February 7-22, 2014
We escaped Banderas Bay to do a little bit of cruising south before heading back up to do final preparations for crossing the Pacific.
Costalegre is a stretch of the Mexican mainland coastline from Cabo Corrientes (the southern tip of Banderas Bay) to Punta Campos (the southern tip of Bahia de Manzanillo). It literally translates to “happy coast” and it is also commonly referred to as the “Gold Coast.” Although we didn’t get as far south as we would have like, we really enjoyed the anchorages we were able to visit.
We left Punta de Mita on Friday, 7 Feb and had a great overnight sail to Bahia Chamela. We started on a light spinnaker run out of Banderas Bay and by the time we were rounding Cabo Corrientes we were flying along at 8 kts. We had that kind of speed until we dropped the spinnaker in the evening, just because it was getting dark. Of course, eventually the wind died and we limped along most of the night at about 2-3 kts, but it worked out fine since we approached the bay just as the sun was coming up. The boys caught a lot of fish on passage, and after 3 Jack Crevalles and 4 Skipjacks we were all a bit discouraged, but then they landed a Bonita late in the evening and we all had a nice sashimi snack.
Bahia Chamela is a large bay, and the main anchorage is tucked up with excellent protection from all directions but the south, but there was a little wraparound swell entering the bay. We’ve gotten used the the rollier anchorages on the mainland. Gone are the days when the anchorages were flat as glass, and you could pick from the plethera of anchorages around for one that had protection that matched the weather forecast. Chamela has a beautiful white sand beach with palapas dotting the shoreline, not unlike Chacala, but we never actually went ashore. We just wanted to “relax on the boat.” Another feature of Chamela are the many very small islands that are scattered throughout the large bay, and a couple provide an anchoring opportunity, so we took advantage and anchored off of a small beach on the northwest side of Isla Cocinas. This was a spectacular location, and where I got to spend my “39th” birthday. While there we made a dinghy day trip around to the other side of the small island and hung out at yet another beautiful little beach. We all snorkeled, and the boys even went out around the outside of the island to try some spearfishing. The novelty was an area where the water funneled in from the ocean side around the rocks and made a washing machine environment that the boys never got tired of playing in.
Our next move was a day passage down to the next major bay called Bahia Tenacatita, which has many possible anchoring locations. This is a major cruiser hangout, in fact they even have a daily VHF net like in La Paz, Puerto Escondido, and Banderas Bay. We started at the west most anchorage around the first point into the bay that is billed as having fantastic snorkeling, in fact it’s even called “The Aquarium” in the guidebook. It was here that Brenden started getting sick, so he and I didn’t snorkel, but Tim and Alex said it was nothing special. We were pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Fluenta, one of our buddy kid boats, so Alex spent a fair amount of time over there while Brenden was working through his illness. We ended up moving across the bay to anchor off the town of La Manzanilla for one night, in order to take Brenden to the doctor, and after that we headed for the main anchorage in Tenacatita where there were about 20 other boats anchored. We hung out there with Fluenta for a few more days, and then motor sailed north to a small anchorage between Tenacatita and Chamela called Bahia Careyes. We did a little bit of snorkeling when we got there, but again nothing special, since there was a lot of churn and the visibility was poor. The next morning we had another short passage to Bahia Paraiso, another small anchorage just south of Chamela. We were the only boat there, so we had plenty of room, but we chose to stern anchor anyway in order to keep our bow pointed at the swell. Here Tim and I did a fair amount of paddle boarding. We also noticed the weather was starting to turn warmer again, I guess winter was coming to a close. Cold showers in the evening were once again the norm. On Friday, 21 Feb, we had a horrendous overnight passage back to La Cruz, bashing against the wind under motor the whole way. But our arrival and reunion with Lady Carolina was heartfelt, and it was time to get down to the serious business of final preparations for the Pacific crossing.
Gresham Family Exodus 