For those who do not know - I met Fran through my sister back in my Edmonton days. She worked with Susan at CBC. Fran lives in Toronto now and is still with CBC. After the winter that most of Canada was experiencing it was not too difficult to convince her to fly down for a visit.
We spent some time at the marina at the Grand Bay Hotel. Then we ventured out to places we had already been. Fran loves taking pictures so this blog is a repeat of those places but with many more pictures!
Barra de Navidad and the Grand Hotel
The ketch on the left of this picture is Lady Midnight - Tim and Constance from Victoria.
Some lucky Captain with TWO hot chicks!
Barra de Navidad - the town
Off to La Melaque to the Market
Mexican Indians in their colorful attire. The poorest group in Mexico.
Check out the pregnant Barbie's and their outfits. All handmade. This cracked us up!
Platform shoes and boots!
And the Mexicans fascination with skeletons which has something to do with their Catholic background but we are not sure what. This one was particularly noteworthy!
On Thusday we set sail for La Manzanilla. We had a great sail and Fran proved to be an excellent second mate.
The only disappointment was all the red tide.
Red tide is the result of an algae bloom and becomes prolific when the water temperature reaches an ideal level. It is caused by dinoflagellates that are able to reproduce rapidly on account of abundant nutrients in the water. Shellfish are not safe to eat but fish, squid, shrimp and crab are okay if washed thoroughly. But we decided to avoid all of it. There were times when the water looked like tomato soup.
When we got to La Manzanilla it was so bad that the air even smelt like rotten fish. So we sailed over to the other side of the bay at Tanakateta and it was clear. So we dropped the hook and spent the night. The next day Fran and I were able to swim to shore. After a nice walk
and lunch at the palapa with Pam and Richard on Tisha Baby
we decided to swim back out to the boat. But the red tide started to move in and we actually swam through part of it. It kind of grossed us out so we swam to the nearest boat which was Tisha Baby and asked to come on board so David could come and rescue us. Needless to say we could not wait to have a shower. No harm to us.
Next day we motored over to La Manzalilla and took the dinghy to shore. We explored the crocodile reserve and the town.
The town of La Manzanilla
And a relaxing motor back to Barra
And Fran was happy as she got to see dolphins jumping out of the water and a whale!
And a blog would not be complete without a few of those wonderful shots of the sunset in paradise.
It was sad to see Fran off on Monday. We hadn't spent time together for many years and yet it seemed as if we had just seen each other yesterday. That is a sign of a good friendship. Maybe we can talk her into joining us for another leg of our journey!
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