Soon after we arrived, there were a half dozen or so boats joining us in the bay, including Larry on Hobo and others we'd met in Ten Bay. We walked the two miles along the beach from Malaque to Barra Navidad, then took a water taxi to Mary's Restaurant for lunch. It was nice, but expensive. Then we took a walk over to the swanky Marina in Barra. It was quite a hike up a steep hill, around the corner and then way down another steep hill to the Marina - and back again of course.
Looking out over the Barra Navidad anchorage, we saw our buddy Bill's boat there. We couldn't help but wonder how he was dealing with not being the only boat on the anchorage. We returned to Malaque by bus. The driver raced through town like he was in a NASCAR event. We were all hanging on for dear life. Then he suddenly stopped the bus, jumped out, ran across the street and punched a time card. Late for work?? He casually got back in the bus and started driving normally from there on, everyone on t bus had to laugh.Wednesday is Market Day in Melaque and Tom wanted to spend his birthday (12/1) there so we stayed an extra day. Market Day is sort of like the Orange County Marketplace, not like atypical Mexican Mercado. It was fairly spread out and we walked the whole thing taking it in. We only made one purchase: a colorful hand painted ceramic dish for serving snacks on the boat. It was to replace one that broke a while back.
That afternoon, Tom got an awesome and badly needed haircut for 40 pesos ($4 US). Then we had a nice lunch at Sinky's, a little mariscos restaurant. We met everyone at the busy ex-pat palapas on the beach for happy hour and toasted Tom's B-day.
Unfortunately, Mark had to leave early to return to the OC, his wife's health was not good. He hated to leave and we were very sad to see him go. How great is it to have a chiropractor as crew? You don't even know! On top of that, he's as pleasant of a person to share a small space with as you'll ever find. The fact that he's fluent in Spanish is a bonus.
We took him ashore on the morning of 12/2/10 so he could catch a bus back to Puerto Vallarta and catch a flight. He was wearing a loud and obnoxious Mexican red velvet hat with silver threads and sequins that he proudly purchased at the Market the day before. We continued on to Las Hadas in Manzanillo.