Puerto Vallarta | April 21 | Day Eight

It was another banner day in the land of honey. We got to the marina about 9:40am for our 10am launch. I bought beer in the little convenience store and we waited for the boat to arrive. We’d stopped by yesterday to look at the boat, but apparently they don’t actually keep the boat there so there was nothing to see.

So we waited. It was already sweltering and looking to be a cooker. Finally a boat arrived, that I simply assumed could not be ours, since it was over 40 feet and much nicer than the picture of the one we were shown. This was a boat that was priced at $600 for four hours. We were paying $280.


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Sure enough, a young kid hopped off the boat and approached us. He asked if we were waiting for a boat and I said yes, the Barbara. “Si. Barbara,” he said. “You ready? We leave.”

We loaded up and off we went.

We weren’t even out of the marina when I realized my first mistake. I had bought a twelve pack of Sol beer for Jane, and a twelve pack of what I thought was that new lime beer everyone is selling. What I got was beer with lime and salt in it. It was like drinking tart salt water. It was truly undrinkable.


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The boat had barely gotten out of the marina and into the harbor, when Chico, the captain pointed to schools of sardines jumping out of the water. Something was feeding, so Willie, the first mate, jumped down, tied on lures and before we knew it had dropped four lines into the water. Soon after, Jane caught her first fish: a Bonita.


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We fished for four hours, never getting much further than Neuvo Vallarta, which is where we’d been staying before. Jane caught 5 Bonita, 2 Spanish Mackerel, 4 Toro, and a small Barracuda. Plus a couple that were too small to keep.
The weather was perfect, which means it was hot enough that when you were moving, which was always, it was just the right temperature.

Before we knew it, our four hours were up and we were headed in. Puerto Vallarta sits in the middle of Banderas Bay and the mountains rise up in sharp peaks behind the town. It makes for a beautiful sight.

I should also say a word about our big argument on the boat. From what I saw from all the other people hawking boats, including the concierge at the hotel, we hit the mother lode. It was a 41' beauty with a full cabin, great crew and state of the art equipment. What a steal. I stand corrected.


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We got back to the hotel and headed straight for the beach, but I think we both felt we'd had enough sun, so I sat under the shade of the tiki bar and Jane feel asleep on a lounge nearby. After a few hours, we went back to our room, showered, dressed and headed out to a restaurant we'd heard about. Barcelona. Spanish Tapas.

Barcelona is on the fourth floor of a tall skinny hotel which itself sits high on a hill overlooking the city. It's quite the view. The entire place is open air and we had a table for two right at the edge overlooking the bay. The food was all fresh and grilled to perfection. Jane thought it was easily the best meal we'd had since we got here.

And so endeth the evening.