Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Navigator's office

During the two days we have been at sea Paul has been just about rushed off his feet with work.  He roped me in to design new folder labels in preparation for a new filing system, and standardising the labels.  Perhaps it may be ‘OCD’ but having the same style labels on files looks much nicer.  Ha!  Paul has just discovered that the colour printer has run out of ink so the labels may be printed in black/white until new ink refills are purchased.  Well, at least it’s better than nothing.

It was good to see land again, a nice bright sunny day compared to cool overcast skies that we have had of late.  Down on the pier there was Mexican music playing and there were a few colourful artisan stalls.

Paul was unable to get off the ship at any time during the day so I ended up taking a walk from the harbour to the shopping mall across the road.  There was quite a few staff from the ship in the mall making use of the free wifi to connect with friends and family.  One of them waived at me and pointed out to a nearby seat so I joined the group, checking my whatapp messages and system updates on my phone.  

After that I had a wander around the mall and then walked to Walmart next door (for those of you in England – a bit like the ASDA ‘superstore’, for those of you in South Africa – a bit like a Pick ‘n Pay hypermarket).  Wow!  The place was HUGE inside however I was not impressed.  The shopping isles made no sense and everything was a bit ‘all over the show’.  In order to find things I had to walk through the entire shop.  In the end I gave up.  Whilst in Walmart I also looked for some underwear.  Sizes in Spanish meant nothing to me.  Everything looked enormous – from huge boulder holders to knickers.  There must be some big Mexican mammas around!!  Eventually I found a label that had both English and Spanish (‘S’ and ‘Chico’) so I ended up homing in on labels with ‘chico’ on it.  With not many of them around I had quite a job searching but eventually managed to get 4 pairs of knickers.

I was quite glad to get out of Walmart and made a hasty retreat to the sanctuary of the ship.  On the way back one of the ship’s crew spotted me and kindly kept me company.  The Pilipino crew are really lovely and friendly; and I’m grateful for their kindness.

A couple (Judy & Fred) whom I’ve kept in touch with, since a previous Maasdam cruise, are sailing with the ship again.  I knew they were coming back but was still delighted to see them again.  

Our route to our next destination - Manzanillo, but by sea though!