Well we finally decided to make the whopping ten mile move south to Barra de Navidad. Our last day in Tenacatita proved to be fruitful one. We finally ran into Neil Kelley, Nicole McGuinness' dad. He just drove up to our boat the last day on a dinghy with some of his friends and introduced himself to us. He knew who we were by the hailing port on our ship "Hermosa Beach." He told us he would be in Barra during the same period we were there and that he was looking forward to seeing us and his family over the course of the next month.
The other memorable event about our last night was the dolphins. It got to be about 10:00 p.m. and Phil and I were reading when all of a sudden we heard the noise that boaters never want to hear - our anchor was dragging on the bottom. We could not understand how this was possible since it was a calm night and we had become experts on anchoring in this bay as we had up and moved anchor no fewer than 8 times during the course of our stay for various reasons mentioned in my prior blog. Kelly even jumped out of bed as she was sleeping right under the anchor locker and she too heard the noise. We all ran up on deck - except Ryan - who I'm convinced could sleep on a picket fence, and what did we see in the full moon but a couple of dolhins who were using our anchor chain as a scratching post. They spent the next hour dragging our anchor line with them as they played with each other. From what we heard from some of our neighbors the dolphins weren't just using our anchors as jump ropes. They were moving at least three other boats. They finally settled down about 11:30 - as did we.
Our trip to Barra was uneventful. Which means no one was sick and as further evidence that the kids now had their sea legs, they didn't even bother to come above decks during our transit south. Kelly stayed below and did what she does a lot - read books and Ryan played the DS. We arrived in Barra about 11:30 a.m. and were immediately invited to a dock party by some of the friends we had met in Puerto Vallarta. Annie from S/V Oso Blanco happened to be on the same dock as us as did another family who were from Hollywood Riviera. We ended up with a few kids on our dock which was enough to make Kelly and Ryan happy that they weren't alone.
The food at the dock party was excellent and the marina itself is set in a beautiful location. That said, this Marina has seen better days. It reminded me of Miss Havisham's wedding dress from Great Expectations. I'm sure that when it first opened and was shiny and new it was marvelous but this marina's time, like Miss Havisham's dress, has come and gone. It is now old and yellowing (literally.) The facilities are NOT well maintained and for what you pay and from initial appearances what you expect to get you will be sorely disappointed. However, there are a few positives. The water slide at the pool is to quote the kids "awesome." The quick panga rides across the state line - aka the bay to Barra de Navidad (the marina is actually in Isla de Navidad - a peninsula in the next state of Colima) which go faster than some of the rides at Disneyland and the overall location make it bearable. However the showers and mosquitos are AWFUL here.
Needless to say we were going to stay no matter what because we had lots of company coming from home and more than anything we were all looking forward to seeing familiar faces. So, with that in mind we settled in for a month in Isla de Navidad's Marina.
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