La Cruz

The Marina Riviera Nayarit at La Cruz

We are in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle or simply, La Cruz, a small town south of Punta Mita and north of Puerto Vallarta.  We decided to stay in  a marina for a few days to clean up the boat and work on a few projects. The big one was to get the outboard motor on the dingy running again...we've been dingy-less since we dunked the motor in salt water back in Chacala...now, that's a story... we had taken a dingy ride into the beach for dinner...this night the swells got bigger during the evening and on our return, we caught a big wave over the bow and swamped the dingy! 

Well.. back to the boat John thought it best to drain the dingy of water, so pulled  the bow end up... not thinking about the engine on the stern end and submersed the engine in salt water! 

(obviously, thinking was not part of this process!)  anyway, dingy motor was wet and dead!  So, we've been dingy-less..until we could use a dock to work on it.  Here in La Cruz Marina, John was able to drain the oil, dry out the carburetor and get it going.

Fishermen and pongas

Also, we've met up with our friends on s/v Silk, Dot & Larry and s/v Autumn Wind, Elizabeth & Brian. It's been fun to hang out together. We've dined at several great places, Charlie's has a great pizza, Anna Banana's had music for the "over-aged rockers"...it was fun to watch wrinkles in beach attire and crogs dancing to classic rock!...guess, that'l be me someday! and then there are little family run tacorias, where you poke your head into a doorway and ask if they are open? and then sit down and they cook for you the special of that day! So much good food! Lots of seafood.  Every evening local music is offered somewhere with happy hour to temp the locals.  It's so fun and hard to resist this lively social scene! We even had a shrimp and octopus pizza at one of the "happy hour" events. We decided it was easier and cooler not to cook on the boat and just eat out. So many choices!

Huichol Indian Art

The community of people who live here full time are mostly expatriates from the US and Canada. Some are sailors who sailed down on  previous Baha Ha Ha's and decided to stay.  The town has many philanthropic activities to help raise money to give back to the town and support kids. We visited the awesome farmer's market held every Sunday at the Marina. Many homemade goods: fresh strawberries and homemade greek yogurt, cheeses and french bread were among the special items not seen so far on our travels in Mexico.  Music, artisans and food vendors lined the seafood market to sell their wares.

Handmade cheeses

Local fried  chicken taco 

Farmer's Market along beach front

Farmer's Market food

Dot gives donation hair cut

La Cruz Marina is beautiful

Five days pass with hardly a blink! Last evening La Cruz Bash is a free social event to honor all the cruisers and local boaters- Cuban accoustic music, free samples of gourmet pizza,  tequilas and cigars!

Time to leave....we are headed up to Punta de Mita for a few days anchoring out to see some other parts!