Mazatlan & the El Cid Marina

Hanging out at the beach club

Living in Mazatlan Mexico at the El Cid Marina & Resort: December 9 to January 27 2023

We stayed in the El Cid Marina in Mazatlán for about 7 weeks, although we did go home to Phoenix for Christmas. I really enjoyed our time there although living at a resort is not what we planned on doing while cruising. We could go out for day sails but could not leave the port of Mazatlán until we received our US Coast Guard documentation (took 5 weeks to get), which was required to get Mexico's TIP (Temporary Import Permit) for our boat (took 45 minutes to get).

The El Cid Marina & Resort is actually more a resort than a marina; it's a time-share all inclusive resort with 2 pools, pool bars, beach club, water taxi, restaurants, and fishing & booze cruise trips. The marina has about 120 slips but feels smaller. One of the things I love about marinas, however, is that there is always something going on during the day - whether it's fisherman or tourists bringing in their fish, cruisers or hired hands working on boats, dock workers, or the water taxi pilot that makes constant trips back & forth across the 100-yard channel. It's never boring to me. But, with the time share activities like bingo, water aerobics, black jack, darts, etc., it's like groundhog day every day - I actually liked it & it was very comfortable but it was time to move on, especially when we knew the daily song playlist by heart.

One of the cool things at the El Cid is that almost every weekend there was a large wedding reception across the channel. It was cool watching the decked out guests and wedding party taking the water taxi to the reception area across the channel. Because the music was pretty loud and was just across the channel, we were able to enjoy the music and celebration from our boat, which was pretty awesome - the locals really know how to celebrate! Fortunately, they stopped celebrating at 10:00 pm. so we could go to sleep.

Mazatlán as a city is fairly large (about 500K people). It's semi-desert, high humidity, and very comfortable temps in the winter. Tourism is a large part of the economy and reportedly more money is being invested into Mazatlan's infrastructure than most other cities in Mexico...though there are quite a few unfinished buildings, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings in prime waterfront locations, which seems strange. Public transit/buses are good - 12.5 pesos to take the green bus, which travels about 10 miles or so to the key areas we'd need to go. Mazatlán has a cool public market that has everything you need and dates back to the late 1800's. Mazatlan has a beautiful old town area that dates back even older & one of the longest malecons in Mexico. Lots of great restaurants, beaches, and music too. Many Canadiens and some Americans live in Mazatlán either in the winter or full time.