Bahía de Tenacatita
Intermezzo left Barra de Navidad yesterday morning bound for Tenacatita. The original plan was to sail further on to Chamela, but strong headwinds made the shorter trip to Tenacatita a more comfortable option. We’ll depart this afternoon for La Cruz, a 25-hour overnight passage in calm conditions.
Pete (as Pierre-Luc is called by his friends) and Mary arrived in Barra Thursday around noon. After orienting them to the boat (re-orienting in Pete’s case), we had a nice lunch overlooking the laguna. Afterwards I washed the boat while Pete and Mary relaxed at the hotel pool. When they returned, I was filling the port water tank and, for some unknown reason, decided that it needed to be filled faster. I turned the valve to increase flow in the hose which resulted in a bunch of yelling from Pete and Mary, “Steve!, Steve!, Steve!” The increased water pressure had caused the end of the hose to escape from the water tank and end up on the deck, the stream of water aimed precisely into the hatch above Pete’s cabin. I shut the water off pretty quickly but several gallons of water had entered the hatch, thoroughly soaking Pete’s bedding.We spent the next hour drying out the cabin and hanging all the bedding around the boat. Intermezzo looked like the Joad’s truck from the Grapes of Wrath. I felt rather stupid.
Yesterday morning we headed to the fuel dock to top off on diesel before setting out to sea. Fortunately Mexico does not seem to be suffering from the huge increases in fuel prices I’m reading about in the US. We headed out from Barra and motored against 10-15 knot headwinds and light chop. I began Mary’s sailing lessons, familiarizing her with the instruments and controls at the helm station. She seems to be an eager and fast learner who loves boats. She was very happy when encountered several pods of dolphins, always a nice start to a sailing adventure.
Once we rounded Punta el Estrecho, we were able to unroll the jib and sail the rest of the way into the Tenacatita anchorage on a nice reach. We anchored, relaxed on the boat and then took the dinghy to the beach to go running and have an evening margarita. I was missing Robin, remembering the many great days we spent here almost a month ago.
The forecast for our passage to La Cruz is for very calm conditions. Unfortunately, I expect we’ll be motoring the whole way, but at least not bucking against headwinds and seas.
