La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Mexico

We spent 17 very peaceful and enjoyable days anchored in Bahia Tenacatita. The anchorage is off a one half mile long beach with the anchorage at one end of the beach and a small hotel at the other end. In front of the anchorage is a small campground used by locals, and a restaurant palapa, both located at the entrance to a creek into a mangrove swamp. A popular outing is to take your dinghy up the creek to a lagoon that backs onto another beach on the outer edge of the bay. The route through the mangroves narrows down to barely the width of the dinghy and becomes totally covered over by the trees. Snowy Egret, Great and Little Blue Heron, Night Heron, Brown Pelican, Brown Booby and Osprey are found throughout the mangrove and around the anchorage.

On several occassions we had large schools of small fish hovering around the boat, attracting boobies out of the sky and schools of Jack Craval. The Boobies would dive out of the sky and land in the water just a few feet from the boat, one actually hitting the rigging on it's way down. The Jack Craval would swarm in and attack the smaller fish, banging against the hull of the boat and thrashing on the surface of the water, creating a dramatic disturbance around Tamara.

The village of La Manzanilla is a 20 minute dinghy ride across the bay and has several small tiendas (stores) where most of our provisioning needs could be met, as needs here are quite simple--tortillas, beer, salsa and cheese. A walk along the creek that borders one side of town allows one an up close and personal encounter with cocodrilos (crocodiles). Weekdays it's a sleepy village, but on the weekends it's a popular spot for a meal in one of the many palapa restaurants.

While we were in Tenacatita, we rendezvoused with Hans and Roos (s/y The Wind Cries) a Dutch couple we met three years ago in Cape Verde. They most recently came across the Pacific from Japan to Vancouver and down the West Coast. They are currently headed for the Panama Canal and on to Cuba before heading back to Holland. We enjoyed catching up and exchanging cruising stories.

From Tenacatita we sailed to Bahia Chamela for three nights before continuing on to Bahia Bandaras, the largest bay on the west coast of mainland Mexico, nearly 20 miles across. Puerto Vallarta is situated in the center of the bay. We are anchored, along with mas o menas 30 other boats, off the marina at La Cruz, a small community in the NW corner of the bay. We were planning on heading direct for La Paz and the Sea of Cortez but heard that we'd have better luck finding products needed to work on Tamara's hull when we hauled out, hopefully in La Paz. Bahia Banderas contains the largest concentration of boats in Mexico, the majority owned by Americans and Canadians. We went out to dinner last night and you would have thought we were in Southern California, the restaurant full of 50-60 yrs old cruisers.

We will probably stay here through Christmas then continue on to the Sea of Cortez.