Banderas Bay Race Week and bad news arrived today

1825, Sunday, 21 Mar 2010, Alongside Marina Nayarit, La Cruz
It has already been a week since we arrived, seems like yesterday. Our passage up from Tenecatita was good and, for the most part, quite smooth. We had to power most of the way but we did manage a few hours under sail. We made it in just under 24 hours arriving at dawn after rounding a calm Cabo Corrietes. The weatherman got it right this time.....
We arrived at the marina with the boat show in full swing and preparations for the Banderas Bay Sailing Race week in high gear. Many friends were here or arrived within a few days. Kirk (Freedom Kirkland) and Bill and Linda (Tanque de Tiburon) were already here and it was nice to meet up with them again after so long. It was amazing to see the changes to the marina forecourt after just a few weeks away. The entire boat show site, that had been a quagmire of mud with heavy machinery working day and night to fill in, is now a solid surface. The boat show wasn’t very elaborate and consisted mainly of power boats, engines and outboards (all Mercury products), condo developments and a few local marine oriented companies exhibiting their wares, however, the local government found it important enough to shell out some serious money to beautify the streets to the marina and the marina property itself, not to mention the great expense of the filled in forecourt. They even had the Mexican navy exhibiting their stuff, providing security and the usual power, stewards, food, drink, etc for a “by invitation only” cocktail party on the last night. We didn’t have our cocktail regalia so watched it all from the dock.
Race Week was a blast. J-G volunteered to crew on Full Quiver (40 ft, Beneteau First) with Steve and Linda (Warren Peace) and John (Naida). Steve’s (Full Quiver) brother and sister-in-law also participated. After a few days of practice we raced for 3 days eking out a 3rd place out of 9 boats. After day 2 we were in a 3-way tie for 2nd place with a Columbia-Tripp 43 and a J-80 driven by a hot crew. On the last day the J-80 smoked us but the Columbia that had pressed very hard on previous days, fell back early and stayed out of the running.
1900: We just got an e-mail informing us that our good friend Vicki has succumbed to cancer. We had such a great time earlier this month with her and her husband Bert on board . We will surely miss her but we are also fortunate for the quality time we had on board with both of them.
We will be leaving here tomorrow morning and heading north to San Blas to stage for a crossing to the Sea of Cortez. We will try to make it directly to Isla Partida or Isla San Fransico and get some quality “Sea” time before heading to Mazatlan where Fran will leave to return to Vancouver to look after our daughter-in-law after her surgery. She plans on being away only 10 days so we hope to be able to make it back to the Baja side in time for the Loreto Fest, an event we have managed to miss for the past 3 years.