LIEBLING HEADING SOUTH

After spending 4 ½ months in the US mostly in the Northwest we are heading south again to Mexico. It has been wonderful being here and visiting with family and friends but the boating adventure continues…… This time we are going to head straight south to the southern border of Mexico after a stop in Puerto Vallarta to drop off our friend Merle. He flew up to San Diego to get supplies for his boat in PV so that he and his family could do the puddle jump (Sail from Puerto Vallarta to the Marquesas islands (French Polynesia). He will sail the 1,200 miles with us to Puerto Vallarta and then we will continue south stopping in Barra, Zihuatanejo, Huatulco and Puerto Madero. Puerto Madero is the southernmost tip of Mexico and close to the Guatemalan border. Once we get there we will sit and talk to each other for a couple of weeks deciding whether we will keep going south to the Panama Canal and on through to the San Blas Islands and/or Boca de Torro on the Atlantic side. Or just hang around Mexico for the foreseeable future. Jim’s sister Lucy will sail with us the 600 miles or so from Zihuatanejo to Puerto Madero. We will have to cross the Gulf of Tehuantepec which is just south of a narrow strip of land between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. It takes three days to cross this Gulf and you have to wait for a calm weather window as the winds and waves can be notoriously bad if you go at the wrong time. During the hurricane season this is where many hurricanes form and head north up the Pacific coast. If we decide to keep going south we will be able to leave the boat south of the hurricane zone next summer. But we may decide to come back north and have the boat in southern California. Right now I would prefer to come back as my body cannot handle the heat in the tropics come April. If we do continue I still plan to come home in April to escape the heat. We left the boat in Long Beach California during the months of August-October. It was wonderful as we could fly home on Jet Blue due to Jim’s son Mark being one of their pilots and we had the use of his car. The weather in southern California is wonderful not too hot and not too cold. But I do have to say the pollution around the LA area is the worst I have ever seen. Right now we are in San Diego and believe it or not yesterday it rained just like up in the Northwest, but not nearly as cold. We will sail through the night tonight (Nov. 23) and get into Ensenada around 8 or 9 am tomorrow. We will check into Mexico, get our fishing licenses, and sign up for internet services again. We plan to follow the wind and maybe go as far out as 100 miles. Merle is an avid fisherman so he plans to teach me how to fish and to filet it. More to come on that later. I will post another blog when we get to Puerto Vallarta and I am sure much to tell. We hope your holidays are wonderful and warm. We will be thinking of you all and miss you very much. Much love