Friends and Sailing

Nancy, Rob John, Brian, Elizabeth and Sue 

Friends. That's what makes this trip so much fun! We've met some great people along the way and we enjoy sharing good times with them.  We've hooked back up with Rob & Nancy (Shindig) Brian & Elizabeth (Autumn Wind) and John & Cin (Alcyone) and Max & Liz their kids Jonathan & Victoria ( Fluenta) and many others. Our social calendar is filled!

Saturday started out with a girl's standup paddle board session...next a sailing race in Banderas Bay.

Paddling out the marina, Cin, Elizabeth, Sue & Nancy

Cin and Sue getting the hang of it

Wizard under sail 

Yesterday, we  joined a friendly sailing race out of La Cruz.  John and I have never raced, so we barely knew the rules of the "road" and in hindsight  it would've been to our advantage to go over which boat has "right of way" and paid attention to the two different courses according to the "class" of boat, but we jumped in anyway... it was a good experience and good fun.  We had some beginner's luck(?) at the start and managed to position Wizard at the first mark on time and off we sailed with 16 other boats.( Of course, we didn't know our place in the pack..so who knows maybe we were last?) There were two courses; short course, a mile up to mark, back to round the first mark again, then down to Nuevo Vallarta and back to La Cruz, then long course included downwind six miles to Puerto Vallarta and beam reach back to the La Cruz marina. This was very exciting for me as I was at the helm, while Capt. John directed the point of sail and handled the sails! It was a lot of work for this two man crew! But, we did OK. Wizard can go to weather really well,  so we "smoked" a few boats in our class( it looked like) on the first leg, but downwind, we were beat by those boats that flew their spinnakers. It was all unofficial, so we don't know really where we came in, but it didn't matter...other boats, too skipped some marks...you could make it a race or not. It turned into a long day.  We decided to turn around and head back before the last mark at Puerto Vallarta. We had "experienced" enough. We're glad we joined and learned a lot and tacked a lot! All good experiences to "push" for speed, trim sails and learn traffic control around so many boats sailing in the same vicinity together.

Fluenta under spinnaker

Wizard  to the mark

Rob at helm of his boat Shindig

Nancy at helm of her boat Shindig

After sail party on Shindig

...and at the end of the day, we gathered for "happy hour" onboard Shindig...always a treat! We'll miss our sailing friends when we all sail away to new adventures, but happy for the times we share now.