darrin and his dogs picked me up in his little red volkswagon beetle at 8:30 am. we drove to the la cruz marina about 20 minutes away, and i had coffee with some of his other guests while the crew was getting the boat ready.
the sayula 1 is a trimaran, about 25 years old, and its about what you'd expect for a boat company, cushions, trampolines, maybe not in as good repair as it used to be. i asked when it was drydocked last and darrin just laughed. this is mexico, after all.
our group was an interesting mix of gay men and couples from texas smoking cigars. one of the guys from texas told me that he paid extra so he could control who else goes on the boat, and he wasn't particularly happy with the speedos. i thought all the people on the trip were super fun.
usually the boat goes to the islands but today was more of an unusual trip to yelapa, a tiny town on the south west (?) side of puerto vallarta which has no roads or cars, and you have to take a boat to get there. the crew made us drinks with either rum or tequila and we headed out at about 4 knots. pretty slow trip across the bay, and it took us at least a couple hours, with a couple swim stops on the way, and some dolphins. drinking the whole time.
when we finally arrived at yelapa we got in a water taxi and went for lunch on the beach. there were dozens of beach chairs and about 4 people, plus us. more drinks and some pretty good food. darrin's dogs were running on the beach, we were drinking, and the crew brings some pretty fat joints if anyone wants to smoke. this is definitely the first cruise i've been on where the captains and crew are drinking and smoking as much as, or more than, the passengers.
our next stop is the waterfall at the top of the town and we have to walk up these narrow cobblestone streets, full on sun, everyone pretty messed up. two of our group took horses because they couldn't/didn't want to walk all the way, it was definitely a challenge in both our condition and wearing flip flops. we stopped for a water break about half way, i don't think darrin told anyone exactly where we were going or how long it would take. i didn't think it was so bad but advance knowledge would have helped. the waterfall was amazing, as all of them are, and the best part was the cold water that we could swim in for a while. we hung out for about half an hour then we were on our way back down.
we took up a collection for more booze for the boat, then again for the water taxi to take us back, then we put up the sails and made pretty good time back to port. a storm rolled in and the last 20 minutes was in a downpour, although no one really cared at that point.
as we were getting off darrin asked us to pay his crew, he didn't want to deal with money. he told me a couple times that he is looking for someone to run his business, and i could definitely see that he needs help. money collection would seem to be an important part of running a business, and some people made arrangements to meet one of the guys the next day to pay. the accounting side of me cringed at this. but again, this is mexico.
by the time the taxi got me back to sayulita it had been a 12 hour day, definitely not expected. it was super fun, i made some new friends, and got to see an interesting village that i would not have seen otherwise. i haven't heard from darrin today so i'm hoping that he and the dogs made it home safely.
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| yelapa |
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