Monday the surf is too strong for swimming or boogie boarding as Spring Tide occurred yesterday. A spring tide occurs when the moon is full or new, and the resulting tides rise to their highest and lowest levels within the day. With the tide at its high level, and combined with the wave action, one of the streets in the village gets swamped. The same has occurred in La Penita, just north of us.
We drove north a short distance to explore the small town of El Monteon and followed a dirt road out to the small isolated beach there. No palapa restaurants open during the week there – just on weekends. Just one other person besides ourselves there. Much of the land is fenced off in the area as a large hotel chain has purchased land for future use.
Tuesday is laundry day and a visit from the veggie man. The frame of this truck has been lengthen to the extent that you wonder how the front wheels stay on the ground with the load of veggies and fruit. Luckily this vehicle stays strictly in town, never out on the highway...I think. But the goods are always fresh and the service is very convenient.
The Amazing Veggie Truck
The surf continues to be too strong but we did our usual walk on the beach in the morning for about an hour. It was hot starting early this morning so any exercise needs to be done before 11 AM.
Wednesday, Vic teaches Bev to boogie board. She has lots of fun in the surf but does it the whoosie-way, catching the waves as they crash rather than riding the top of the wave like Vic does. Vic loses a flipper when it gets caught by a wave as he’s surfing with his boogie board.
Surprise! It's Bev.
Thursday, another rig arrives from BC – first timers such as ourselves. We now have 11 rigs in the campground with only one site left open.
Friday is the first windy and rainy day we’ve had since arriving here. The winds combined with the high tide cause the surf to swamp one of the beach restaurants. Since the forecast is off and on rain for the day, we drive south to Puerto Vallarta going into the old town, driving by the Malecon and places we had visited in 2001. We looked for surf shops along the way to buy new fins for Vic but alas, none in site. On the way north, we take the highway to Neuvo Vallarta as we have never been there before. Lots of hotel/condo development but no much in the way of shopping.
Along the way, we stopped to shop at Walmart. The nose clips on Vic’s glasses have broken twice since the start of our trip and are held on with globs of JB Weld. (The frame was replace under warranty by our optometrist Thornhill in June). We had a quote for new glasses when we had stopped previously in Buceria at the Mega store -- $1850 pesos for frames $950 pesos for lenses and $35USD for eye exam. At the place within Walmart they were able to provide titanium flexible frames that Vic’s existing lenses fit into for the price of $1635 pesos. They did it while we waited. Perfect!
Next stop is the Coral Reef Surf Shop in Buceria. We find surf fins at $650 pesos for Vic. These are short, less flexible fins than those for diving. Coral Reef has boogie boards but they are all $1800 to $2000 pesos which is too expensive for Bev. We had paid $600 pesos for Vic’s board at Mega in Buceria but they have been out of stock for weeks. Bev will just share Vic’s board with him for now.
Alas, on the next day at the beach, the fins are just too tight and need to be swapped for a slightly larger pair.
Sunday we head back to Buceria and visit the travelling market by the river, on the opposite side of the highway from the main part of town. We enjoy browsing through the various vendors. Typical of weekly markets, they sell fresh produce, clothing, herbal medications, kitchen utensils, plastic items, hardware, parts for stoves and blenders but this one had a vendor selling bicycle parts!
We return to the surf shop and swap the medium fins for a set of medium-large.
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