Leaving La Cruz

We decided to finally leave La Cruz, as I have to find a lab for some tests, and a pharmacy.  This could have been accomplished nearby, but we were growing roots and truly enjoying La Cruz way too much.  It's a place that at first sight doesn't seem like much, there's the marina, and a small village, or town, and school.  Not much really.  Yet, we met so many people, like our dockside neighbors, Jane and Jerry, originally from Sacramento, now living on their boat in La Cruz for 6 months and then in a motor home for the rest of the time.  Great people, easy going and full of friendly and helpful advice on where to get fresh tortillas, the free yoga class each day and great food at...  Then there's the other yatistas, who are an assorted bunch, from those who live here and have sailboats for fun; or those who are cruising like us and are headed south this year as it's unusually cold here.  Everyone is mentioning the weather and how it's chilly, have to wear fleece at night, sometimes.
  One cool thing we finally did was to blow up the dinghy and motor around the point to where we noticed a private beach.  We spent some time snorkeling finally, even though the water wasn't overly clear, it was great to be in the water with the fish and sea turtles.  I saw some turtles on the way, but none while snorkeling.  We did see an iguana there, rather fun.  It was our first time using the dinghy wheels, and landing in surf, small surf, but surf none the less.
 We ate our final lunch at AnaBanana's a palapa that used to be bay front before the marina was built.  They now have a 10' X 10' tarp with a picture of what it used to look like stuck in the sand looking out towards the marina, rather sad, yet funny.  While eating, we perused the multitudes of yacht names and people who had signed their wall, and surprise surprise, there was MATADOR, and Craig and Liz, 2006, big as life written right in front of us.  We had no camera, and no pen to add our names, but these folks were the inspiration for our trip, and are wonderful friends.  On our return trip, we hope to add our names somewhere on the wall, it's pretty crowded though.
    After lunch, we said our goodbyes to Jane and Jerry, backed out of our slip and motored to Paradise Village Marina, in Nuevo Vallarta, about 6 miles away.  Everyone said we'd hate it there, that La Cruz was "the" place to be.  Well, in many ways they are correct.  First, Paradise is at the end of a river and needs to be dredged constantly, and the water is dirt brown with lots of trash floating by.  Lovely.  As we entered, we had 2'.5" of water under us, rather unsettling, but we are by far not the biggest boat, so obviously they get in and out ok.  We get to use the amenities of the hotel, swimming pools, spa, yacht club, so this is one advantage.  It's our first night, and it looks like land of the lost, with trees growing down to the waters edge, and weird screeching noises.  On the other hand, there are huge mansions and mega yachts here, sort of like Balboa without the crowd.  All they need are the Duffy's floating by constantly and it would be the same.  There are little islands off our dock, tomorrow we'll get into the dinghy and check out the waterfront and the river.  I hope to see some different wildlife, not just hear it?  More later on "Paradise".