"Another day in the life of Jutta and Ferdy"
Ye-Ha, I bet most of you thought I went down with the ship. Well I’m back, and with another one of those wonderful newsletters. I’m sitting here in Bahia Zihuatanejo drinking gin and tonics and watching the city lights from the middle of the bay. For those of you who do not know where I am, I am in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, in the state of Guerrero, about 150 miles north of Acapulco. If you have ever heard of people going to “Z-town”,
this is where it’s at. It’s a little piece of paradise. I’ll try to bring you up to speed on our travels. It’s been exciting to say the least. A lot has happened since my last newsletter. The good news is we are still afloat.
In my last newsletter I said Jutta and I were preparing to sail back to Cabo San Lucas and pick up Bob and Tish Saemisch who were arriving by plane. They had volunteered to help us crew on the passage from Cabo to San Blas and down the coast of Mexico to Puerto Vallarta. It is a trip of about 325 miles across the open Pacific. From there they were to fly home. We left on January 2nd on a bright and sunny day with very little wind. As the song goes, “A three hour Tour, well, we got spanked by Mother Nature, other cruisers said we went through our baptism at sea. We ran with the storm and arrived in Puerto Vallarta about 45 hours later. We completely missed San Blas, oops. Some of you, who have had the pleasure of sailing on “Pipe Dream”, will remember I had a Bimini shade on the cockpit of my boat. Well, Mother Nature wanted it during the night a lot more than I did, and it took off like a bullet into the night. For those of you who like to read between the lines, the bimini was folded up at the time of its exodus. As you can probably guess, we were low on rum when we arrived in Puerta Vallarta. We bandaged our wounds, corked the holes in the boat, went out for dinner several times and bid farewell to Bob and Tish. Yes, we had to make repairs (again!) before we could sail on. During our three-week stay in Puerto Vallarta we saw every sight there was to see and traveled by bus to Guadalajara and spent four glorious days there. If you ever get to Mexico, don’t miss Guadalajara. We also hit some dynamite taco stands during our stay.
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of Mexican beer.
Our next lengthy stop was Bahia Tenacatita. Bahia Tenacatita is approximately 35 miles north of Manzanillo and just south of “where the hell are we”. There were fifty boats anchored in this serene bay right outside of the French Café on the beach. One thing led to another and we stayed for 10 days. I have not yet come out of the closet but I have taken to wearing sarongs. There was a 50 th birthday party for about 5 of the cruisers at the French Café. It was one of those quiet, docile, early evening parties that we old people attend. Everyone turning 50 shaved their heads. There was some ear piercing going on, and the party went into the night. Oh, by the way, to attend, all the men had to wear a sarong. I think, I look pretty damn good in a skirt. From Bahia Tenacatita, Jutta and I rode the bus to the surrounding cities in Bahia Navidad, went to a rodeo and just enjoyed ourselves.
We needed a break from all the activities at Tenacatita. Rum was getting low and we were worried about a Scurvy outbreak, so we pushed on to Manzanillo and anchored in Bahia de Manzanillo at the Las Hadas resort. Some of you should remember Las Hadas from the Movie “10” with gorgeous Bo Derek and Dudley Moore. Bo was not in at the time but I heard she had been anxiously awaiting my arrival. It was a rough three days. In case any of you were wondering how to prevent scurvy, we have found that a light squeeze of lime in all beer is a good deterrent.
How do you think I would look with an eye patch? I’ll think about that manana.
On Feb 12, Jutta and I sailed for Z-town. We estimated about 35 hours to get there. We were about 15 miles off shore, when we developed a slight problem: We started taking on water, a lot of water. Visualize a sailing yacht with a Jacuzzi in the front room, “now that is real luxury”, and I have never liked ocean swimming. After several hours of bailing, we fixed the problem and arrived in Z-town on Feb. 13. We were just as happy as a couple of pigs in shit. All for now, I’m signing off from paradise.
Ferdy and Jutta(Marooned for Christmas in Paradise)
or
( I Know How Gilligen Felt)
I promised I would have regular newsletter updates but once a month is a little ridiculous. Here we are in Puerto Vallarta getting ready for the Christmas activities.
Last year, it was La Paz for Christmas and this year PV. The weather is perfect, balmy during the day and perfect sleeping weather at night with all the hatches and ports open, unless you wear clothes! Every morning there is a cruisers’ net on the VHF radio announcing the days or weeks activities. I have trained myself to get up by 8:00 AM so I don’t miss the Net.
It’s astonishing and heart warming to hear about the tremendous outpouring of money and gifts, by the cruising community, for the children and the poor of Mexico during the entire year and especially during Christmas. It’s fun being a part of it. It brings tears to my eyes to see Mexican children receiving a very small sampling of what our kids take for granted during Christmas, be it shoes, a little toy truck or just a bag of candy. We never realize how truly blessed we really are in the United States. This serious stuff must end. You might get the wrong opinion of me.
I left La Paz on Dec. 14th, with my friend Walt Turner, for Puerta Vallarta. We arrived in PV in Sunday afternoon the 16th. Jutta stayed back in La Paz, We had been pounded by Northers (heavy winds with big seas) one after another in La Paz and we were trying to sail out of there for the last two weeks and were turned back. Jutta chickened out and stepped off the boat and Walt crewed for me on the passage. The crossing is about 300 miles of open ocean from Baja to the mainland. If your memory hasn’t failed you, those of you under fifty, on Jan 1, a year ago, we made a similar crossing and got caught in a stalled low pressure system and literally got spanked by Mother Nature for about 14 hours. I am sorry to say, Jutta took the sissy way across and rode the ferry to Mazatlan and hopped the bus to Puerta Vallarta. Can you believe that? Well I made it and finished with a boat full of Dorado, the fishing was excellent. I put Walt on the bus for Mazatlan so he could catch the ferry back to La Paz and meet up with his wife and boat. I was glad to see Walt go, we celebrated our crossing for two days and my liver could not last another night.
When we plan a cruise our itenary is always set in concrete. As you can probably guess, we have changed our plans again. Jutta and I have decided to spend another season in Mexico. The weather is great, the people are friendly, and the beer is cold, now you figure the down side of this trip. Looks like Panama can wait another year, I hope that by then it will still be there. We will stay in Puerta Vallarta through mid January. Carnival in Mazatlan is supposed to be the third best in the world next to Rio and New Orleans, we are planning to find out for ourselves. Looks like we are off to a five day carnival party in Mazatlan, YEE-HA.
The boat is decorated for Christmas, our presents are bought, and I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and may the New Year bring you an abundance of blessings.
Feliz Navidad from the sailing yacht “Pipe Dream”.
Ferdy and Jutta
Ye-Ha, I bet most of you thought I went down with the ship. Well I’m back, and with another one of those wonderful newsletters. I’m sitting here in Bahia Zihuatanejo drinking gin and tonics and watching the city lights from the middle of the bay. For those of you who do not know where I am, I am in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, in the state of Guerrero, about 150 miles north of Acapulco. If you have ever heard of people going to “Z-town”,
this is where it’s at. It’s a little piece of paradise. I’ll try to bring you up to speed on our travels. It’s been exciting to say the least. A lot has happened since my last newsletter. The good news is we are still afloat.
In my last newsletter I said Jutta and I were preparing to sail back to Cabo San Lucas and pick up Bob and Tish Saemisch who were arriving by plane. They had volunteered to help us crew on the passage from Cabo to San Blas and down the coast of Mexico to Puerto Vallarta. It is a trip of about 325 miles across the open Pacific. From there they were to fly home. We left on January 2nd on a bright and sunny day with very little wind. As the song goes, “A three hour Tour, well, we got spanked by Mother Nature, other cruisers said we went through our baptism at sea. We ran with the storm and arrived in Puerto Vallarta about 45 hours later. We completely missed San Blas, oops. Some of you, who have had the pleasure of sailing on “Pipe Dream”, will remember I had a Bimini shade on the cockpit of my boat. Well, Mother Nature wanted it during the night a lot more than I did, and it took off like a bullet into the night. For those of you who like to read between the lines, the bimini was folded up at the time of its exodus. As you can probably guess, we were low on rum when we arrived in Puerta Vallarta. We bandaged our wounds, corked the holes in the boat, went out for dinner several times and bid farewell to Bob and Tish. Yes, we had to make repairs (again!) before we could sail on. During our three-week stay in Puerto Vallarta we saw every sight there was to see and traveled by bus to Guadalajara and spent four glorious days there. If you ever get to Mexico, don’t miss Guadalajara. We also hit some dynamite taco stands during our stay.
Yo-Ho-Ho and a bottle of Mexican beer.
Our next lengthy stop was Bahia Tenacatita. Bahia Tenacatita is approximately 35 miles north of Manzanillo and just south of “where the hell are we”. There were fifty boats anchored in this serene bay right outside of the French Café on the beach. One thing led to another and we stayed for 10 days. I have not yet come out of the closet but I have taken to wearing sarongs. There was a 50 th birthday party for about 5 of the cruisers at the French Café. It was one of those quiet, docile, early evening parties that we old people attend. Everyone turning 50 shaved their heads. There was some ear piercing going on, and the party went into the night. Oh, by the way, to attend, all the men had to wear a sarong. I think, I look pretty damn good in a skirt. From Bahia Tenacatita, Jutta and I rode the bus to the surrounding cities in Bahia Navidad, went to a rodeo and just enjoyed ourselves.
We needed a break from all the activities at Tenacatita. Rum was getting low and we were worried about a Scurvy outbreak, so we pushed on to Manzanillo and anchored in Bahia de Manzanillo at the Las Hadas resort. Some of you should remember Las Hadas from the Movie “10” with gorgeous Bo Derek and Dudley Moore. Bo was not in at the time but I heard she had been anxiously awaiting my arrival. It was a rough three days. In case any of you were wondering how to prevent scurvy, we have found that a light squeeze of lime in all beer is a good deterrent.
How do you think I would look with an eye patch? I’ll think about that manana.
On Feb 12, Jutta and I sailed for Z-town. We estimated about 35 hours to get there. We were about 15 miles off shore, when we developed a slight problem: We started taking on water, a lot of water. Visualize a sailing yacht with a Jacuzzi in the front room, “now that is real luxury”, and I have never liked ocean swimming. After several hours of bailing, we fixed the problem and arrived in Z-town on Feb. 13. We were just as happy as a couple of pigs in shit. All for now, I’m signing off from paradise.
Ferdy and Jutta(Marooned for Christmas in Paradise)
or
( I Know How Gilligen Felt)
I promised I would have regular newsletter updates but once a month is a little ridiculous. Here we are in Puerto Vallarta getting ready for the Christmas activities.
Last year, it was La Paz for Christmas and this year PV. The weather is perfect, balmy during the day and perfect sleeping weather at night with all the hatches and ports open, unless you wear clothes! Every morning there is a cruisers’ net on the VHF radio announcing the days or weeks activities. I have trained myself to get up by 8:00 AM so I don’t miss the Net.
It’s astonishing and heart warming to hear about the tremendous outpouring of money and gifts, by the cruising community, for the children and the poor of Mexico during the entire year and especially during Christmas. It’s fun being a part of it. It brings tears to my eyes to see Mexican children receiving a very small sampling of what our kids take for granted during Christmas, be it shoes, a little toy truck or just a bag of candy. We never realize how truly blessed we really are in the United States. This serious stuff must end. You might get the wrong opinion of me.
I left La Paz on Dec. 14th, with my friend Walt Turner, for Puerta Vallarta. We arrived in PV in Sunday afternoon the 16th. Jutta stayed back in La Paz, We had been pounded by Northers (heavy winds with big seas) one after another in La Paz and we were trying to sail out of there for the last two weeks and were turned back. Jutta chickened out and stepped off the boat and Walt crewed for me on the passage. The crossing is about 300 miles of open ocean from Baja to the mainland. If your memory hasn’t failed you, those of you under fifty, on Jan 1, a year ago, we made a similar crossing and got caught in a stalled low pressure system and literally got spanked by Mother Nature for about 14 hours. I am sorry to say, Jutta took the sissy way across and rode the ferry to Mazatlan and hopped the bus to Puerta Vallarta. Can you believe that? Well I made it and finished with a boat full of Dorado, the fishing was excellent. I put Walt on the bus for Mazatlan so he could catch the ferry back to La Paz and meet up with his wife and boat. I was glad to see Walt go, we celebrated our crossing for two days and my liver could not last another night.
When we plan a cruise our itenary is always set in concrete. As you can probably guess, we have changed our plans again. Jutta and I have decided to spend another season in Mexico. The weather is great, the people are friendly, and the beer is cold, now you figure the down side of this trip. Looks like Panama can wait another year, I hope that by then it will still be there. We will stay in Puerta Vallarta through mid January. Carnival in Mazatlan is supposed to be the third best in the world next to Rio and New Orleans, we are planning to find out for ourselves. Looks like we are off to a five day carnival party in Mazatlan, YEE-HA.
The boat is decorated for Christmas, our presents are bought, and I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and may the New Year bring you an abundance of blessings.
Feliz Navidad from the sailing yacht “Pipe Dream”.
Ferdy and Jutta
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