Getting the lay of the land in and around Barra - February 2010

After settling in and finding our where the pools were it was time to focus on the immediate needs of clean laundry and food acquisition.  I was lucky enough to be invited by Annie from Oso Blanco  to accompany her and Nicole from Ohana on a shopping expedition to Melaque, the next town over.  Annie has a car here in Colima so the short trip over the boarder back into Jalisco and the town of Melaque was a simple matter of loading ourselves into the car and making the short 20 minute trip.  I would come to find that with no car, the trip requires you to take a panga (aka water taxi) to Barra and then you can either walk up the beach to Melaque (which I did do) which takes 40 minutes or you can take a cab to Melaque from the water taxi stop in Barra (for 50 pesos ($4.25 roughly).  Then you have to get everything you buy back to the boat.  Trust me going in the car was a DREAM come true.

Laundry on the other hand required a walk into the town of Colimilla. It's not a far walk - about 1/2 mile - but it is all up hill and I do mean a "HILL."  Who knew two little kids laundry could weigh so much but when you've been out at achor for three weeks and every bath towel, sheet and dish towel is dirty I will tell you carrying those bags up hill in 85 degree heat and high humidity is not for the faint of heart.  In any event we managed to get our "chores" done in a couple of days.

The marina itself is not all that large.  Small in comparison to Nuevo Vallarta's Paradise Village.

A picture of the Marina as taken from the sixth floor of the neighboring hotel.  You can see the lagoon in the background.  This is where many of the sailboats anchor to avoid paying the pricey slip fees in the marina.

Here is a shot of Sabbatical taken from the sixth floor lobby of the hotel.

If you look across the bay a little to the north you can see the town of Barra de Navidad located in the neighboring state of Jalisco. 

That little waterway you see is the boarder between the two states.  It takes less than 3 minutes by panga to cross that bay.

As I mentioned the grounds of the marina and hotel have 3 pools.  One pool is just too hard to get to as you have to cross several bridges and take several different elevators just to get there.  I think they did this on purpose to insure that the kids stay in the slide pool and allow this pool for those truly seeking a relaxing - quiet - vacation.  The second pool is a kid friendly pool on the 1st floor which for lack of any other reason as it has to compete with the slide is just not that popular.  You'd think more families would camp out here as it has this great dolphin mosaic but the kids thought it was boring.  Kelly and our friends Caitlin and Colin Beale did at least venture to get wet in it one day.

The main attraction is the big pool which not only has two slides and a hot tub but also has what my kids loved which was a swim up bar where you could sit and have your nachos and drinks. 

From the day we arrived Ryan had his heart set on sitting at the pool bar and having lunch so when we finally obliged his wish and let him order food and sit and eat it at the swim up bar he found that it was all he could do to keep from freezing in the water while trying to eat his lunch.  His lips were blue by the time he was done but he could at least say that he had done it.

Nachos are good no matter where you eat them - or how cold you are!

Now all we have to do is wait for Kelly's birthday celebration and for our friends to arrive. 

Kelly and Ryan outside the front door of the Wyndham Hotel in Isla de Navidad.

Bye-Bye Tenacatita - Hello Barra de Navidad - January 29, 2010

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.

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!.

One of the picturess of Tenacatita Bay - up near the wall - where you can see the water is "flat"
 
 

The view looking back toward the shore where the "jungle cruise" starts
 

The "pink palace" hotel that sits at the opposite end of the beach from the start of the jungle cruise.

 
We will definitely come back to this place!!!

Chemela - January 12-17, 2010

After leaving Yelapa late in the day on January 11, 2010, we headed for Chamela.  This meant that we had to do another overnight sail.  This sail was different from the other overnighters in that we were sailing parallel to the coast but.... this part of the coast is pretty uninhabited which means no lights on shore to guide us.  To make matters worse, there were no stars or moon so it was VERRRRRy dark.  I was pretty "creeped out" and I must admit I made one of my big bloopers during my watch.  When I got up at 5 o'clock to take over, (where we are the sun does not come up til 7:15), it was dark and there was wind.  About 45 minutes later the sails started flopping around and I took them in and started the engine.  Unfortunately I neglected to put the boat in gear.  So while the engine was running we weren't going anywhere.  After about twenty minutes I noticed that we were literally going no where.  The chart plotter said we weren't moving and the time to our planned destination had gone blank.  I woke Phil up in a panic thinking I had run over some long lines and tangled the prop.  He opened one eye and asked me if I had put the boat in gear when I had turned on the engine.  Feeling pretty dumb I admitted I hadn't.  He rolled over and went back to sleep.  I went back to my watch feeling pretty foolish and praying that the sun would hurry up and come out.

We arrived in Chemela about 11:30 a.m.  We anchored up in the north west corner of the bay and started setting up to be in this anchorage for a while.  Chemela turned out to be a great stop. We fished.

Phil getting ready to thow back one of the many fish we caught that we could not eat.  This is a puffer.


We snorkeled. We played on the beach and swam every day (yeah, the water is still 80 degrees, so we know the El Norte's are still hatin' us).

 We wandered through town and bought veggies, fruit and tortillas.

This is main street Chemela on Saturday afternoon.  As you can see it is not a very busy place.

We ate in the palapas we found on shore.  The fish is pretty good here.

We talked to ex-pats living in houses right on the beach, or in palapas built to cover their gigante RV's. We had neighbors over for dinner.  No need for cars here.  Claudia and Bill are on a boat named of all things - Sabbatical - same as our name.  It has caused lots of confusion and sometimes fun for us in some of the anchorages.  We have started referring to our boat as Sabbatical - con ninos and they have started calling themselves Sabbatical - Verde (since their boat is green - dubbed such by Sophie on Liberty).    They actually have the right to the name since Bill really is on sabbatical from his teaching duties at UC Irivine.

We even had a brief storm pass over us and leave rainbows behind. It stopped our school lessons one morning - giving us a pleasant diversion from fractions and decimals.  It's somewhat hard to see in these pictures but at 10:00 a.m. the sky was black and the rain was pouring down.  Little did we know that this would be NOTHING compared to what we would see in Barra.

Our friends still up in Puerto Vallarta had a much rougher time: rain, winds, and water spouts. Ugh! That doesn't sound like much fun! It is a lot more fun watching rain from the comfort of the cockpit.

Some of the highlights of time in Chemela were 1) Kelly lost her first molar and the tooth fairy brought her 50 pesos (about 4 bucks); 2) We had these crazy dolphins rub their bodies along our anchor chain half scaring us to death one night that our anchor was dragging: 3) we had a whale pass right by our boat that I would have missed if Bill from Sabbatical - Verde  had not shouted at me to look up (I was cleaning the cockpit at the time); 4) I got dumped out of the dinghy trying to get back to the boat one day - I can laugh about it now but my ego was bruised at the time; and 5) best of all was watching the baby dolphin (it was about two feet long) trying to get over to see our boat while it's mother kept trying to stir it away from our boat and the whole time the small dolphin kept trying to jump over its mom's back to get to our boat where our kids were making a lot of noise.  Goes to show you that kids will be kids no matter what the species.

We spent a sweet 5 days in Chemela.  The rest of this is taken from an e-mail Phil sent out after our stay in Chemela.  He worte "It's more what I hoped Mexico would be like - a beautiful bay and a nice small town with awesome scenery. There are several mountain ranges that ring the bay. Photographers and painters would have a field day capturing the late afternoon light. The only downside has been the swell. We're tucked into the preferred anchorage in the NW corner, but the swell always seems to finds its way in here around Punta Rivas. We're quite a distance from shore, but even the boats closer in are rocking and rolling. With all the rocking, I've heard squeaks and noises I've never heard from the boat before. The swell is not all the large (most of the time), but it's fairly constant. You do get used to it after a while, and it might even help the crew get their sea legs."  It definitely did.  By the time we left Chemela no one was sick any more.  We can now sleep with the boat pitching and rocking any old way.

We left Chemela on Sunday, January 17th, heading for Tenacatita.  During the six hour short hop down the coast we saw over a dozen sea turtles - the full grown kind.  We also saw some of the most brightly painted homes we have ever seen in some of the beach towns that populate this part of the Mexican coast.  One of the homes even had its own golf course.

Yelapa - January 11, 2010

After 3 days on the hook in rocky La Cruz, we headed across the bay for a short 3 hour sail into Yelapa.  If you didn't pay attention to the maps you would miss this place completely.  On the way across the bay we were treated to quite a show by a pod of whales.  We saw three what I characterized as very angry whales who were flopping their tails against the water in an attempt to get three large whale watching boats - literally off their backs.  Kelly told me that it was just three mother whales communicating with their calves.  It sure did not look like happy mother's from where I sat on our boat.

Ryan getting friendly with one of the locals

We got into Yelapa at about 11 a.m. and picked up one of the few moorings they have their.  A restuarant owner with a panga happily picked us up on our boat and deposit us on the shore in front of his palapa eatery.  We obliged and had a great meal and the kids did some swimming on shore.

While we sat there, we watched our boat bobbing like a cork on the mooring and made the decision to set sail at about 5 o'clock and head for Chemela which would get us into that anchorage sometime around noon the next day.

In the meantime we had some time to kill so we decided to walk to the local waterfall that we had heard so much about.  Yelapa is a town built into the side of the mountain.  Terrain better fitting sure footed goats and mules than people.  The town is perched on the hillside with circuitous paths where people haveconstructed homes where gravity and technology are waging a battle to see what will stay up and it is not always clear who is winning.

We hiked through town and after about a 700 foot elevation gain in less then 1/2 mile we made it to the waterfall.

Believe it or not but this is Kelly under the fresh waterfall

Kelly and Ryan were both brave enough to get in the frigid water but Ryan was a little less enthusiastic about actually "playing" in the water.

I think this face says it all.

On the way back down we walked through town.  If you can call it a town.  This picture of Kelly lets you see just how big this place is.

Kelly and I stopped in to check out the small Catholic Church that is not too far from the waterfall.  It is in terrible shape but even so, the local folks have done a great job of  making what they have beautiful.

Check out the water damage on the ceiling of the building.

We headed back down the mountain to our boat, a glimpse of which we caught from the hillside.

Sabbatical is the one in the background

We headed back to the boat, ate some soup and then got ready to set sail to Chemela.  For me the trip was one of the toughest in that we had no stars or moon to guide us and the land between Yelapa and Chemela is sparsely populated with very little lighting from shore, so needless to say it was a very dark ride down the coast.

On the anchor in La Cruz

Well we left Puerto Vallarta on January 8th, and the safety of the Marina to start our real adventure of anchoring our way around Mexico.  Our first destination was La Cruz.  A place we stopped for one night before going into Puerto Vallarta. 
La Cruz is pretty cool. Well, except for the swell that seems to plague the anchorage. The initial swell is not that bad, but the reflected waves from the beach tend to mix things up a bit. Oh well, at least the price is right to anchor here, aka "free". It's better in the marina, but they still get some surge wrapping around the breakwater. We saw quite a few boats with extra spring lines.

After a little fishing and morning swim call (yeah, the water is still "only" 80 degrees and we know we're not getting any sympathy from our friends up in El Norte.), we spent the last two afternoons wandering around the town. It's definitely more of a small Mexican town than Puerto Vallarta, that's for sure. The old plaza is right out of central casting, complete with the requisite band shell in the middle of the park. The street signs (when you can find them) are enameled or hand-painted. There's a fair bit of construction, both commercial and residential, but it's not clear whether many of the projects will ever be completed. Some of them look like they haven't been touched in years. It's definitely a town of contrasts. Some of the homes are beautiful - they have small private gardens, amazing tropical flowers, and the wrought iron work that you only see in movies. Others buildings are falling down because the cement is crumbling and the chickens wander into the street. A block or two off the main road through town you'll find a few cobblestone streets, but a block or two beyond that and you're as likely to find mud roads. They finished the new marina last year, but there are still a lot of empty slips. Even though they have empty slips, they still haven't lowered the prices. Go figure. There are condos around the edges of town, so I suppose it's only a matter of time before some of the old homes disappear. La Cruz is on the road between Puerto Vallarta and the resorts at Punta Mita, so the town is getting squeezed on both sides.

We also visited one of the world's great crusier hangouts - Philo's - a combination restaurant, bar and recording studio. Philo is a great guy and rides his motorcycle into the restaurant to park it. He caters to the cruisers and the music crowd. They have live music most every night. And the food is pretty good too! Where else can you get a "Mexicana" pizza (complete with chorizo sausage and jalapenos) or a cheeseburger while watching American football via a Canadian satellite feed, all the while accessing the Internet through free WiFi, and then play a game of pool. No wonder the place is legendary. You can spend days in there.

Nothing against Philo's, though, but that would be a shame because there are other great places here. Banana Annie's is another music joint with live music, an open mike on Sunday afternoons, and standing room only after 5 PM. There were a lot of aging American and Canadian ex-pats wandering in with their guitars. (Note to self - if/when you start to go bald, shave it off like Lawn Boy. Admit the truth and do NOT grow a stringy gray ponytail.) Although we didn't get to it, we hear that Ernesto's Great Grub is worth the walk to get there. I guess that will have to wait for the next trip. And don't forget to try the local ice cream treats. Even with my mangled Spanglish, I managed to order frozen strawberries and cream that was amazing.

We ended up having to get fuel at the new marina when we topped off our tank, then we set off across Banderas Bay to Yelapa. The cove looks beautiful, but the anchorage is reported to be so-so. We'll see what it looks like before we drop the hook. If there's no room, we'll just continue around the corner (Cabo Corrientes) and aim for Ipala or Chamela. If we end up heading for Chamela, it'll be about 90 miles to get there.

(Note to reader's of the blog - most of this posting was lifted from an e-mail that Phil composed and sent to his loyal followers.)

Next Stop Yelapa.


- Phil

Made it to Barra

Well we are finally back in civilization.  That means we are hooked up to the wifi, can get our clothes washed, take real showers - instead of the sun showers we've been enjoying for the last month and walk to a store and buy what we need instead of having to take a 40 minute dinghy ride to get food.  I'll be updating the blog for what we've done over the last month so stick with me while I try to catch everyone up.