20°44.9′ N -105°22.7′ W
Wendy, Anna and Mark are currently back in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle and heading north. We’ve been here on the north shore of Bahia Banderas since last Thursday and have spent a lot of time just goofing off and waiting for a big blow from the north to blow by.
Having left our sailing buddies Jim and Bliss on SV Bliss back in Barra de Navidad (see more about this below) we’re now on our own; Lorraine has gone back to Vancouver so it is just the 3 of us. We are now shooting for an arrival in Mazatlan on March 22, where we will pick up Mark’s brother Neal for the passage to La Paz. But given the bit of weather coming our way, it’s not likely we will leave here til Wednesday, March 19, which gives us even more time just to relax.
There’s been a lot of water that slipped past our sternpost since the last time we’ve updated our “slog” (sailing blog) so here is an accounting of our adventures over the past couple of weeks:
19°17.9′ N -104°50.’ W
February 29, 2008
We leave La Cruz at 5:30 in the morning, completely in the dark and head for the forbidding Cabo Corrientes. This cape has a reputation for stiff winds and largish waves and so among all of us – Lorraine, Anna, Wendy and Mark – there’s a fair bit of apprehension about what the crossing will be like. It turns out that we have picked our weather “window” appropriately and we round Cabo easily.
The sun comes up and the winds are fair but by early afternoon we start seeing what appear to be greenish, mossy floats all around us. We fret that we have entered into some sort of fishing operation and we slow down so as not to wrap our propeller in the lines.
Then one of the floats raises an amphibian-looking head and Wendy and Anna realize we are among a flotilla of sea turtles. Some of them have a small white bird perched on their carapaces.
We arrive in Tenacatita after a pleasant 26 hour trip and find ourselves in a wild, beautiful bay.
There are about 15 other sailboats in the bay and we anchor in a fairly rolly-polly spot after a few frustrating attempts to find a place for ourselves.
The nearby beach beckons with beautiful palm trees and palapas but there are some massive waves breaking there and we quickly discover that it will be something of an adventure to land with our small dinghy. Eventually Mark lands Wendy and Anna but on his way back through the surf he nearly is capsized. Archie and Bev on Sea-tacean have seen the episode and call on their VHF radio offering to bring Wendy and Anna back to SolMate.
That’s Archie in the photo when he arrived with Wendy and Anna. But before he picked them up, while Mark was still drying off from the drenching he got in the waves, wondering how he would repair the broken oarlock that he snapped as he tried to row out past the thundering giant swells, as he pondered his close brush with disaster (the dinghy did not turn over, the outboard did not get swamped, Anna somehow managed to recover the floating dinghy wheels that came loose in the near-catastrophe, etc. etc.) , Wendy and Anna managed to get an hour or so ashore and snapped some photos of what they found.
We spend a lovely night anchored in the bay in the gentle Pacific swells. Lorraine gets to know the boat and spends some time at the navigation station checking her email.
19°15.0′ N -104°50.’ W
March 2, 2008 La Manzanilla
With Jim and Bliss aboard SolMate we take off on an excursion across the bahia to La Manzanilla (not to be confused with Manzanillo, another 60 miles further south).
It’s a vivid, beautiful spot with an elegant, curving beach and a fringe of jungle all along.
However when we approach from the north we see large swells breaking on the beach. There are no other sailboats anchored here and so we find ourselves putting down a “lunch hook” and then ponder the possibility of another wild dinghy ride to the beach.
Anna spots a panguero and waves him over to see whether he’ll take us in.
In a few minutes we are ashore by Pedro. La Manzanilla has a mix of Mexican and gringo tourists and a community that seems for the most part organized around providing goods and services to them. Our troops are an instant boost to the local economy as Bliss, Wendy, Anna and Lorraine descend on the beach stalls looking for bargains.
19°11.0′ N -104°40.’ W
March 3, 2008 Barra de Navidad
Arrive at Barra de Navidad after uneventful trip – except for noticing Bliss make a sudden course correction off the southern point of Cabeza de Navidad. Later we found out that Jim had suddenly seen an uncharted, submerged rock 40 feet ahead and had to turn quickly to avoid a collision.
The channel entrance to the inner harbour in Barra is fairly straightforward, but the situation quickly changes once inside. There are small pangas blocking the channel – which is only about 30 feet wide. There are divers in the water right in the channel – looks like clam fishermen working the bottom and we wait for them to swim aside.
Finally, after negotiating a very narrow dredged channel, we enter into the very shallow lagoon and find about 50 other boats clustered. We thread our way around the boats trying to find a spot for SolMate and after about an hour put our anchor down with about 3 feet of water under our keel. It is not ideal; at low tide we will be down to only inches.
But the area is gorgeous. Jungles surround the lagoon and water taxis (converted fishermen’s pangas) dart around picking up cruceros. It’s a 20 peso ($2 US) roundtrip fare and the women go ashore as Mark stays onboard to maintain an anchor watch.
Ashore the cobblestone streets of Barra are bounded by a steep, open beach on the west and the lagoon to the east and south, and crowded with shops and street stalls.
Wendy and Anna escort Lorraine back to Aeropuerto Puerto Vallarta for her trip back to Vancouver. When they return to Barra two days later, they bring Hillary back with them for a short visit aboard SolMate.
Hillary stays with us for two days and although we have invited her to stay with us for the trip back north, she has to get back to her life in Vancouver.
On March 9 we hoist the anchor and head back north, with Anna, Wendy, and Mark aboard SolMate.
