S/V AEOLI: Recap: Bahia de Banderas to Bahia de Manzanillo (w/pics and vids!)

After returning from Mexico City to the boat at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta, we enjoyed some of the sights around Puerto Vallarta, in addition to simply enjoying Paradise.

Visit to the La Cruz Marina

Excellent al pastor tacos in Zona Romantica

Malecon

Breakfast at La Hacienda

Mercado Municipal Rio Cuale

Dinner at Encore in Bucerias

Ah, Paradise...

At the beach with the Campbells from Greenfield, IN, longtime friends of the Negilskis

On 1 February, we finally departed from Banderas Bay and headed south to explore the Costalegre (happy coast). We made a quick overnight stop at Yelapa and thoroughly enjoyed this unique fishing village turned tourist destination. The town has no road access by car or truck, with most people arriving by boat. We took a mooring buoy overnight (200 pesos), and even though the weather was extremely calm, we did have a somewhat rolly night. It was worth the visit as we were able to hike to both waterfalls, and have a relaxing beach day in a palapa. The hike to the further waterfall was an interesting trek through the outskirts of town, and the dip in the waterfall pool was very refreshing.

Surf landing in a panga...

The turnoff from the main trail to the falls is through this square

After an uneventful overnight passage from Yelapa, we arrived at Bahia Tenacatita on 3 February. Tenacatita is definitely an anchorage that a cruiser could spend a lot of time in: clear and warm water, a nice stretch of beach for walking or lounging, a reasonable palapa restaurant, La Manzanilla nearby for provisioning, miles of estuary for exploring, and a well-established and active community of cruisers. Highlights of our visit included releasing baby sea turtles, the Mayor’s Raft-up, and meeting our new friends from Lungta. Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to reach ‘The Aquarium’ at Playa Tenacatita via the estuary from Bahia Tenacatita, due to land ownership disputes. We literally had to force ourselves to leave so that we would have time to explore the rest of the coast, and would have happily stayed another week.

Rollo del mar at La Manzanilla

La Manzanilla

Cocodrilario at La Manzanilla

Estuary tour

Mayor's Raft-up

S/V Lungta

From Tenacatita we had a nice broad reach day sail down to Las Hadas in Bahia de Manzanillo on 8 February. The architecture of the Las Hadas resort certainly imparts the feeling of cruising in the Mediterranean (at least in our minds), but the late night noise of a wedding reception and the day time noise of construction does not make for a peaceful anchorage. We did pay the steep daily use fee (200 pesos) to use the dinghy dock and pool at Las Hadas, and it was indeed a spectacular pool.

After a few nights at Las Hadas, we headed back north and anchored in the lagoon at Barra de Navidad. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that the fuel dock there has free showers for those in the anchorage. We spent a lovely day in town with Dan and Kathy from Lungta, who had discovered that cruisers are able to use the pool at the Cabo Blanco hotel while enjoying food and drinks. We had an amazing breakfast of croissants on the boat after a visit from the French Baker (who delivers fresh French pastries to the boats in the marina and anchorage every day except Wednesdays!). We also had our first running aground incident departing the anchorage, distracted from cleaning the mud off the chain and anchor. Thanks to Matt’s quick thinking, we were able to row the anchor out into deeper water and use the windlass to leverage ourselves out of the mud before the decreasing tides worsened the situation.

The French Baker

Matt working on the outboard carburetor

After getting out of the mud (and hoisting our dinghy aboard while motoring through the bay!), we motored up to Bahia Chamela and anchored in time to have a lovely Valentine’s Day dinner. The next morning we swam to shore, had a tasty lunch at the Restaurant Familiar Becerra palapa, and took a nice stroll along the extensive beach. We departed for our overnight around Cabo Corrientes at 4PM on 15 February.

Getting around Cabo Corrientes from the south can be an uncomfortable passage depending on the weather conditions, due to cape effects. We chose a seemingly appropriate weather window, but it was definitely a slog of upwind motor sailing, taking us 27 hours to travel 105 nm. Fortunately we arrived at La Cruz just before dusk with enough daylight to navigate through the very crowded anchorage and get our anchor down. We moved into a slip at the La Cruz marina the next morning to get ourselves and the boat cleaned-up and provisioned, and to enjoy the vibrant cruiser community.