La Cruz to Manzanillo
This picture is a view of Banderas Bay from Bucerias, a city south of La Cruz.
Arrived back to La Cruz on January 30th after a 6 week trip to Minneapolis and Vancouver. We spent a snowy and cold week over Christmas visiting family and friends in Minneapolis, then headed back home to Vancouver for 5 weeks to work and see more family and friends. It was unseasonably snowy in Vancouver when we first arrived back and then turned wet and grey, more typical January weather. We did manage to ski three days in Whistler which was very much enjoyed with decent conditions.
Its still warm in Mexico, but not quite as hot as when we left in December. The highs are in the 80's during the day, but it cools off nice in the evening. Perfect. We kicked off our return with dinner and margaritas with our friends Rob and Deanna on Bella Luna who were still in La Cruz. Then we spent a few days provisioning, getting ready for our voyage down the Pacific Coast of Mexico. We purchased Mahi-Mahi and shrimp from the fresh fish market at our marina. The fisherman bring the fresh fish to the market from their overnight excursions every morning. Fun to buy fish that just came out of the water a few hours prior! After two days of preparations, we left on February 4th for Tenacatita...first stop on our way down.
Our first night back in La Cruz with Rob, Deanna and Monica
A wonderful margarita at Margarita's on the Hill, La Cruz
Bahia Tenacatita is a wonderful anchorage 122 NM south of La Cruz. Beautiful white sand beaches and two miles of lush mangroves that are accessible by dinghy. We did the cruise upon arrival and saw some interesting vegetation and birds. The estuary ends in the small town of Tenacatita, near a beach with palapa restaurants and locals hanging out. It was really neat. Back at the anchorage was a long sandy beach with crashing waves, and a resort at the far end. It was a busy anchorage with at least 30 boats, mainly sailboats but a few power boats as well. Generally speaking anchorages, versus marinas, have more sailboats as they tend to be more transient. It is fun to see where they are all from with their hailing ports on the back. People from all over the US and Canada (and around the world) are cruising the Pacific!
The next day we headed to Barra de Navidad, only 13 NM further down the coast. This quaint little town is very charming and fun. To enter we had to cross a bar, which is the entrance of a river into the ocean. This makes for unstable waters due to water coming out into the ocean and tides going into the river. This one wasn't too bad, we got in safely and without much trouble. But we have some more difficult ones ahead of us in Central America (stay tuned). The marina here is part of a resort. We were here last fall for some seminars held by a group we belong to called the Panama Posse. The town of Barra is across a lagoon, accessible by water taxis (pangas) for 50 pesos/person round trip.There are shops and restaurants in town. We ate at Bob's Treehouse restaurant one night, and a art gallery/restaurant/tequila bar called Barra Galeria del Arte. It was a home transformed into a restaurant with the owners photography, live music, tequila and ok food. It was very fun!
Barra de Navidad marina & resort
The water taxi dock! The town of Barra across the lagoon
Barra Galeria del Arte
Marina guest get access to the resort so we did spend time at the pool. The grounds were beautiful, lots of acreage to walk or run. We utilized the French Baker again (see previous post) and purchased quiche, coffee, wine, and croissants! We enjoyed our three nights at this beautiful place but we needed to head out early on February 8th to get to Ensenada Carrizal, about 20 NM south.
Darryn reading by the pool at the Barra Resort
Melaque is a neighboring town, a quick taxi ride from Barra. We headed over to explore and found it very fun and interesting. There were quite a few Gringos in this town, but we can understand why as it is cute and inviting and right on the beach. We had a nice lunch on the beach, bought some jewelry from a few vendors, and strolled around taking in the town. They had a great provisioning store called The Hawaii Store. We always get excited when we can find places to buy fresh produce and other staples.
The Hawaii Store in Melaque
Murf and I waiting for a taxi in Melaque
Ensenada Carrizal is just north of Manzanillo. It is a gorgeous anchorage with volcanic rock surrounding it and has great snorkeling. We dove off the boat and swam to a area with abundant coral and brightly colored fish. We saw moorish idols, angel fish, damsel fish, surgeon fish and guineafowl puffer fish. This last one is a blue puffer fish with white dots. It was pretty cool to see!
Early evening a gray whale and its offspring came swimming into our anchorage and swam right between our boat and the boat next to us! It was amazing! Grey whales can be 14 meters and this one was BIG! They swam around the anchorage for about 30 minutes. It was such a sight to see!
The grey whale and her offspring right next to our boat!
The following day we left for Manzanillo. We anchored out from a small marina and the Las Hadas Resort, where the move "Ten" was filmed. There were only a few boats anchored, one of which was someone we had met through our Panama Posse group(small world). The rocky hillside not only has the Las Hadas but some beautiful homes as well. The quiet marina had some ocean view restaurants and we ate at an Italian one our first night. We swam right off our boat to the Resort beach, kayaked around the anchorage, and enjoyed the sound of the crashing waves at night. One day we took a taxi into the town of Manzanillo to go to the market and have lunch. The market was two stories and had many produce stalls and other goods. We stocked up on vegetables (still hard to find lettuce). The town didn't have many tourists, it was busy with locals. I was a bit surprised at this, as I have heard of Manzanillo and thought it was a bigger tourist attraction. What is it known for is its shipping port. It is one of the largest port cities in the world. As we drove past it went on and on, with so many containers and cranes!
The next day we went into Santiago, which is a town that is part of Manzanillo Bay. Again mainly locals but we did see a few more gringos. We had a delicious breakfast at Juanitas, having chiliqiuas, jerk beef and eggs.
Our final night we went to a restaurant in a neighboring resort that specializes in blackberry margaritas. Well as luck would have it, they were out of blackberries the night we went. So we tried Tamarindo margaritas instead. What are tamarinds? A Mexican fruit from the pod of a Tamarind Tree. The tree is native of Africa but grows in tropical climates. The fruit looks like a large curved bean pod with the brown fruit inside. The fruit is not very sweet which is why we liked the margarita. Anyhow, it was interesting to learn about a new fruit! We ate at a marina restaurant on the water, the owner looked like Robert Dinero. He even spoke like him. It was a nice peaceful last night in a town we thoroughly enjoyed!
Tamarindo Margaritas
Can you see Curandera in the background?
Early morning tomorrow...off to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo! 181 NM south which will take about 32 hours (one overnight). See you then!