Author Archives: Michael

My apologies y’all. This morning I attempted to add photos to some older posts but, obviously, I don’t know what I’m doing and managed to mess things up discovering that factoid. First of all, the bandwidth here turns out to be insufficient for uploading photos. Then, somehow, a post from December, 2021, moved up to become the most recent post. Now, I don’t seem to be able to undo it. <sigh>

In a few days we will relocate to where I hope to see much better internet access so will see about revisiting this issue at that time. In the meantime, there is nothing new added to that December post – now dated January 11. It’s just conveniently out of order. Sorry.

Greetings everyone. I know it’s been a long time with no updates. Sorry. And by now it is also clear to you that I failed to follow through with my threat to keep updates coming during our summer break. I don’t suppose you’re not surprised, are you? Well, we ARE back on Milagro. Yay!

After returning to her in San Carlos in mid-Nov we quickly made our way to Marina de La Paz where we have been busy with projects since arriving. New LiFePo4 batteries, chaps for the dingy and much more. Our plan is to start our passage tomorrow to La Cruz (Banderas Bay) and what will begin our winter cruising along the mainland of MX. It has been 4 years since last we visited those cruising grounds so this should be fun. Regular updates should resume, if nothing else, those that copy from our position updates via Farkwar.com.

BTW, on the right side margin of this home page is a box labeled “Tracking Milagro”. The links there will take you to our Garmin inReach breadcrumb trail and to our Farwar.com page where the location of each post is displayed on a Google map. Hasta pronto, y’all.

It is Sunday, 1/10/22, and all is well here. After a quiet overnight at Chamela we set out for Bahia Tenacatita, about 30nm south and a very popular winter anchorage for many cruisers. Winds L&V over mostly mill pond seas made for a comfortable passage. We spied a small pod of whales also moving south, and one of them treated us to a Sea World style leaping show. We also caught our first fish of the season. Sadly, although a very sporty fighter, the Jack Crevalle we landed is unsuitable for eating so we tossed him back. Not long after anchoring we had another whale experience when a female gave birth to a calf right in the anchorage and no more than 50yds off our bow. Several dolphin have also patrolled through. We are at 19 18.030’N, 104 50.143’W in 32 over sand. It is 100% overcast with high level stratus, the OAT is 80F, 75% humid, its 80F in the pool. The wind has been NW at 10 but has now shifted to SW. We intend to remain here until the 15th when we will move a few more miles south into the marina at Barra de Navidad.

Today is Saturday, 1/8/22 and things here are great. We left Puerto Vallarta yesterday evening to make the 108nm passage to Bahia Chamela on our way further south to Tenacatita and eventually Barra de Navidad. The route traverses Cabo Corrientes, the Point Conception of this part of the world. That is, often nasty wind and sea conditions. However,light & variable winds were forecast along with reasonable seas for us. And that is exactly what we found, making for an uneventful passage. At 0935CST we set the anchor in front of the village of Perula in Bahia Chamela in 26′ over sand at 19 35.046’N, 105 07.897’W. The OAT is 80F, the pool 77F, the wind and sea are both calm. We are buddy boating with friends on the MV Mystic Eyes who have been joined for this trip by former boaters and close friends so its a bit of a social event everywhere we go. Especially so as the ladies are part of Judy’s card playing posse. Tomorrow we continue on the anchorage at Tenacatita.

It is Christmas Eve 2021 and all is good here on the Milagro. We have just completed our passage from the Baja to mainland MX and are now secured in Paradise Village Marina, Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit. OAT is 86F with 67% humid so feels a bit uncomfortably tropical. Smart sailors know the best time to be out in windy conditions is as those winds begin and before they have stirred up the seas too much. The worst time is at the end of the blow when they are subsiding as it takes a couple of days for the seas to settle. I reckon o one is going to accuse us of being “smart sailors”. So, the first 24 hrs of our passage were a fairly sporty ride. We expected exactly that so were well prepared. Then the wind slowly tapered off to become <5kts and the sea eventually responded as well. Consequently, the last 24 hrs were perfect power boat conditions. Er, but don’t we have a sailboat? <sigh> We have not done this crossing since 2017 and have never moored at this marina. It’s part of a giant resort hotel complex with many, many amenities so it may be fun to explore. You can find us here for at least the next 2 weeks when we intend to move further south as the wx permits. Good wifi and cell coverage here. Merry Christmas y’all!!

Today is Saturday, 12/18/21 and all is well here on the Milagro. Today we slipped the lines and got ourselves out of the marina. Under way at 0700 we beat against 15kt N winds to get out of La Paz Bay before turning SE into the San Lorenzo channel where we found winds 20-25G28 with 3′-4’seas under wind chop. Pretty sporting conditions which made moving about the boat difficult and risky. Happy to have that behind us we dropped the anchor at 1610 in Bahia de los Muertos (Bay of the Dead) with 23kts still blowing. We are at 23 59.296’N, 109 49.576’W in 30’over sand. The OAT is 77F, the pool is 76F and the blessed wind is still blowing 23kts. Not sure just how long we are here as we assess the uncooperative weather to choose the timing of our next move. If we are smart that probeably means Wed, Dec22 but I’m not certain we’re that smart. Standby and we’ll see.

Today is Wednesday, 16June21, and all is well here. We can even stop grousing about the heat and humidity – for now. Not that there isn’t plenty of both. It’s just that we did make the move to San Carlos and are now plugged in to shore power at Marina Real. With the A/C now running full blast we can hide from the nasty ole heat and humidity. Our passage was the usual mixed bag of conditions. The first 12 hours was a brilliant sail on smooth water. However, the wind then went away and the sea turned itself into washing machine type waters: choppy and confused. The wind never did return in any usable fashion though the seas did finally settle about 6 hours later, with the dawn. Milagro is settled at 27 56.751’N, 111 05.546’W. When we landed the OAT was 89F(it’s 95F as I write this), the pool 85F and the humidity 71%. Wind SSE@9. We will putz around here for a week, or so, as we do a few chores and make Milagro ready to be left alone for a few months. We have good wifi and cell coverage so maybe (just, maybe) I will get around to adding some photos to the recent posts on the blog site (www.milagro42.com). Thanks for coming along with us during this very much shortened cruising season.

Today is Tuesday, 15 June, 2012 and we are currently still at Isla Coronados however, we are fixin to get ready to get underway for San Carlos. We will be on our way within the next hour, or so, and our next report should cover our passage and landing there tomorrow morning. Hasta entonces.

It is Saturday, the 12th of June, 2021 and all is well here. We started early this morning (0525) and did a bit of moving about today; from Candeleros to Loreto where we went to shore for some provisioning, then on to Isla Coronados. At 1515MDT, our anchor was finally set in the NW anchorage of Coronados at 26 06′.658N, 111 17′.173W in 32′ over sand. The OAT is 90F, the pool is 82F and there’s a breeze from the South running 3 to 5 knts. We will remain here until leaving to cross over to San Carlos. We’re closely watching the wind and sea state for the best time to do that and the forecast for several days has looked good for Tuesday 6/15. For many reasons it has been a short season this year but some air conditioning is really sounding good to us just now. More to follow.

It is Tuesday, June 8, 2021 and everything is fine here. We moved almost 15 miles south today to Bahia Candeleros. We are parked in front of the Villa Del Palmar resort so I imagine Judy may have a “resort day” planned for our near future. We are set at 25 43′.395N, 111 14′.298W in 23′ over sand. The OAT is 90F and the pool 81F. The water is clear enough that we can see our anchor lying on the bottom. A 6kt breeze from the NE is helping to mitigate the 90 temp but all the cabin fans are running at max speed as well. Still, I think there’ll be some splashing around before much longer. Unless something comes along to change our minds, I reckon we will be here the remainder of this week. We are considering several options for the coming weekend and will let you know.