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.

Bahia Tenacatita, Mexico

23 November 2008

Bahia Tenacatita, Mexico

We are anchored in a large bay about 26 nm north of Manzanillo in a well protected anchorage. The bay has some development, though for the most part is comparatively undeveloped. We will stay here for about a week then move about 30 nm north to another bay for a week or so.

Our trip from the Galapagos to Manzanillo, Mexico was 1500 nm and took us 13 days. We motored 2/3 of the way due to total lack of wind or light winds on our bow. We were hoping to get some easterly winds as we crossed the outer edge of the Gulfo de Tehuantepec, but it was very quiet. The Gulf has a reputation for being a nasty area and as we passed the northwestern edge there were storm warnings for winds of 30 - 50 k. We had several hitch-hikers along the way, egrets, boobies, and some small bird, and saw many turtles floating past. And Mark caught his first fish off Tamara, a large and colorful dorado, which has provided us with many delicious meals.

It wasn't until we were 500 miles off Acapulco that we starting seeing container ships. Manzanillo is an impressive, large and very modern port, and the city seems to be prospering. There are some large hotels on the north side of the bay but tourism is not the major employer, the port is. We anchored just outside the marina at the Las Hadas Hotel, scene of the movie "10" starring Dudley Moore and Bo Derek. We arrived early in the morning, got anchored, the dinghy put together and ourselves into shore to start the check-in process. It took us two and a half days to complete all the paper work necessary with the three agencies; Immigration, Capitania, and Aduana (customs) - a lot of hurry up and waiting.

There were a few other yachts anchored in the same spot, so we introduced ourselves and starting picking their brains for information on other anchorages and the possibility of hauling out. We also ran into many ex-pats that are now living in Mexico. It's amazing how many there are.

The next couple of weeks will be spent just relaxing and enjoying the area. We hope during that time to get the information we need to decide if we will haul-out in either Puerta Vallarta or La Paz. We've spoken with many people and we have not gotten the same information from any two people. If it's La Paz we will probably head that way by the end of the year.

To our North American friends have a good Turkey Day.