Sailing In Mazatlan…

There are many activities in Maz, and one day while riding my bike on the beach I arranged to take a sail on a Hobie Cat a couple days later. The fee was $300 pesos for four people. Back at the RV park, I found a couple people that wanted to go. Two of them bailed out on us so it was just me and another guy. But we ended up being out on the water for an hour and a half, we could cover more ground with just two of us and the captain. We left the beach after the crew screwed around with the equipment for a half hour trying to get the sail up…we switched to another cat. The sea was warm, it was around 75F air temperature and there was a fresh breeze. We headed north along the coast, then turned west between two large islands. Then we skirted Deer and Goat islands (really a single island unless the seas are large, then a small land bridge between them can be swamped, creating for a time, two islands). All in all, a pleasant way to spend a couple hours. Other ways to spend fun time here are the Seadoos, 4 wheelers, parasailing, dune buggies, motorcycles, bikes, etc. Everything you can think of is available to rent here.

The beach was a little quiet at 10AM:

The crew trying to get the sail to hoist correctly:

Someone already out there and we’re still waiting for a working cat!:

Finally:

Looking back to hotel row:

One of those crazy parasailers, I was always hearing stories of people getting into trouble while flying in one of those and bouncing off buildings while trying to land, but no one I heard of was injured:

Looking off to the north:

The island we could have gone to if we’d paid for 3 hours instead of 1:

Deer Island…right off of hotel row. They have daily excursions over there. Not much to it other then a small resturant so I never went:

Our intrepid captain. He owns the boat and sails nearly every day all year round. This time of year there are few tourists so we got a free extra half hour out on the ocean:

Here we are approaching one of the islands:

Here’s where the ocean can split the island, our captain told us that you can get through there but best it’s tried at high tide and with a power boat:

Saw several of these birds dive into the ocean, sometimes right in front of us, but this is the only good picture I could get:

Did get this shot of one of the birds diving: