We drove to La Paz late in October after celebrating an early Thanksgiving with our LA kids and grandkids. Boat projects kept us busy for a while and then bad weather set in delaying our departure for the mainland until after the "real" Thanksgiving in late November. Not to worry; we had lots of time to visit with many friends who were also "stuck" in La Paz -- a great place to be "stuck." We got to know La Paz very well by driving everywhere and liked it so much that we decided that La Paz should be our Mexico "home base." Here are a few photos from Thanksgiving. Ray and Jayne from Adios hosted a pre-dinner gathering. The photo on the left shows a few of the party-goers, and the other photo is of Alex and Sue from Mai Tai Roa, enjoying the great feast.

Thanksgiving was a massive potluck at one of the marinas with several hundred cruisers attending. After we had our fill of turkey we headed back to Jellybean for a quiet evening. A few days later we took advantage of a weather window and sailed directly to La Cruz. While there we had a chance to visit with Mai and Dave in Puerto Vallarta and introduced Rob and Linda from Cat'n About to them. Mai, in true form, was a gracious host and after a nice day at her home we all went to dinner together at one of the restaurants surrounding the marina.

Our next stop was Barra de Navidad, one of our favorites. We once again were there for Christmas. And same as last year we had a Christmas Eve breakfast at the luxurious restaurant at the golf course. And again, the Christmas dinner potluck was a huge success.

On to Zihuatanejo for New Years! We arrived on New Year's eve, attended a party for a few hours, then had dinner aboard Cat'n About to bring in the New Year.

Zihuafest is an annual fun and fund raising event that takes place in late January, early February. It is organized by and for cruisers anchored in the Bay. There are usually 100 or more boats there at the time. For the past several years cruisers have raised money to help fund schooling and even school building for the indigenous children in Zihuatanejo - and every year the amount raised gets bigger and bigger. Several local businesses help in the effort. This year we took on the job of chairing the event -- Marlene the chair, and Roy the bedrock of support. The combined effort of all who participated raised in excess of $45,000 and with matching funds provided by two generous donors, a check for over $90,000 was presented to Por Los Ninos, the charitable organization that funnels the money to the schools. One of the most popular events were the many tours of the schools that were and are the recipients. Here's a photo of the happy kids at school and one from the beach party we hosted for the school kids, a very successful event.

Early in January we heard that Roy's brother, Jim, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Our spirits were dampened considerably. When we heard that he planned to travel from his home in Seattle to help his and Roy's mom celebrate her birthday in March, we decided to hurry on back to La Paz to pick up our car and drive up to LA for the birthday party.

We stopped in Barra de Navidad on the way north and were so glad to see Bruce and Alene from Migration again before they headed south, and also to see Betsy and Richard from Qayaq who also were heading south.

In the background throughout all this time was the ongoing search for a larger boat, a catamaran was high on the list. When we got to La Paz and checked the internet for any new listings, we discovered a Manta 40 for sale in Florida that looked just like what we were looking for but was just over our budget. Nonetheless we made an offer and after a counter offer was made, we decided on a price. This set in motion a whirlwind of travel for the next few months. We got to LA for the birthday but learned that Jim was not well enough to travel, so after visiting with Mom and our kids and grandkids, we flew to Seattle to visit with Jim and flew to Jacksonville to see the Manta and have a sea trial.

We decided to buy the boat, so we flew back to LA, picked up the car, drove to Jellybean in La Paz and retrieved a carload of stuff to bring back to LA to ship to the new boat in Florida. Peggy and Don from Interlude were incredibly helpful as we emptied out Jellybean, loaded up the car, and provided moral support during the excessive heat that we couldn't ignore as we worked diligently for several days.