Category: Blog Post

January 2014

The radio frenquency spectrum is divided up and specific frequencies are allocated for specific uses.  Our SSB radio operates in the HF spectrum (~3 – 30 MHz) and the frequencies in the range most often used by yachties are those allocated for marine use and those allocated for amatuer use.  To transmit on the marine bands you need a ship station license for you boat and a marine operator permit for at least one person on board.  These are easily obtained online from the FCC in the US.  The ship station license is how you get your call sign (ours is WDG6445) and your MMSI number (which is used by DSC calling in both VHF and SSB radios).  The marine operator permit seems like just one more way to squeeze money out of you, because you don’t have to pass a test or anything, you just pay for it and get it.  Before we left home, I actually went one step further and did take a class and passed a test to get a marine operator license, because I thought I could stand to learn a thing or two.  So, I’m actually qualified, licesne wise, to operate radios on commercial vessels if I ever feel like a career change.  A lot of the radio nets in mexico were conducted on marine bands, so those were the ones I could check in to, and even net control for.

To transmit on the amateur frequencies you have to get a different license, known as a HAM license.  HAM radio operators are by no means limited to marine uses, in fact most are land based.  I never did bother to get a HAM license while still at home, because I didn’t think it was necessary and then I missed another opportunity to do it in La Paz, because I simply didn’t feel like studying.  Once upon a time, you had to know morse code to pass the HAM license test, but since they did away with that requirement licenses are much more accessible, but I still didn’t feel like studying.

Then we spent the summer in the sea, and the main source of daily weather was a voice broadcast by Geary on the Sonrisa Net, which happened to be a HAM net.  So, I could listen, but I could never check in.  It was like not being allowed into the cool kids club.  Well, not really, but I started to see that there may be a need for a HAM license as we proceed on our voyage because you never know what radio nets we’ll encounter and which ones we’ll want to participate in.

So, I started studying.  They give the test monthly at the Yacht Club at Paradise Village, so when I started studying it was early January, and I had about a month to prepare.  I learned that there are varying levels of licenses, and in order to trasmit on HF frequencies I actually had to pass two tests (technical and general classes).  I started studying for the technical license figuring I would take that one and then the following month I would study for the general.  Calling it “studying” is a bit generous.  Basically, I just took the practice tests over and over again on qrz.com until I could consistently pass.  Not a very noble way of passing the test since I was simply memorizing as opposed to learning and understanding the material, but it’s not like I’m going to build my own HAM radio shack, I just want to be able to transmit on HAM frequencies using my SSB radio.  Two days before the test I realized that we may not be in Banderas Bay the following month, and if I didn’t get a chance to take the general I still wouldn’t be able to do that.  So, I started cramming for the general test too.  Pretty much non-stop the day before the test I sat on the computer taking practice test after practice test. 

The day of the test I hitched a ride from La Cruz up to Paradise Village with Romany Star, and I was still studying a few topics I had jotted onto a post-it note.  Turns out I’m the biggest geek every, because I passed the tests easily, and worried over nothing.  So, now I’m KK4WYW (my HAM call sign) and I am now part of the cool kids club.

January 2014

In Mexico, it is required that when a yacht comes and goes from a (major) harbor, they check in and out with the Port Captain.  On the Baja, all you have to do is radio the Port Captain on VHF and give them your boat name, last port (if arriving) and number of people on board.  In contrast, on the mainland, it is required that you physically go to the Port Captain’s office to fill out a form on arrival and departure.  Our first time doing this was in Chacala, which was a little comical because Chacalas’s not exactly a major harbor, but whatever, they have a Port Captain, so we went to visit him.  And it’s a good thing we did, because we had to show him all our paperwork, and he caught the fact that our Yacht Temporary Import Permit (TIP) was expired.  What!  That’s clearly and error, these are supposed to be good for 10 years.  He was very nice about it, and he said he didn’t really care, but eventually *someone* would care, so we should probably take care of it.Around this same time, Dena (s/v R C Kat) sent me a message about yachts being impounded in Mexico, for, yes, you guessed it, issues with their TIPs.  The Mexican government did audits in many marinas on the Baja and mainland side, and they were impounding boats like crazy.  So, we clearly needed to do something about our TIP before we went into the La Cruz marina.  This was our first order of business upon arrival in Banderas Bay.  The customs office is at the airport, and we could easily take a bus there, but both Steve (Lady Carolina) and Dan (Dazzler) told us we should talk to Dick (Harbormaster at Paradise Village).  Dick would know what to do.  So, I gave paradise village a call to talk to Dick, got the straight scoop that we needed to go to the Banjercito office in Puerto Vallarta, and I even made “tentative” reservations to go to Paradise Village.  A successful call, I think (thanks Steve and Dan).  The first business day after we got to La Cruz we hopped on a bus to head to Puerto Vallarta.  It wasn’t really a bus, more of a small van, and you would be surprised how many people can be packed in.  The Banderas Bay bus schedule is, well, not really a schedule.  There are many stops, some marked, most not, and at most stops you don’t have to wait more the 2-5 minutes for a bus to come.  Sometimes it’s a regular sized large bus, and sometimes it’s these small vans.  The prices are the same, the only difference we figured out just by watching other people is the large buses you pay when you board and the vans you pay when you disembark.  Prices are reasonable, and once you’ve done it a time or two, it’s pretty easy.  I wasn’t sure exactly how far we were going or where the stop would actually be, I just knew we were looking for a glass building near the harbor in Puerto Vallarta.  Every time I’ve been unsure of where to change buses or where to get off or really just about anything, there’s been some helpful person on board to set me on the right track.  This first time there was a man who spoke a fair amount of English, and taught us how to alert the driver that you wanted to stop.  We found the Banjercito building without any drama.  Inside, the lady was helpful in getting our TIP situation squared away and we were issued a new TIP (of course, we had to pay the full fee again.)  We also had to wait quite awhile because as our luck would have it they had a printer malfunction and we had to wait for them to get that fixed.  We were all pretty hungry and some of us were a bit grouchy by the time we were all done, but we were glad to have Exodus legally in Mexico again.  To have lunch and do some shopping we crossed the street to a huge mall called Livermore.  It was surreal, like being transferred back to the states.  We had not seen anything like it since we were in Mexico.   Starbucks, McDonalds, and we even had lunch at Chilis (overlooking the Puerto Vallarta harbor).  We also walked over to Walmart and got our last minute Christmas shopping done (there were only 2 days left!) and then caught a bus back to La Cruz, this time a full sized one.  Turns out we weren’t the only ones who had this issue of getting a 6 month TIP instead of the normal 10 year one, and the lady at Banjercito said it was a glitch in the online system.

We had one other legality issue to deal with during our stay in Banderas Bay, this one with immigration rather than customs.  When entering Mexico, you are typically issued a 180-day tourist card.  (As an aside, you typically automatically get issued these cards when arriving by air or boat.  If arriving by car you need to stop at an immigration office at the border to get them, because the law is that you only need them if you are traveling so many miles away from the border).  Before your 180 days are up you are supposed to leave the country, and then you can return and get a new card with a new 180-day limit.  Recall that the main reason we drove to San Diego from Santa Rosalia during the summer was to get new tourist cards and also recall that when the boys and I went from San Felipe up to the States for Danna’s wedding we were issued new cards upon our return.  I was worried about Tim’s for a while, but then he had to fly home from Loreto in November, so with that trip we should all be good until we departed Mexico in March.  However, at some point I was looking at all our cards and noticed that Tim was only issued a 90-day card when he returned to Loreto.  I was really disappointed, because this meant we had yet another administrative issue to deal with.  I was worried he was going to have to fly to the states and back again, just for that, and it would be much more expensive to fly from Banderas Bay then it had been from Loreto.

There was one small hope: the Puerto Vallarta airport.  We have heard of other cruisers going to the immigration office at the airport and trying to get new tourist cards.  Some were successful, some not.  Carolina had been able to do it the year before by making two trips to the airport.  The first time they denied her, but the second time they did it.  Then Craig and Leann (True Blue V) had a successful trip right around the time Tim needed to take care of it.  So, Tim went to the airport, showed them his card, and asked to renew it.  The lady looked at it, said he was allowed 180 days, so she just crossed out the 90 and wrote 180.  No stamp.  No additional fee.  Hell, we could have just done that ourselves had we known.  So, even while boats are being impounded, we have two no drama experiences getting all of our paperwork in order.  You just never know how it’s going to go in Mexico.

January 23, 2014

Grandma: Brenden, do you know how to tie that knot?

Brenden: Yeah, Dad showed me how on my fishing pole.

Grandma: What’s the name of it?

Brenden: I haven’t named my fishing pole yet.

Ba-dum-ba!

January 2014

The boys didn’t get a visit from just one grandparent in the month of January, no, they got three!  Gary and Marsha, Tim’s parents, arrived a couple days after my mom left and they stayed 10 days.  We were still at Paradise Village when they arrived, so we were able to shuffle over to the Yacht Club right away to watch the NFC Championship game between the 49ers and the Seahawks.  The place was packed with cruisers, and most were rooting for the Seahawks, but luckily only a few were obnoxious about it.  Our stay with Gary and Marsha at Paradise was brief, but they still got to experience the pool with the kids and the french baguettes.  When we left, we headed for La Cruz and spent just a night there in the anchorage and then went to Punta de Mita for a night before heading back to La Cruz.  On the way we hit Tres Marietas for a day stop, and the highlight was hooking a huge Dorado.  It was just as we were rolling in to anchor and the guys were all reeling in the lines (I’m embarrassed to say we have forgotten to reel in lines more than once leaving it up to a kind fellow cruiser already in the anchorage to yell out, “hey, you’re still dragging lines.”)  Gary called out, “there’s something on this one!”  And sure enough, it was a beautiful 4.5 ft 27 lb. Dorado, so Gary and Marsha got a taste of Tim’s exquisite Dorado grilling ability.  Tastes like juicy chicken!  Unfortunately, the snorkeling at Tres Marietas was not all it was supposed to be, and we were surrounded by tour boats, so we didn’t stay too long.  We found a nice spot in the La Cruz anchorage and that’s where we parked ourselves for the remainder of their visit.

We had fun in La Cruz, and I enjoyed getting to take them to the Sunday Market.  Marsha bought the boys each something (of course!).  Alex picked out a cool hat, and Brenden picked out a small piece of art to hang on his wall.  I really liked Alex’s hat and noticed they came in pink too, so I teased him that I was going to buy one too and wouldn’t that be cool if we had matching hats.  Yeah, just what a 12-year-old boy wants, matching hats with his mom!  Marsha was able to see the boys do the silks class for the first time, and the boys liked having her there to show off to.  It was a wonderful visit, but regretfully, we just weren’t able to provide the same sort of experience for them as when they came to visit in the Sea of Cortez.  Like I said about my mom’s visit, Tim and I were more than a bit distracted with projects and to do lists for getting ready for the puddle jump.  But in addition to that, the Sea of Cortez trip was something special.  We took them to out of the way anchorages that are virtually inaccessible but by boat, and I think they really had an appreciation for that.  This time we were in the hustle and bustle of Banderas Bay, even if La Cruz is a nice little Mexican town.  Their next visit will likely be somewhere in the South Pacific, and hopefully we can find some nice cruising grounds near whatever port they are able to fly in to.

January 2014

One of the nice things about being in the Banderas Bay area while preparing for the Pacific Puddle Jump is that they put on regular seminars on all kinds of topics at both the La Cruz Marina and Paradise Village.  It always seemed like when there was one at Paradise Village, I wanted to go to I was in La Cruz and vice versa, but no worries, the bus is an easy solution.  However, on our way to our first seminar from La Cruz to Paradise Village we had to take a taxi.  It all started by agreeing to go together by bus with Lady Carolina and True Blue V.  I had never taken the bus from La Cruz to Paradise Village at this point and since it involved changing buses, I felt better going with someone who knew what we were doing.  Since the bus can be a pretty slow transportation method, we set a departure time to leave the marina and walk down to the bus stop fairly early.  So, I’m a pretty punctual person.  OK, I’m compulsively punctual.  I don’t know, I just think if you set a time for something, there’s no reason not to meet it (barring things out of your own control, of course).  Everyone showed up at the dock just a little late, no big deal, but then they tell me they need to take showers, but they’ll be quick.  Carolina and Joel intentionally walked ahead, because they thought they would be slow, but the boys and I sat down and waited.  We waited and waited long enough that I decided to just go ahead and take a taxi, because I figured if we were going to go that far to a seminar then it didn’t make any sense to show up late.  Alex, Brenden, Jonathon (Fluenta), and I pressed up the hill, passed Carolina and Joel and let them know what we were doing, and then went to the taxi stand to negotiate a price.  Are you kidding?  I don’t have enough money?  I played a little negotiating hard ball, and they didn’t bite and they let me walk away.  I guess it didn’t help that when I said I didn’t have enough money Jonathan pulled out a bill and helpfully said, “I have this…”  After we walked away, I considered catching a bus, but then we would definitely be late and who knows how late since I didn’t know the details of the bus transfer.  So, we went back to the taxi, and I borrowed money from 8-year-old Jonathan to pay for it.  Would you believe it that when we showed up, everyone else was already there?  They ended up catching a taxi too, and I guess their driver was a bit more aggressive than mine.  The seminar itself was pretty good.  It was on the Marquesas and was given by a couple (sv Kavenga) who had cruised there in the late 90s.  However, I hadn’t done much research on The Marquesas at that point, so I had trouble with context and very little of the content regarding specific anchorages actually stuck.  I went to several other seminars including Radar, Communications, Rigging, Weather, and Health.  There were also many others that I missed.  Most of them were more valueable for the networking with other cruisers that were planning to do the puddle jump as opposed to the seminar itself.  And a few of them, specifically the radar and comms ones would have been far more valuable had I gone to them a year ago rather than now.  I’ve figured out a lot of stuff on my own, the hard way, or by talking to other cruisers.  But I guess it’s good to get validation of stuff you already think you know when preparing for an ocean crossing.

January 2014

Mom joined us for a five-day visit during our stay at Paradise Village.  In fact, she arrived the same day we checked in, and I took a bus to the airport to meet here, and then we took a taxi back.  The boys were very excited to see Gramma Nay.  Since her stay was only 5 days, we didn’t make any plans to cruise anywhere, but rather just stayed at Paradise Village the whole time and pretended we were on vacation too.  We relaxed by the pool while the boys ran around and never grew tired of the alligator slides. We also had a very nice and relaxing beach day.  We sat under palapas soaking up some internet with our ipads while the boys boogie boarded.  They had a little animal show, and Brenden got to hold a snake, but unfortunately, I didn’t snap any photos.  We did venture out one day and play tourists by visiting downtown Puerto Vallarta and the Malecon.  We took the bus, but we had no idea how to get there or where to change buses.  But as usual, that wasn’t a problem.  We just asked and then followed the crowd of people going to the same place.  We were on a pretty run-down bus our last leg, but everyone was in good spirits, and no one complained.  The PV Malecon is like La Paz on steroids.  The walkway is dramatically wide, and the sculptures are much more elaborate.  The boys wanted to eat at McDonald’s and I’m sure my mom would have relented (because that’s what grandparents do), but I would have none of it, so the boys moped a bit.  We lucked out and found a place to relax and have lunch right on the Malecon that served, wait for it, burgers AND pasta, so now nobody had any reason to mope anymore.  In pretty much all of the larger Mexican towns we’ve been to, possible exception Santa Rosalia, there is always someone posted outside of restaurants trying to lure you in.  To me, this is a bit of a turn off, and I like to find the places that seem to have many customers without having to drag people in off the street.  This time in PV was the first time I took the bait.  What was I supposed to do after all?  They had burgers AND pasta!  The food ended up being pretty good, and we enjoyed just sitting, eating, and chatting.  We walked quite a ways down the Malecon and made our way up to the beautiful church of La Iglesia de Nuestra Senor de Gualdalupe.  The boys haven’t been in very many churches, so I gave them a quick reminder to be solemn and respectful, since even though there were tours going through, there were also people sitting quietly in some of the pews.  I can only guess they were praying.  Although I didn’t let the boys have McDonalds for lunch, we did take advantage of the fact they have little McDonalds dessert kiosks scattered about, where you can get soft serve cones and blizzards (although the blizzards aren’t churned like they are at home, they are basically just ice cream with Oreo crumbles on top).  We walked across the Rio Cuale and down around the narrow island that is near the mouth of the river.  I thought I had read it was an up-and-coming artsy type of area, but mostly it was just the same ole types of vendors you see everywhere.  On the way back we hit the municipal market, and I purchased a little shirt for baby Benjamin (sv Fluenta) that I totally forgot about and never gave to them.  I’m sure when I see them again, he will be way too big.

Overall, it was a very nice, slow-paced day and we enjoyed some of the sights that Puerto Vallarta has to offer.  This was our only trip into the heart of Puerto Vallarta, even though we were in Banderas bay for a month and a half.

Mom’s visit was fun, but way too short, and before you know it, I was driving her to the airport.  Yes, I was driving because I rented a car for a couple days to do some massive reprovisioning.  I feel a little regret that we didn’t provide mom with a better look at more of Mexico, I mean we didn’t even take her to La Cruz.  Unfortunately, since we were in a marina, we were also preoccupied with getting things done that can only be done in marina, even though we had already spent 2 weeks in the La Cruz marina.  Tim worked on projects, and I attended seminars.  But I know mom’s main focus was spending time with us, and particularly the boys, so hopefully she got her 5 days fill of that.  She thinks the next time she visits it will be when we are “summering” in New Zealand, and John will be able to come too.  John has always wanted to go to New Zealand, so it will be fun that we can offer a reason to go.

January, 2014

Paradise Village is a hotel resort in Nuevo Vallarta, and it also has a first-class marina. Our first visit there was by bus to attend one of the Pacific Puddle Jump Seminars, and we took the kids so they could play at the pool while we listened to someone drone on about stuff we already know about our radar.  Think of any stereotypical cheesy resort, and you’ve got Paradise Village.  Unlike La Cruz, there’s no cute little Mexican town just off the marina, no, there’s an American style shopping mall.  It definitely wasn’t my idea of a place I would like to stay.  However, there were a few upsides that we just couldn’t pass up, and we did end up staying there for a full 10 days.  One upside is that they have dockside potable water, so you can fill your boat tank directly (although there was some concern about chlorine content and whether it could damage our watermaker membrane when it fresh-water flushes).  The other upside might seem like a small thing, but it was a huge thing to us.  The hot tubs.  Almost every evening after the day’s tasks were complete, we would go sit in a hot tub.  Sometimes we’d just go to the yacht club, which was near our slip, and sometimes we would go over to the hotel and use the more touristy hot tubs.  A perk of staying at the marina is that you can use all of the hotel facilities as well, and that included the pools, which the kids enjoyed immensely.  They played on the alligator water slides and picked up games of pool basketball and volleyball with other hotel guests.  The alligator slides had a rough texture that destroyed the seat of many a set of swim trunks, that’s for sure.  Alex even made some friends, including a girl that he was very hush, hush about.  I heard about it from Brenden.

Every Sunday the hotel does a “welcome party” at an outdoor amphitheater where there was free food and drink, so of course we checked it out.  It was pretty crowded, and they did have some nice snacks like bruschetta, but it ran out quickly.  There was a line for drinks, and they had alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and as we were making our way to find a seat, Brenden let me know that he did not like his drink at all, it was bitter and not sweet.  I tasted it, and sure enough he somehow ended up with some sort of rum and fruit juice concoction.  This is the sort of thing you would never expect to happen in the States, and you might even be a little peeved about it and want to go talk to a manager or something.  Here in Mexico, we’ve gotten used to more citizen personal responsibility/accountability, and things like this don’t surprise us and we just roll with it.  Even see the humor in it most times. And this time I saw that bright side that now I have two drinks, as Brenden just went and got himself another one.  The welcome party had some nice dancing and fire twirling, but overall, it was a bit cheesy and somewhat reminded me of a timeshare presentation.  They lure you in with free stuff only to get you to sit there and listen to their marketing.  In between dancing acts, they had restaurants and other businesses in the area that cater to tourists give little speeches about this offer and that special.  And the MC was so engaging everyone really seemed to be enjoying themselves and laughing and clapping over what were basically live commercials.  It was surreal.  The best part of the whole thing were the games, especially the game they did with the kids.  They called kids up there and I basically made Alex and Brenden go up.  In hindsight, I feel bad about it, because Alex was by far the biggest kid up there, and some of the kids were like 4-5 years old.  They lined them up in a single file line, smallest to biggest, and did this thing where they had to hop back and forth on command, and they would go fast and whoever messed up was out.  Big surprise, Alex won the contest, and I felt really bad for him, because it was almost like the crowd was rooting against him, because he was competing against these tiny kids.  He was miserable.  His prize was candy, and he ended up sharing it with some of the other kids that were sitting near us, so maybe if the crowd saw that they would have cheered for him a little more.

I mentioned the shopping mall near the marina, and one nice thing is it had a decent grocery store, even if expensive.  The best part was the bakery, and every morning I would send Alex to the store for Baguettes.  It was heavenly.  After white Bimbo bread for so long, we could not get enough of these baguettes.  It was so nice to have daily access, and unlike most of the items in the store, they were pretty inexpensive.

They also have a tiny zoo, and by tiny, I mean not many animals, but they have gone big with the ones they have: a couple of Tigers named Daisy and Diego.  They are caged (obviously), and I felt pretty sad about it, but apparently it started as a rescue effort.  Not sure if I believe that one or not.  They also have several parrots, and some of them say “Hola” and some of them say “Hello.”  We always tried to talk to them as we walked by.

Our stay at Paradise Village just happened to coincide with the full moon, so we got to attend one of the yacht club full moon potluck parties.  They fired up a big grill and everyone brought something to grill and something to share.  I brought artichoke bruschetta (of course, with access to all that bread and all) and I think we grilled chicken.  It was a nice event, though we didn’t really know anyone there other than Lady Carolina.  The evening culminated with open mike storytelling, and wow there were some good ones.  Cruisers really do have lots of good stories to tell, because you just never know what’s going to happen out here.  Steve told his story about crashing the RC airplane in Agua Verde, but the Exodus crew stayed our usual quiet, shy selves.

January 14, 2014

My mom came to visit for 5 days, and we spent one day being tourists along the Malecon in Puerto Vallarta. We had to take two buses to get there and two to get back, and overall it was a great day. Tim stayed behind to attend a seminar called “Navigating with Google Earth” back in La Cruz.

Since we wouldn’t be going to Costa Rica on this voyage, we thought we could at least give the kids a canopy tour here in Mexico.  So, we organized with a bunch of other kid boats, searched the internet for a good deal, and on Jan 3 we took advantage of a 2 for 1 special and hopped on a bus to an OXXO parking lot in Jarretaderas to be picked up by the tour company.  We were with Sand Dollar, Kenta Anae, Appa, and Kyle (Lady Carolina), Jonathon and Victoria (Fluenta) came along as orphans.  We picked this tour mainly because of the special, but it turns out that it is on the set of the movie Predator, and they take advantage of that in all of their marketing.  Cheesy? Yes.  The ziplines themselves were quite fun, but much different than what Tim and I did in Costa Rica.  First of all the setting was far more touristy since in addition to all the Predator marketing there was a large restaurant that we were zipping over.  Second, the method of braking yourself as you were coming down the zipline was different.  In Costa Rica we wore thick gloves and we braked by using the glove behind the attachement point on the line to provide friction.  Here, we rocked ourselves side to side and the friction was provided by metal on metal.  The landings were pretty forceful as well.  My instinct was always to slow down but the guy at the bottom would tell me to keep coming, and then I’d jerk forward as he stopped me at the bottom.  The kids had a lot of fun, so I’m glad we did it, but it just didn’t live up to me memory of our experience in Costa Rica.  Afterwards the kids swung on the rope swing into the water at the restaurant while we sat around and ate and drank.  Good Times.

I forgot to mention the bus ride!  After we were picked up at the OXXO (in a regular large bus, not an open air one like the advertisement said, but whatever) we went back and forth from Puerto Vallarta because the driver thought he forgot someone.  Turns out he didn’t, so it was just wasted time, but after about an hour, or maybe more, we made our way to the base of the mountain and then proceed to drive what felt like straight uphill on a windy, partially washed out dirt road.  I think the bus ride was more of an adventure than the ziplines!

After the tour we took the bus back down the mountain into downtown Puerto Vallarta to a little place to do some tequila tasting.  I was a little disappointed at first because I was tired and didn’t feel like drinking tequila, but it turned out to be a bonus as we got to taste all the various tequilas, from the ones you “share” (the cheaper ones) to the ones you “keep for yourself” (the better ones).  The guy who did the presentation was quite amusing and we were with a Mexican family too, so he did it in both Spanish and English.  No surprise that since I enjoyed the presentation and the tequila, I had to buy something, so I brought home a bottle of coffee flavored tequila.  Very nice for sipping after a good meal.

I’ve probably mentioned that most cruisers in Mexico are retirement age, and also that there are a few our age both with and without children.  But every once in awhile, I mean like almost never, we meet some younger, like twenty-something, cruisers.  In La Cruz we met s/v Moments who are taking a year off from their young lives to cruise.  He’s and electrical engineer and she’s just finishing medical school, so of course they’re geniuses and surprisingly fun to be around.  We only hung out a couple times, including Christmas Eve on Lady Carolina, the night in Bucerias at Luna Lounge, and when we had a dock party behind Exodus for Rachel’s 28th (I think) birthday.  I’m sure I asked for it, but I struck up a conversation with Rachel about how they are younger than most of the cruisers, and she mentioned they had met a few their age in La Cruz which has been a lot of fun.  Almost certainly she was thinking maybe she was implying that “we” weren’t as fun, so she followed it with, “Don’t get me wrong, we love you guys…”  And yes, with that little sentence I was officially cast into the old people pile.   Forty something (I mean late thirties) has it’s perks, though, so I can live with it.