A Cruising Christmas in Mazatlán

 

December 28^th, 2021 Marina El Cid, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico.

            A set of LED lights strung across the cockpit bimini and two green and white Christmas bows are the holiday decorations for the boat, one bow on a teak handhold above the breaker switches and the other on the midship bulkhead’s brass bell.   Moored in the slip to port is a Canadian family on a catamaran resplendent with genuine holiday spirit.  Gigantic inflatable Minions on the net, the parents doing their most to make the children’s first Christmas on the boat feel as festive as possible, and succeeding admirably from all signs.  To our starboard is a French-Canadian couple who have circumnavigated the Earth over the last fourteen years.   Jean-Pierre is calm, and almost tired as he tells us this, a cigarette like an accoutrement from another time smoldering in his fingers.  His wife is now ready for a home on land, he says, after they sail across the Pacific to Hawaii and then cross East to British Columbia.  They won’t be going all the way “back around” to get the boat to Quebec.            

    Like the family to our port, this is our first cruising Christmas too, and like the French-Canadian couple to starboard, we are thinking of a home that feels impossibly distant, because it doesn’t yet exist.   It is taking some time for the concept of “home is where the boat is” to settle firmly in our thinking.  It’s there sometimes; other times it shakes loose and surprises us when we realize it again.

            Marina El Cid at Mazatlán is a resort, with all the attendant amenities, making the contrast with living on a boat at anchor, off say, Baja California, even starker than a city marina normally would be.  Two swimming pools – an “activities” pool with daily bingo and a swim up bar, and a multi-tiered hot tub-swimming pool complex with artificial grottoes and small waterfall - along with the private beach on the real ocean, run cascading happy hours 1:00 to 2:00, 2:00  to 3:00, 3:00  to 4:00  so that you can drink two-for-one pina coladas or margaritas for three hours provided you’re ok packing up your pool kit every hour to walk to the next one.  Since the marina necessarily outlets to the Sea of Cortez, double-decker party boats with sound systems blasting classic rock, contemporary Latin music, even Bollywood-themed mixes, enter and leave the fairway from dawn to dusk.

            We can walk to the Zona Dorada from the marina, but old town Mazatlán is our favorite.  The plazas and narrow streets feel like Europe, and at dusk bulbs encased in the sidewalks up-light the aging Spanish architecture, limning postcard street views at every corner.   Bands play music for al fresco diners at tables in small plazas.  Gringos abound but, refreshingly, domestic Mexican tourists own their scene here in Mazatlán.

            Over the years many English language writers stayed in Mazatlán during their travels.  Mazatlecos (patas saladas) honor this history with plaques scattered like Easter eggs throughout the old town.  Herman Melville.  Jack Kerouac.  Jack London.  All were transient adventurers more focused on other regions and none stayed long, but Mazatlán’s rightful inclusion in the vagabond canon is cherished.  Our favorite plaque displayed a quote from Melville: 

 

    The coast of Mazatlán may be called barbarous – donde se rompen las olas, “where the waves break” is the city slogan – but there is nothing barbarous about the food.  Mazatlán prides itself as the shrimp capital of the world.   Like legion restaurants claiming World’s Best Chili or World’s Best BBQ, there must be many other cities in the world that claim to be the Shrimp Capital of the World.  But Mazatlán’s shrimp credentials run deep. 

We bought these at an outdoor fish market, walked across the street, gave them to the restaurant, and they cooked'em up for us!

 

 

And of course, there are the glorious birds.

Great Kiskadee

Brown Pelican