BAJA HOPPERS: Two Weeks in Tenacatita til January 29th

The trip down the coast from Chamela was beautiful. We had to deal with headwinds again to go south in the early morning, but the normal land and sea breezes built during the late morning and afternoon, and we ended up with a nice beam reach in 5-10 knots of breeze. The air was warm, and the sky was blue with big, puffy clouds . . . Ahh, this is what we signed up for. (This was taken from one of Phil's e-mails).

Along the way, there are huge stretches of empty beaches and palm trees, then little clusters of mansions scattered about. I don't know who is the architect, but there are a number of mansions that are built like castles - lots of turrets and ornate construction. One had a bridge into the property shaped like a full-on drawbridge. We even saw a structure that can only be described as the bottom half of a sphere. It had multiple stories and who knows if it was complete. Maybe the guys from Epcot Center live there. There are also a few nice-looking, smaller resorts. Highway 200 runs parallel to the coast here and apparently is how everyone gets to these remote sites.

Careyes was as beautiful as the guidebooks foretold (colorful homes on the hillsides, gorgeous topical flowers, snug little anchorages), but the kids were dying to go on the Tenacatita jungle cruise, so you can guess what happened - the Cap'n got out-voted! The good news is that it's only 10 miles from Chamela to Careyes, then another 25 miles to Tenacatita. Compared to some of the other passages we've had, this was a piece o' cake.

Entering Tenacatita is straightforward - just leave extra room around the rocks guarding the entrance. And, if you're going to anchor back by the jungle cruise river, be sure to keep Roca Central well to port. Anchoring was easy in 25-35' in sand right along the beach.

T Bay is very popular. The morning VHF radio net is more civilized here - it doesn't even start until 9 AM, and often is over in 15-20 minutes. People stay for weeks at a time, or use it as a place to escape Barra de Navidad for a few days before heading back to that mega-resort another 10 miles down the coast. Our friends on a large trawler shall remain nameless - they left Barra for the day because they couldn't get a decent DirecTV signal to watch football games. It was pretty entertaining watching them drive all over the bay looking for a signal. Then they headed back to Barra to make the 5 PM yoga class. I tell you, it's rough out here...

We had "kid day at the beach" yesterday since we have 4 or 5 kid boats here, with a dozen or so kids. All the squirt guns and water weapons were deployed while the big kids sat around and BS'd.

This picture was taken by PJ Baker on board S/V Capaz. The Baker's (along with sons' Bryce and Austin - the 4th and 5th from the right) are heading for the South Pacific this spring.

The kids had a GREAT day torturing each other in the surf.

We've got a a pretty good split of folks that are on a six-month cycle like us, some that are going to Puddle Jump this year, and others that are puddle jumping next season and will store their boats for the summer. Apparently the big topic of discussion with the puddle jumpers is whether to go to the Galapagos first, or to the Marquesas.

We did the jungle tour this morning with several of the other families that are anchored in the bay. We timed it to hit high tide.

It starts out pretty wide and narrows to ...

It takes 45 minutes to get through the jungle cruise. The mangroves are huge, with roots from branches reaching down 10-12' to find the water. Unfortunately, high tide was around 10 AM this morning, so most of the wildlife was well hidden. We saw a few birds and plenty of red, salt-water crabs, but nothing else. We'll try again if we can get an earlier high tide. Interestingly enough, even though the Tenacatita jungle cruise gets all the press, most everyone agreed that the jungle tours behind Paradise Village Marina or in San Blas were better. Maybe it's just that we saw lots more wildlife in those other spots.

You emerge in a lagoon and when you park the dinghy and walk across the road you are on the most beautiful beach that has a number of palapas from which you can choose lunch and libations. The town at the end of the jungle cruise is also the only place to buy food, so needless to say we had to make the trek a few times in order to replenish supplies. The one store in town is bears no resemblence to the local 7-11 or Vons. This small tienda has to outfit all the boaters, condo dwellers and RV owners for several miles. The woman who runs the store gets vegetables on Thursday, cheese on Saturday and meat on Monday. Trust me by Tuesday you won't want the few vegetables she has left in the store.

All in all, Tenacatita is a very popular anchorage. Some folks spend months here. They even elect an honorary Mayor for the fleet. His Honor stopped by our boat today to welcome us to the anchorage and to tell us about the weekly "Mayor's Night Out." Everyone is invited to dinghy over at 5 PM to "Good Dog Beach" where they raft-up together and share drinks, appetizers, and whatever else the Mayor feels like doing. Tonight was Talent Night, so folks took turns telling stories, jokes, playing musical instruments, singing, and providing other forms of entertainment. It sounded like fun, but would have been boring as can be for kids to sit in the dinghies for an hour, so we ended up having our own happy hour on another kid boat. Much as we would have liked to participate in the festivities, we figured the rest of the fleet probably wouldn't appreciate a half-dozen kids asking, "Can we go back to our boat now?" just as the entertainment was delivering their punch-lines.

The Z-Town Sail Fest (cruiser fund-raiser for local schools and orphans) is early next month, so people are starting to migrate south. Although our weather was not as bad as it was in SoCal, a number of south-bound boats got spanked yesterday with 20-30 knot winds as they passed Cabo Corrientes and came in here. A couple that left here came back and waited until things calmed down a bit this morning before trying again. The winds are supposed to calm down by Sunday, so we're going to hang here until next week before we head to Barra de Navidad. We had a bit of swell curl in from the ocean the last few days as the weather has built, so we moved to a calmer part of the anchorage and are tucked up against a little hillside. That gets us out of the reflected waves so, hopefully, everyone will sleep a little better tonight.

We anchored in as many as 7 places in the bay (some necessitated by harbor cruises (aka we have to empty the holding tank), weather conditions and proximity to other kid boats) while we were here, and each anchorage has had excellent holding in sand. But, even good holding can't help you if your anchor doesn't hold. We had a 45' catamaran foul its anchors and drag out of the anchorage yesterday, heading for the town across the bay. The single-hander had just landed his rowing dinghy ashore and joined in the daily bocce ball game when he noticed that his boat wasn't where he left it. Opps! Luckily, one of the other boats noticed it drifting through the anchorage and put out a radio call. Phil and two other neighbors put their dinghies in the water and responded. Phil always wanted to sail a big cat but I don't think this is what he had in mind. The owner never would have caught it with his rowing dinghy, so he was quite happy to see them on board. He lost one of his anchors in the process, but at least he didn't lose his boat. The best we can figure, his CQR might not have set properly and the boat sailed around in the wind or current, wrapping the other chain around the stock of his huge, Fortress anchor. When Phil and the others who responded pulled it up, the chain was wrapped around the stock at least 3 times. He anchors by the stern because the boat tends to sail at anchor when anchored from the bow, but apparently it drifts just fine whether facing forwards or backwards. I guess the lesson is: either wind or current can mess up our anchoring!

We just kept staying in Tenacatita to let the kids play with their buddies on the other kids boats. Well, that and catch-up on their school work. And the Cap'n is going to do some more fishing. We all caught fish in Tenacatita.

Some were better looking than others but we tossed 'em all back. The puffer fish were fun, but they weren't the guys that chewed up my lure. That took somebody with some big, sharp teeth. We've seen some nice dorado swimming around, so I'm hoping to hook one of them. They're great eating and I'm going to try and re-create a meal we had at one of the palapas: filet papillion. It's a fresh fillet stuffed with shrimp and veggies, then cooked in foil. Yum!!! OK, now I've made myself hungry. Where are those chocolate-covered raisins?

Tenacatita was by far our favorite spot so far. The bay is beautiful. The snorkeling is great and there always seems to be enough kid boats there to keep everyone happy. We found lots of shells.

This was all that Kelly found

Kelly got to hang out with some kids that taught her to get up on a wave board. She also spent some quality time working on her dive off the boat.

The kids spent the day kayaking and fishing off the back of the boat.

Kelly also agreed to be the "net controller" one morning. That required here to moderate all the traffic on the 9:00 a.m. Gold Coast Cruisers Net that keeps people in the know between Tenacatita in the North and Barra de Navidad in the South. She did a great job and was quite happy when all the adults she met for the next week congratulated her on her stint as net conroller. There is a career in broadcast news for her!.