Category Archives: cruisingkids

La Cruz to Barra de Navidad and back, the trilogy. Part 1 of 3. 

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After our 2 months in La Cruz (Dec 17-Feb 20) working with Christian’s various illnesses, we did one last lab test for him and left to head toward Barra de Navidad. Christian was finally feeling well enough to depart the Puerto Vallarta area and venture down the coast of Mexico to places that we sailed to last year. We felt safe leaving the populated area knowing that if Christian began to feel really sick again, it was an easy bus ride back to Puerto Vallarta or Manzanillo. The sail was familiar and included only one overnight. We felt confident that Christian’s energy would hold strong for the sail. We needed to get our sailing fix!

Although Christian was diagnosed and treated for Salmonella Typhoid, Rickettsia,  and antibiotic resistant E-Coli, he was still feeling ill. We weren’t sure whether it was just because his body had been through so much in the last 4 months or if we were missing something. In our “guts” we felt like we were missing something. The day we left to start sailing toward Barra de Navidad, February 20th, Christian went to have his blood drawn to test for Lyme Disease at the Lyme Disease specialist in Puerto Vallarta. A week prior, we went to see the Lyme Disease specialist ($30 for an hour consult!)  as something to rule out. We were skeptical that he had it, but we were on the “leave no stone unturned” path. The lab results would not return for a few weeks, we would be getting them sent by email, so sailing south while we waited made sense. Yes, Mexican doctors will send you results via email, they’ll even text you on their personal cell phones! The test for Lyme and other tick borne parasites was $250. This apparently is a universal fee throughout labs in the US and Mexico because the test is quite extensive and 95% accurate. We were lucky to be able to have it drawn in Puerto Vallarta and sent to Mexico City for testing.

Meanwhile, we remained hopeful that health was ensuing after so much time. We set sail as soon as Christian retuned from his lab draw appointment. The overnight sail from La Cruz to Bahia Chamela usually takes around 20 hours with good wind the whole way, so leaving in the afternoon was perfect to get us there first thing in the morning. The sail was great! For a few hours that night with downwind speeds reached ~30-35 knots, we had a double reefed main and furled jib to 70%.  The bioluminescence was brilliant.  Dolphins swimming and playing around the boat, hearing their breaths and seeing floresence glow as they move through the water. We arrived in the anchorage off of Punta Pérula in Bahia Chamela at 0400. It only took us 16 hours! 

Bahia Chamela was such a nice breath of fresh air after being confined to Banderas Bay (Puerto Vallarta area) for over 2 months. We handled the overnight well, but it had been a while since we had done it together. We were not in a groove and both of us didn’t sleep much. The next day (our first day in Chamela Bay) was exhausting and homeschooling was a challenge. Note to self, do not attempt to homeschool after a sleepless passage! After a nap, we pulled up anchor and went to the furthest anchorage south in Bahia Chamela to try to catch some surf. S/V Cat2fold and S/V Full Monty joined us as well. We caught some waves and potlucked on Shawnigan. The next day we went to a bat cave before heading to another anchorage nearby.  There was a bit of wind and the water was pretty stirred up. The snorkeling we were hoping for was not happening.

S/V Full Monty 

Brian from SV Cat2fold.

🏄🏿

After 2 nights in Bahia Chamela, we set sail for Bahia Tenacatita. A nice day trip, downwind. No complaints from the Shawnigan crew. We stayed at “La Vena” anchorage, although most cruisers call it Tenacatita. We spent many days here last year. We did the mangrove dinghy adventure again with a S/V Full Monty, Mango, and Sea Glass. No crocodile sightings this time around, but it was fun none the less.  We enjoyed the company of SV Empyrean again as well as SV Mango Mango. We even managed to organize a dinghy raft up potluck.SV Full Monty and SV Mango weaving through the mangroves. 

A few days of playing and sailing , the action started to take its toll on Christian. He was being really careful with his diet, not eating sugar, dairy, and not drinking alcohol, but his fatigue and reoccurring symptoms were surfacing again. The sail down from Tenacatita to Barra de Navidad was thankfully painless and did not require a lot of energy. Along the way, we remembered about a friend of ours who recently went to a holistic center in the mountains near Barra de Navidad. He had been pretty sick with a lot of vague symptoms and came back healed! With going through all of the western medical treatment for Christian and having him still struggling, we decided to have him go the natural route while I stayed with the kids in Barra. As soon as we anchored, he called the center and planned to be there within 2 days for a 10 day treatment. (The experience at Centro Naturista DAR could be its own post, so I’ll save the details for part 2.) 

Shawnigan was safely anchored in the Barra Lagoon while Christian was away. I had many fellow boat neighbors to help us if we needed it.  There were a few other kids boats as well for most of that time to help keep the kids company. 

I feel like I’m repeating myself a little from our last year’s experience in Barra. We did a lot of the same things, but with different sailors. We did our schooling, which was usually done by lunchtime. After that, we’d go swim with our boat friends that were in the Marina at the Grand Bay resort. The kids always have a good time there, because the pool area is huge and the slides at the pool are fun.  Sometimes we’d go to town for “El Reconcito” for Papas Rellena ( stuffed potato) or get Rosa’s 10 peso Tamales for dinner. Rosa selling her Tamales. She remembered Taj from last year. 

We met up with some of the local friends that we made last year and went to the beach with them and had sunset potlucks. We did some hiking and kayaking and bird watching too. Sunset dinner potluck at our friend’s beach house. 

Don’s service with a smile, pouring rounds of tequila shots is what he does best 🙂


Ellamae doing school 

Spoonbills and Ibis

Taj and Zoey playing onboard Empyrean.

Taj looking up the birds in the bird guide. 

SV Carumba boys with Ellamae and Nina.

Hike up to “shipwreck lookout” looking down on the ship that crashed during 2015’s Hurricane Patricia.

Sunrise reading.

Hike with SV Empyrean to the secret beach.


2.5 weeks and no test results yet for the Lyme disease. We waited it out in Barra longer. Meanwhile treatment for Christian at the Centro Naturista seemed to be working well. It was time for him to come back to the boat. On Christian’s 10th day at the Centro Naturista, the kids and I took a bus ride up to the mountains to the town of El Grullo to see the center, have lunch with him and pick him up. It was a super windy road as we all got car sick. No one threw up, but we were sure close. The bus takes you to Autlán, which is where the singer, Carlos Santana, is from. From there we took a taxi to El Grullo. Dinghy to the Hotel Sands with the Grand Bay resort in the background.

Taj at the coffee shop across from the bus station in Melaque (San Patricio). 

Sunrise in Barra de Navidad.

Full Monty departs heading toward Panama 🇵🇦. Happy for them, but sad to part ways.
That’s is it for part 1 of a 3 part post.

Experiencing Mexican culture – and more. 8 weeks in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle 

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If we are going to be “stuck ” here, we might as well make the best of it! This year here in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle we have put ourselves out there more than our last visits to experience more culture and participate in more activities around the area. Here are a few examples:

Christmas for the Orphanage: every Christmas season at Marina La Cruz people donate gifts for the local kids in the orphanage. Just after the New Year, the orphans are brought to the marina to participate in activities and have gift bags handed out to them. The bags themselves were made by various other sailors and with help from PV Sailing. Cookies were baked by fellow sailors, and gifts were bought and wrapped specially for each kid at the orphanage. The La Cruz Cruising Kids Club set up stations for various activities, such as face painting, makeup, perfume making, friendship bracelet making, and a table full of “archeology kits”.  What a joy to see all the happy faces of these beautiful children. Most only spoke Spanish, so it was a great experience for our kids as well. Thanks Catrina at Marina La Cruz for organizing this!

Green Race: the first annual 3k and 10k run to support planting native trees and other “green” ways of living in Mexico. There is quite a bit of trash, but I’m impressed with how much recycling is happening in La Cruz and the State of Nayarit. San Pancho is especially promoting “green” living. There is still a lot of plastic use and styrofoam, but the effort is here. Bring your own shopping bags and don’t forget to say “sin popete”, this means no straw. One of the biggest polluters are plastic straws. There are reusable straws out there. We have a few we that we carry with us for when we order Cocos Frios or Jugos and Liquados.
Wall of plastic bottles at San Pancho’s recycling center.

Blessing of the fishing fleet in Bucerias: The fishermen decorate the pangas (boats) and travel from the La Cruz marina to Bucerias, to be blessed by the priest. Supposedly the boats form a sign of the cross as they motor over to Bucerias, but that was hard to see from land. They bring with them, fresh caught fish, fruit, bread, and even tequila to be blessed as well. Once they land by beaching the pangas at full speed, they bring theses items to the church for their blessing. At the church there is native dancing in traditional Mayan dress and song along with Mass. Later in the day, we saw little ladies in fancy dress riding horses side saddle and riders that have their horses dance to live music. This tradition is done annually to bless the fishermen and their boats for safety for the upcoming year.

For lunch, a meal of mixed meat and vegetables and a whole table full of toppings to make your own tacos 🌮 .Burning frankincense

Fairs and Carnivals: we missed the rodeo, but did get to go to the fair in Puerto Vallarta. You know you’re in Mexico when your kid is too short for a ride, so you just carry them on and hold them in your lap or right next to you. And when you pay $8/person for unlimited rides. That was a late night for us. 

Day trips outside of La Cruz to Yelapa(video), San Pancho, Valle Dorado, down town Puerto Vallarta, Turtle Release(video), local(ish) surf spots, 6 birthdays, talent shows, sailing presentations, etc. We have not ventured inland yet. San Pancho with SV EmpyreanOur friend’s gourmet raw Chocolate Shop in San Pancho “Mexicolate”. A must for opening your heart. If sweetened at all, they use honey and rarely raw cane sugar.

Another orphanage visit to the Marina for some poolside play time with the cruising kids.

Templo de Guadalupe in PV
Talent show at Marina La Cruz

Birthday 🎉 parties!

We aren’t sure what’s next on the agenda. We are waiting for Christian to regain strength and stamina from being sick for so long. He just had 2 wisdom teeth pulled, one that was infected, so hopefully that’s it for him! We are hoping to sail south to Barra de Navidad soon before making our way back up in to the Sea Of Cortez again. Yes, another change in plans. We were going to go south toward Ecuador, but health is first in our plans this year. We will be happy just to sail out of Banderas Bay soon. In the meantime, we’ll keep seeking out cultural experiences around La Cruz, hopefully not just the ones to doctor’s appointments.

La Cruz Kids Club community service at the orphanage. Kids from the sailboats Ceilydh, Nomi, Pickles, Shawnigan, Velella, and Zimovia.

A beautiful family on one of our bus rides.

La Cruz Kids Club burgee.

La Cruz poolside deli hangout; cruising kids unite! Sailboat kids from August Dream II, Full Monty, Kenta Anae, Luminesce, Princess Ericka, Raireva, Riki Tiki Tavi, and  Shawnigan.

Sick and stuck in La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta)

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Sick and stuck in La Cruz (Puerto Vallarta) 1/21/2017

Ok, I say this with as much light hearted attitude as possible. Life tends to always throw curve balls whether you’re working the daily grind or sailing the world having a good time. Our’s in this case is being faced with Christian’s sickness and having to choose the best, safest option for him and our family. 

Christian originally started feeling sick late October when he returned  back to the States from a quick trip working on the boat in San Carlos, Mexico. At the time it just seemed like a normal sickness since everyone else around us was sick too. He recovered from the initial part, at least we thought he had, and went on his way back to the boat in San Carlos, Mexico with Nina and Taj early November. His energy was starting to get lower and his stomach frequently upset. Mid-November, they set sail to cross the Sea of Cortez and made their way south, down the Baja side. In the meantime I was up working in The States only having occasional text messages on his health report. Once it was clear that this “thing” wasn’t going away on its own, I told him to go to the doctor and take a poo (stool) sample with him to test for parasites. 

He wasn’t near a doctor at the time, so he took this medicine that we keep on board called “Vermox“, which is normally a quick and easy fix for “non bloody travelers diarrhea” AKA “la tourista”.  That didn’t work either. In the meantime he was still sailing down to La Paz, thankfully buddy boating with our friends aboard S/V Kenta Anae. They helped ease the parenting load off of Christian and helped with meals along the way. 

As soon as he got to La Paz, after talking to other sailors who are practicing doctors from various locations, they decided that he probably got Giardia from the U.S. It made sense to us, because he had been drinking out of this spring and did so after a huge rain. So, he went to the farmacia in La Paz and got himself Flagyl for that, no prescription needed. Still no poo sample given to a doctor at this point (sense a little frustration from me?). 

This is when I went down to La Paz to visit at the beginning of December. He was still on flagyl and seemed to be doing ok, if not a little better. We sailed, hiked a bit, ate out , and even surfed once. Nothing was screaming “get this guy to the doctor” yet.  Then Nina and I left and Christian’s father, Gene Lauducci, hopped onboard to cross the Sea of Cortez with him. 

With Christian, his dad Gene, and Taj aboard S/V Shawnigan they sailed away and across. Doing ok, but progressively getting weaker they made it across and to La Cruz anchorage. I only found out after the fact,  when we made phone contact, how much he struggled with his energy and urged him to go to a doctor. He did finally! And the doctor in La Cruz wanted to just send him home on a 7 day course of Cipro without checking blood or poop. Christian had to ask for these. The labs were done, but limited (no blood culture and no stool culture). He did however order a specific test for Salmonella called the Widal Reaction Test. It showed that he had low-moderate levels of Salmonella of three different types. One of which was typhi (aka Typhoid Fever). 

Phew, we thought we were on the right track now, but 2 days into it, the day Nina and I flew back in to Mexico, he started having negative and rare side effects from the Cipro and had to stop them immediately. I have never seen Christian like this. I have to admit it was a little scary.  

The very next day we found a new doctor, after having a hard time contacting the previous one and not completely trusting him either. This new doctor took his own labs and agreed that it looked like Salmonella, and did a quick abdominal ultrasound mainly to look at the gallbladder, since it likes to harbor there long term. Based on the labs and apparently enlarged gallbladder, he said it seemed that Christian has had this for more than 2 years, not a recent infection. He started him on 5 days on IV Gentamicin and 10 days of oral Bactrim. After the 2nd day of treatment, Christian initially felt better but his energy was off and on and by the end of treatment and 4 days later he felt just as sick again. 

He went back for a follow up and to ask for cultures. For some reason these doctors down here just don’t want to do cultures! He did do follow up Salmonella labs and found the level of one actually got higher! He suggested to Christian, without re-ultrasounding his gallbladder, that if he just wanted to get the Salmonella out of his system now and quickly he should just have him remove his Gallbladder. Can you believe it?! From one course of treatment to “let’s remove your Gallbladder” ?!?! Needless to say, we went and got a second, I guess this was actually a third, opinion. 

We were referred to this doctor husband and wife team in Punta Mita through ours friends Richard and Doña on Profligate. They first used the collection of labs we’d already gotten and looked at the latest and started treatment based on that, but they interpreted it as normal values of Salmonella and raised values of Rikettsia.  We asked for cultures again but they said he needed to get started on some treatment right away before waiting to see results.  So again, Christian got three days of IM shots of a Cephalosporin and was asked to come back in a week for follow up labs and this time stool (poo) cultures using a really good reliable lab that the hospitals use. He was also sent to an ultrasound specialist for a full abdominal ultrasound. It was a good thing we did all of this. The ultrasound (which only cost us $20 USD) showed that his gallbladder was fine! And the 3 days of shots did not make Christian feel better. We were shocked when the lab results came back as still having Salmonella Typhoid, not Rikettsia, AND his stool culture came back as having multi antibiotic resistant E. Coli and no Salmonella (meaning the Salmonella is still in his blood, but he can’t spread it). Again, they did not do a blood culture because they don’t normally do them in Mexico and didn’t have the proper lab bottles for them in stock. URG! We found out the doctors around here hardly ever do them because it’s “expensive” and usually they don’t need to. To us, it’s worth it and in all my nurse training you get a blood culture first thing. Lesson learned, demand one in the very beginning, even if you come off as a crazy paranoid American.  

So here we are currently finishing up the 1 of only 3 antibiotics that the E. Coli is susceptible to and hopefully the Salmonella as well. We go in on Monday to have both stool AND blood cultures drawn and Salmonella levels of course with a complete Blood Count as well. Christian has had a low white count through this whole thing. The labs should take five days for results to come through, which get emailed to us (pretty cool). We still have no idea where and when he got this nasty stuff. 

We are keeping our fingers crossed. Christian is feeling better. The last three days he’s had a lot more energy. So far though, the one thing that all the doctors had in common was that they all said this Salmonella and now E. Coli might take up to a year to fully clear. So it looks like we are stuck here for in the Puerto Vallarta area for a bit. 

Saying “stuck” really isn’t the correct word, since we are choosing to stay here until Christian is healthy, but at the same time it’s hard not to think about where we could be or want to be sailing now and in the near future. So for now, we are trying to stay positive and we’re ok with being here, because we are still here in Mexico and with the whole family together on the boat. Meeting lots of great people and other sailing families. 
We are hoping to at least get healthy enough to cruise Mexico again and the Sea of Cortez again. We don’t want to push our luck in going too far off the beaten path. Safety and fun is better than an adventure unsafe and possibly life threatening. 

I’ll try to update on the latest results next weekend. Hopefully Christian will be so healthy we’re out having fun! 


At least there are tons of cruising kids here to keep our kids entertained!