La Cruz Part 2 – The Marina – Gresham Family Exodus

December 23, 2103 – January 12, 2014

Logbook – December 23, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Bus ride to PV. New TIP at Banjercito. Xmas shopping.
Moved into Marina
D/T Philos for pizza & MNF
Boys – Minecraft night

Logbook – December 24, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Xmas Eve dock party on Dock 4 – kids running around everywhere
Met Sand Dollar – 3 kids

Email to family and friends dated December 24, 2013

Subject: Made it to Banderas Bay yesterday

We are currently anchored off of La Cruz, which is north of Puerto Vallarta in Banderas Bay. Yesterday, we reconnected with one of the kid boats we spent the early summer with, and the boys hung out at the marina swimming pool with their kids. La Cruz is a nice town, big enough to have most things you need, but small enough you don’t feel like you’re in the big city. It is smaller than both La Paz and Loreto. We plan to go into the marina for a couple weeks to work on boat projects, starting tomorrow, so while we have some slow internet access on the boat right now, hopefully from the marina it will be better. Brenden should finish 4th grade today, so the boys are going to get a week off of school for Christmas. Tomorrow we are going to take a bus into Puerto Vallarta to visit customs (we found an issue with our boat import permit, yikes, not good timing when the Mexican gov’t is cracking down and impounding boats!) and do some last minute Christmas shopping.
Love and miss you all,
-D.

Email to family and friends dated December 24, 2013

Subject: In the marina

(FYI, the last email that just sent I actually wrote on Sunday. I guess it was stuck in the outbox when I thought I had sent it. )
It’s now Tuesday, Xmas Even, and we came into a slip in the marina yesterday afternoon. We have internet from the boat, but not on all devices and it’s a bit spotty. Hope you are all enjoying your holidays!
-D.

Logbook – December 25, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

LC rotten turkey 😦 Yummy dinner anyway. LC, TBV, Dazzler. Nice wine! Good times
Another dock party – gingerbread houses
MERRY XMAS!

Christmas morning. I guess Tim was naughty this year (although, obsidian, not coal)

The Christmas day spread on Lady Carolina

The guys… Craig (True Blue V), Dan (Dazzler), Tim (Exodus), Steve (Lady Carolina). Australia, US, and Canada represented.

There was a dock party on Christmas night and Alison (Kenta Anae) brought out the fixins for the kids to make ginger bread houses. Brenden loved it!

Logbook – December 26, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Laundry, cleaning (vacuum, shore power, yeah!)
Tim ripped up cockpit floor.
Movie night @ the marina. Rango.
Steve – long line in dinghy – Alex & Kyle to the rescue

Taking advantage of being at a marina. Tearing up the cockpit floor…

…and cleaning/vacuuming out all the lockers

Logbook – December 27, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Homemade cinnamon rolls. More cleaning
Alex fell off dock w/ the bike. Tim retrieved it with the dinghy anchor.
Dinner at Red Chairs w/ Sand Dollar and Fluenta

Alex fell in the water riding the bike and when choosing between holding onto the bike and drowning, he chose wisely and let go. Tim retrieved it from the bottom using the dinghy anchor (after trying the boat hook and magnets)

Logbook – December 28, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Tim fixed Alex’s head – our boat is the poo boat. We had a bilge full of poo.
Dinner w/ LC & kids from Sand Dollar at Los Twins

Sometimes you just need a conch. This night it was a ketchup bottle, but Steve still wasn’t listening

Email to family and friends dated December 28, 2013

Subject: Hi from La Cruz

We are having so much fun here in the marina. There are kids everywhere! We have met another boat called Sand Dollar and they have a 14 year old boy and a 12 year old girl, so there are some older kids for Alex and Kyle to hang out with. Brenden is still as playful as ever and spends most of his time with the younger kids. We went out to dinner last night with their family and another family that has an 8 and a 10 year old (and a 3 week old!) OK, it’s not all fun and games in the marina… Tim has started ripping out our cockpit floor to repair it and make it water tight again, and with shore power I have decided to vaccuum every square inch of Exodus. It’s been raining a lot and night before last we had a lot of lightening.
Love and miss you all
-D.

P.S. We have full internet from the boat now. In fact, when connected to internet I can telnet from this account so I don’t have to use radio time.

At 12/28/2013 1:59 PM (utc) our position was 20°44.57’N 105°22.41’W

Logbook – December 29, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Nothing to report (empty log book)

Logbook – December 30, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Rainy, rainy day. Back to school. B started 5th grade.
Kids played games in the VIP lounge after school w/ LC & SD
Carolina stopped by “to drink” 🙂
All the kids here for spaghetti dinner

Logbook – December 31, 2013 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Soccer game on the beach
Laundry lady gave back 100 p that fell out of Alex’s pocket
Southbound net
Dock party moved to the VIP lounge due to rain. Ukeleles, fireworks, lots of wine

Email to family and friends dated December 31, 2013

Subject: Happy New Year’s Eve

It has been gray and rainy for the past 5 days but yesterday was a real downpour. I didn’t even leave the boat and all the kids just went up to the marina lounge after school to play board games. It’s not raining right now but it’s still dark and gray, but I’m hoping it will clear up for our new year’s eve dock party. Hope everyone has a great new year’s eve!
Love,

-D.

At 12/28/2013 1:59 PM (utc) our position was 20°44.57’N 105°22.41’W

D all dressed up for New Year’s Eve and doing the Southbound evening net

New Year’s Eve… it was supposed to be a dock party but the rain drove us all inside the lounge at the marina

while the younger ones played games in the lounge

Logbook – January 1, 2014 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Late start – boys slept in until almost noon
Lots of reading about the South Pacific
Kids milling about – eventually went to play soccer
Victoria (“Newt”) helped me with dinner – ham & potato soup

Logbook – January 2, 2014 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Nothing to report (empty log book)

Logbook – January 3, 2014 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Canopy tour El Eden & Tequila Tasting w/ Sand Dollar, Appa, Kenta Anae

Hanging out at the Oxxo waiting to be picked up for the canopy tour

They wouldn’t let us take our cameras on the actual zip line tour since they had their own photographers and they wanted you to buy their photos. So, this is the closest shot I have to actually zip lining.

Everyone listening intently to the instructions

After the canopy tour there was a restaurant to hang out at and a pool to swim in

The kids climbing up to do the rock slide

The kids played a game of cards after swimming

The canopy tour was on the set of the movie Predator

After the canopy tour we went to a tequila factory…

While the adults were drinking tequila the kids played with guns

Logbook – January 4, 2014 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

Backsale & swap meet. Lost iphone in the bathroom, Brenden made a sign which led to the return of the phone
Free beer at the pool, Alex played volleyball in the pool w/ other kids
Studying for the HAM license Qrz.com

Bake sale to raise money for a kids’ charity (Brenden and I baked the sugar cookies on the right)

I lost my phone and Brenden made this sight, and it led directly to the return of my phone

Logbook – January 5, 2014 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes

D – first run since La Paz?
Sunday Market with Alex
Dock party bday for Zion (Heavy Metal)

No, Tim isn’t going gray, that’s dust from sanding

This looks like trouble. My first instinct was to stop the fun since clearly someone could get hurt, but Tim’s voice inside my head said, “take off the bubble wrap” so I took photos instead

Email to family and friends dated January 5, 2014

Subject: Still in the marina

We are still happily enjoying the marina life here in La Cruz. It’s a nice change to have hot water high pressure showers and an easy walk into town with all kinds of provisions. One of our first days here we went to the vegetable market and I loaded up with as much stuff as I could carry, and Carolina laughed at me saying, “you know, they have this twice a week.” We had a great time on the canopy tour on Friday, hopefully you’ve had a chance to check out the photos on facebook. Yesterday there was a cruisers swap meet and one of the local charities for kids had a bake sale so we made some cookies to contribute and Alex was the “moneyman” at the booth. Today will be a boat work day since there is no school, but I’ll sneak out for a little while to go to the Sunday market for some empanadas and fresh squeezed orange juice.
Love and miss you all,

-D.

At 12/28/2013 1:59 PM (utc) our position was 20°44.57’N 105°22.41’W

Logbook – January 6, 2014 (La Cruz Marina)

Daily Notes