Moon over Mazatlan

As mentioned in the last post we made it to Mazatlan in time to see some visiting friends. After being out in the wilds for some time the first order of business was to clean up.

First we met up with our sailing buddies from a couple seasons ago, Frank and Patsy. Since they have been busy with a huge remodeling project at their home in Coeur d’Alene they didn’t put their boat in the water this season, however, they couldn’t resist leaving the cold behind and coming to Mexico to get their fill of warm weather, cold beers, and fish tacos.

Then our other cruising buddies turned neighbors came to town. They took a picture of the old harbor where we were anchored as they flew over. There we are!

We have spent a lot of time anchored in the Mazatlan harbor over the years and we have never seen so many boats anchored there! We had heard that the sewage treatment plant right across the road had closed down (causing less malodorous scents to waft through in the wind), and we were pleasantly surprised to find this to be accurate. We surmised that this improvement along with rising prices in the marinas may be why there were so many boats anchored, but as the eclipse drew near the boats kept coming in, so maybe the eclipse had more to do with it. The day before the eclipse we counted nearly 30 cruising boats anchored in the harbor (on top of the many pangas, sport-fishing boats, party boats, and abandoned or derelict sailboats permanently moored there).

But I digress…here are our good friends and neighbors who let us hijack their land-lubber vacation for the week, James and Deena!

We were very excited for our two sets of friends to meet as we knew they would get along splendidly—and they did. So we all decided to spend the eclipse together. From three separate corners of Mazatlan we all made the trek to the Malacon to enjoy the spectacle. As we walked along the 7 kilometer oceanfront walkway trying to find a good spot to meet our friends (not that there is a bad spot since everyone has a front row seat when looking to the sky), we would offer to take pictures of couples or groups we passed so they could get everyone in the shot. One Mexican couple wanted to return the favor and take our photo, so we obliged. It was quite humorous because they wanted several shots and were very specific on the placement of our hands and where we should be looking for each shot. It made me wish that I had paid closer attention to their pictures and hope that there would be at least one shot that they liked! Here are the best ones from our “photo shoot”.

The excitement for the day was palpable.

Once we all found each other on the Malacon we tried to get a photo of all of us wearing our eclipse glasses—this is as close as we got!

But none of us rocked them like Lily!

Now, I have seen eclipses before and if I’m being honest, I was super excited about spending the day with our friends but kind of meh about the eclipse. But whether it was the group mentality spreading the awe and excitement or something more spiritual; it was unexpectedly quite a thing! As it got darker Lily started acting strange and was pretty freaked out. When we offered her basket she jumped in and curled up inside without hesitation.

It is safe to say that the excitement was shared by all.

As the sky grew darker we watched as the sea birds flew out of the city towards the open sea. (Birds not pictured)

Once totality commenced there was an audible gasp in the crowd followed by an eerie silence—with the exception of the man on the beach beating a tribal rhythm on his drum. The experience was…well, awesome.

I’m sure by now you have all seen lots of pictures of the eclipse, including at totality, that are way better than anything I could capture with my iPhone 8. You should know that the professional shots you saw of it were completely accurate. There was complete darkness with a shining ring of the sun’s light around the moon. None of that turned out in my “totality selfie”, but I’m sure you can fill in with your imagination.

Once the sky returned back to normal someone cranked up the loud music and the crowd erupted into spontaneous line dancing! It was quite the party atmosphere.

Our party of sailors went out to eat.

As I come to the end of this post, there a just a few more random things to share. First, the unbelievable numbers of jellyfish inside the harbor where we anchor. We have never seen so many jellyfish in one spot before, much less here in Mazatlan. Hmmm….?

When the ships go through the very narrow channel entrance (by very narrow I mean the width of a single ginormous cruise ship), no other traffic is allowed to enter or exit. One afternoon we were entertained by the party boat band that held off by our boat while waiting to exit the channel.

Our favorite bus in Mazatlan—with all blue lighting inside.

Not our favorite bus in Mazatlan. If we needed to use the emergency exit at the top of the bus I hope someone has something to cut all those zip-ties! Ha!

Most days we wore Lily out! We had so much fun with our friends in Mazatlan and were equally exhausted when it was time to move on.

Next time we go somewhere we have never been before…