crew aboard. If all days of cruising were equal to that day, I'd have no complaints. The islands are about a one hour trip away right through humpback territory. We had a nice whale show on the way over, spent the day snorkeling, body surfing and hiking, had some great avocado bean dip on the way home and saw the whales again and the sunset. Not bad for a winter day in January. The island is a park, so there are lots of fish and the birds are quite tame. Lots of caves decorate the landscape and the blue footed boobies nest there. I had never seen one before, and they were kind enough to give us a close up look at their Easter egg blue feet. The caves were quite amazing and we wrote our boat names in small stones to commemorate our visit. Now we are enjoying a "vacation" from cruising. Our good friends John and Dee Munckton, along with their three girls, are visiting. We are splitting our time between the boat and their condo, having meals together and catching up on all the news. On Friday it was cooler and overcast, so we took the opportunity to go explore Puerto Vallarta proper. There are lots of market stalls, touristy restaurants, and a fairly impressive cathedral. The kids were a bit wiped out and just wanted to try out the pool, so we spent half a day there as well. On Saturday we took the boat on a small trip to an incredible little cove about 6 miles away. We anchored right off the beach (literally) and swam in the fresh water lagoon and river that have carved out the canyon. The water is over 100 feet deep right up to within 50 feet of shore. Most of the people enjoying the beach were locals, so we got a break from the typical touristy vendors. Sunday morning we hooked up with some other cruisers for a church service. One of the cruisers is a minister and they host a service every Sunday wherever they are. We really enjoyed the fellowship and time together with other Believers. This was our first Christian fellowship since we left. The kids were most impressed with the cookies and looked forward to getting back to the pool. Today we took a bus to the nearby town of Bucerias for the festival of the "Patron St. of Fishing." It was great fun to barter for souvenirs and people watch. They decorated all the fishing boats and had a boat parade. There were also bands, children dressed up in fish nets and senioritas on horseback in beautiful dresses. After a nice taco dinner back at the condo, the kids are now watching a video, Dee is watching the sunset and the guys have run to the store to buy donuts for breakfast. We plan to spend tomorrow with some other cruising friends at Paradise Village and all us ladies are going to have a stamping time. We plan to be here until the weekend, when we'll head out along with several other boats for points south. Most of the trips from here to Ixtapa will be day trips, and I'm pretty happy about that. The climate has changed now and the vegetation is jungly, instead of the desert of Baja. We're very excited to keep exploring and enjoying the warm water and air. All for now, keep in touch. We can receive e-mail this week on the petekellie acct, so please drop us a note with all your news.