July to September - Summer "Vacation" visit back home to the States.
Well as you know we are way behind on our Web updates. We took the
summer off!
We had a wonderful summer. We locked up the boat, left her in Puerto Vallarta and returned home to California. We had a great time visiting with family and friends.
The summer went something like this: We spent several weeks visiting with Vaughn's Dad. He is doing pretty good, still has trouble breathing sometimes. But considering he is almost 80, he is doing well. We also spent several weeks with Sharon's Mom. She's doing great.
We spent a long weekend camping in Kings Canyon with our friends Neil and Linda. What I beautiful place. We had a great time.
We enjoyed visiting our friends Don and Fran up at their place near Nevada City.
Then we headed to the Sierra's Mountains for a week of backpacking with our friends Janet and Mike. Amazingly beautiful trip. Granite, granite everywhere!
We spent a week up at the family cabin in Truckee.
Vaughn went for a "boys" trip with Don fishing. Sharon did a "ladies" trip to Carmel with her Mom and sisters.
We again slipped away to the Sierra Mountains for another week backpacking with our friends Maria and Jeff. Great fishing, 16 inch trout and beautiful scenery.
We had a wonderful time visiting all our friends and family. The summer went by way to fast! Before we knew it was time it head back to "Reality".
October
We arrived back to "Reality" to find she had survived the summer in
Puerto Vallarta without us quite well. It took us a couple weeks to get
her all put back together and cleaned up.
The Hurricane season was still in full swing so we couldn't leave Puerto Vallarta until the 1st of November. While waiting we had friends come visit us. Don joined us for a week. Then our friends Janet and Mike came for a week. We enjoyed doing some of the touristy things that we don't normally take the time to enjoy. We went for a walk in the jungle. We spent a day in Yalapa. We sailed out to Punta Mita and snorkeled at Los Arcos. We wondered around P.V. for a day. We had a great time. Puerto Vallarta is truly a wonderful town, very charming.
When we first returned to P.V. the weather took a bit of getting use to. It was HOT, HOT, HOT with humidity of nearly 100%. Every afternoon we would get these wild electrical storms. It would rain like you had turned on a garden hose, full force. In a two week period we received over 9 inches of rain. The lightening and thunder was amazing. Several nights the storms were so intense that lightening would hitting all around us. We watched in terror as several boats took direct hits! Lightening hit the mast and sent sparks flying for 50 feet. One of the boats hit was only two boats away from us! We counted our lucky stars that we were spared. A direct hit of lightening will in a split second fry $10-20 thousand dollars worth of boat electronics and wiring!
We left Puerto Vallarta on November 1st. We spent several days anchored out in Banderas Bay getting our sea legs back and doing our final visiting with friends we have met here in P.V. We have met some wonderful people here in P.V. Highlights included a birthday party with all the Catholic Priest in the area. Enjoying outstanding home cooked Mexican meals at friends homes. Seeing the newly purchased home of cruising friends that liked P.V. so much they decided not to leave. It was hard for us to leave also.
On Nov 5th we started heading south again! The weather has really begun
to changed for the best, no rain and low humidity. The wilting heat has
changed to a lovely day time temps of mid 80's and nights are high 60's.
It's down right pleasant. We took off with great winds of 12-15 knots`
and calm seas. The dolphins were playing with us as we sailed out of
Banderas Bay at 6+ knots. Sharon just caught 3 small bonita tuna fish!
Something’s never change. It's great to be on the water again!