Bahía Chamela
We arrived in Bahía Chamela at sunrise this morning after an overnight sail from La Cruz de Huanacaxtle in relatively calm conditions. We're anchored off the long crescent beach and will spend at least a couple days here swimming, snorkeling, walking, running, reading and, believe it or not, getting some work done. I have a proposal for some business consulting services due today. Not a bad place for working remotely, though.
The wind steadily increased after we rounded Cabo Corrientes and at 7 pm it was blowing a steady 20-23 knots. Time to reef. Since we were sailing almost directly downwind, we furled the jib completely and sailed under just the double-reefed main. As with our landfall in La Cruz, I had to keep boat speed down so as to arrive in Chamela in daylight. Yet, even with just the reefed main, we were moving along at 6 knots, too fast.
Only and hour after the winds got stronger, they began to subside. The main started to backwind when surfing down swells causing the boom to bash about. Not good for sleeping. So we dropped the main, unfurled the jib and continued in this more quiet configuration until the winds died at 11 pm, quite a bit earlier than forecast.
We spent the rest of the passage alternating between sailing very slowly at 2-3 knots and motoring too quickly at 5-6 knots despite running the engine at minimum rpms. I think there must be a southerly current running, given the boat speeds.
Robin was on watch when we arrived at the waypoint for our entry into the bahía at 6:30. I woke up when I heard the waypoint arrival alarm and went up to the helm to find Robin miserably tired and cold. I took over steering while she warmed up in the cabin. It was quite chilly out with a decent land breeze blowing from ahead making it feel ever colder.
It was a beautiful dawn as we entered the anchorage, the sun turning the undersides of the clouds on the horizon a bright orange, the sky and clouds above shades of steely grey, the water a sparkling dark grey. The anchorage is fairly crowded, we had to take a spin around it to find a good spot to drop anchor.
It doesn't seem like much has changed since I first visited here in January 2016 , except that the cellular data service is much better, excellent even. When I read my blog entry for that visit I chuckled as it seems like sailing conditions from La Cruz were very similar, too fast then no wind.
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| Entering Bahía Chamela at dawn |
