Paradise Village in big. Like, very big. It’s a mini city, with a bunch of different resorts, a cinema, giant pools and a mall. It’s targeted towards Americans who are looking for a Mexican vacation, with Aztec designs on everything and Michael Jackson Impersonations? Yeah you read that right. Every Thursday, one of the workers at Paradise Village will lip sync and dance to all of Michael Jackson’s hits. Definitely different!

Whilst we were in Paradise Village, we prepped like mad for the Pacific Puddle Jump. The Puddle Jump is when a group of boats – around the same time – all start crossing the Pacific Ocean. Usually this takes around three, four weeks. Less if you’re lucky and speedy.

We were so glad when we met Sooner, the loveliest family! Spencer became my new brother and we did practically everything together. He is such a wonderful kid and our entire family misses him. His family were amazing, our moms got along wonderful and my dad and Spencer’s dad had the same birthday! Sadly, they were going to Hawaii, and we were going to the Marquesas.

The day they left, we all cried. They were our family! We waved three off, shouting and jumping, running along the docks and waving goodbye. We’ve all stayed in touch, sending Spencer baseball congrats and cards.

The day finally arrived. The day of our departure from Puerto Vallarta and Into The Great Big Blue. The Mexican Officials were arriving in twenty minutes when we found it.

The bolt.

We found the where the bolt came from.

THE BOLT.*

It was there. Right there. On the car of our main. If we were to leave without the bolt in its place, for all we knew the whole main could break.

We hunted all over the boat with fifteen minutes. And we couldn’t find the bolt. So we called George – pronounced HOR-HEY – to see if he was open. He wasn’t and we had ten minutes left. He called back and said he was coming over and when he arrived we had five minutes left. He came to our boat with a box of bolts and started speeding through them. When we finally found a bolt that would work and had put it in, the Officials hadn’t arrived. They were late. We breathed a little easier.

They came and checked us out of the country, taking a photo of us to ensure that we were leaving their country. Once we’d left we promptly broke all the rules and anchored a couple hours from Paradise Village. Rules were made to be broken.

*read about Isla San Francisco,.