1 January - 17 February, 2010 Mazatlan and Mardi Gras

She did not get the boa for free ...


Everybody ... Everything ... got beads


Julie with a few of her favorite beads and the leather mask she bought in Mazatlan for Mardi Gras


Our haul of beads


Julie, typically, finding herself between the Angels of light and darkness - arms wrapped tightly around both


Julie with one of the revelers


... a typical parade scene ...


January – Julie finished working in Ellensburg and dehydrating her bison jerky and fruit. We had two suitcases filled with jerky and dried fruit when we boarded the plane for Denver. We’ll spend a couple of weeks in Colorado skiing and then return to the boat.

We rented a condo in Keystone for three days and the skiing was great. Not sure how much longer we’ll continue skiing though; it just doesn’t have the zip it used too. Tim and Amy (his fiancé) flew into CO and spent a couple of day with us. Tim had been deployed to Iraq and Amy just returned from a deployment (she’s a Marine too). Tim was telling us about Camel Spiders (http://www.camelspiders.net) an arachnid peculiar to that latitude of the world. They are startling to look at, quite large and can run as fast as a human. Tim says that many of the US Forces think the spiders are chasing them, but they are only trying to get into the shade your body creates, “because it fuckin’ hot out there.”

Apparently one of the new Marines, unaccustomed to this scary little creature, encountered a Camel Spider in the laundry facility. Being a good Marine, he adapted, improvised and overcame. In short, he opened up on the camel spider with his 5.56mm, M-16 assault rifle. He took several shots from over head and then pumped a couple of rounds beneath the washers and dryers where the spider had taken cover. Gunfire inside the compound is taken seriously and half the camp came charging from their tents convinced there had been a breach in the compound. Security quickly found the source of the gunfire and separated the vigilant Marine from his weapon. The spider was never found, but several washers and dryers took direct hits.

We returned to Mexico with only a slight glitch in our flight and made it through customs even though we got the red light. We were worried about all of the dehydrated goodies Julie had made, but the customs agent did a cursory check of our luggage and sent us on our way.

Prior to sailing south, we decided we wanted to go the Copper Canyon as we had heard from many cruisers about its spectacular beauty. The Copper Canyon is a series of canyons, larger than the Grand Canyon and deeper in spots. To get there we took a six-hour bus ride from Mazatlan to Los Mochis, spent the night in a hotel and then hopped aboard a train for another 10-hour ride to Creel, in the State of Chihuahua, MX, at the top of the Copper Canyon.

Public transportation in Mexico is excellent and very comfortable. The buses are huge; toilets are clean; coffee is available; seats recline with plenty of legroom, including built in leg rests to support your calves; and, movies are played in English and Spanish. The train, which runs through the Copper Canyon between Los Mochis and Chihuahua, is equally clean, comfortable and includes a bar and dining car.

While the transportation was priced right and very relaxing, the Copper Canyon itself turned out to be not so terrific. Take this with a grain of salt though as we are the only cruisers, that we know, that didn’t think it was spectacular. The train trip through the canyon reminded me of driving through the foothills of the Rockies. The tour from our hotel in Creel was equally as routine and included 12 of us packed into a 10-passenger van with a mute driver. We stopped at a lake (?); we hiked to a barely running waterfall; we took pictures of rock formations that looked like various animals, and … well you get the picture. We visited with the Tarahumara Indians (natives of the area) and purchased some baskets from them. While it wasn’t a complete bust, it’s not something I would not recommend; again we’re in a minority. (Addendum - After talking with several other cruisers who have been to the Copper Canyon it seems El Fuerte (home of Zorro), San Rafael and Divisadaro are the stops to make. For more information on the Copper Canyon go to; Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Canyon.

February - Upon our return, Julie had several bad days with a toothache. Rather than starting south we decided it prudent to get her tooth fixed. Her first dental appointment resulted in a referral to have a root canal. The next day we went to the Endodontist and he, painfully, removed a bridge Julie had installed 20 years ago. The crown on the tooth had perforated and the Endodontist was unable to do the root canal, as the tooth was too badly decayed. He sent Julie back to the original dentist, who pulled her tooth the next day (day three). I gave Julie some hydrocodone for pain and she has been happily sleeping with brief visiting periods. The pain is still there; she just doesn't care. She’ll wait a couple of months, for the bone to heal, before deciding if she wants to have an implant. The whole thing cost less than $300 (US).

In the meantime, the boats engine needed its 1000-hour check-up; part of which is checking the shaft alignment. In trying to align the shaft the yard discovered it was bent. No man wants a shaft out of alignment and certainly not bent! The boat will need to be hauled and either the engine removed or the ruder dropped to repair/replace the shaft. Getting entangled in fishing line, hitting something or strap misplacement when hauling out can bend the shaft. The first two I know didn’t happen to us, so the shaft either go bent on haul-out or it came from the foundry that way (it was new when I re-powered two years ago). The delay is OK as Julies’ tooth pain has not quite subsided and she wants to recover the cushions in the salon. This will give us chance to do those things.

Some months ago we planned a trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We’ve attended Carnival (another name for Mardi Gras) here in Mazatlan, which is the third largest pre-Lent festival in the world; Rio being the largest and New Orleans being the second largest. Mardi Gras/Carnival is celebrated all over the world; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival. Our original intention was to sail the boat to Puerto Vallarta (PV), fly to New Orleans and return to PV, but with the boat out of commission (shaft problem) we needed to adjust. We took an all night bus ride to PV to catch our flight to New Orleans (while in PV we visited with cruising friends PEPE and BRENDAN, who we met on the “Ha-Ha.”)

In New Orleans, we stayed in the French Quarter - three blocks from Bourbon Street. We arrived on Friday night and the festivities had been going on for the past week as the Saints had won the Super Bowl. Bourbon Street was packed with revelers every night and most of the day. The music was loud, the liquor was flowing freely and partying was hearty! While the crowd was well lubricated, everyone remained polite and courteous. It was surprisingly cold in New Orleans. The skies were clear but the temperatures were in the mid 30’s to 40’s (not very conducive to flashing). Even so, the girls (and guys) were flashing away … from 18 to 80 … everyone participated. Julie had a special request to flash her magnificent breasts and she was rewarded suitably with three unique sets of beads. She took her time and allowed many pictures to be taken. Many women, even though it was cold, were shirtless but body painted. They were so well camouflaged that Julie had to (I’m ashamed to admit) repeatedly point them out to me. At times we were part of a mob and barely able to negotiate the direction we wished to go. The police were ever-present but did not inhibit the festivities. Those few characters that did get out of line were quickly sorted out with a stern reprimand (one young man was even put on his knees, facing the wall, for a quick time-out) and then sent on their way, penitent for their transgressions.

The parades were numerous and endless. Anyone who wanted to could be in a parade. The parade participants that passed us went something like this; float, marching band, costume dance troop, Chevrolet pickup, police car, suburban, a couple of guys walking, budget rental truck, military marching troop, spare tractor, float, etc. Some of the floats were quite ornate and the beads flew plentiful from them … sometimes a gentle loft into the crowd and other times a fastball right down the middle. Julie got nailed in the mouth with an errant pitch (high and inside), but she's OK ... no damage. A guy standing behind me got nailed with some big beads that nearly knocked him on his kester. We attended only three parades (two during the day and one at night) for several hours each, but didn’t stay to the end of any of them.

We've been to several restaurants here in the French Quarter for gumbo, crawfish étouffée, jambalaya and a beef po' boy. All of the food was either soupy and/or cold. I’m told gumbo has sausage and shrimp in it; mine did not; I was able to discern some mashed okra though. My po’boy was cold beef beneath two halves of Swiss cheese with a tablespoon of cold beef gravy on the cheese; the bun was good though. Julies crawfish étouffée had two tiny crawfish tails in it the size of the end of your little finger and her jambalaya was spicy (hot), tomato … something. We gave up and went back to McDonalds for our meals.

The stores in New Orleans are mostly closed during Mardi Gras. The nicer restaurants; K-Paul, Spagos, Emerils and Dickie Brennans were all closed. Many stores closed because they were on one of the parade routes. However, we were told, most stores closed because it was too hard for them to get and retain help during Mardi Gras, so they just gave up and closed for the festivities. We took a paddleboat tour up the Mississippi and our taxi driver took us to where the dike broke. It is amazing that almost the entire city is built below the water line of the surrounding lakes and rivers. Go figure ...

Mardi Gras is a vacation we would both repeat.