Enjoying Tentacatita

Bahía Tentacatita

We sailed from Paraíso to Bahía Tenacatita on Tuesday, February 8 and have been enjoying ourselves in this big calm bay for the past few days. There are lots of boats in the anchorage; we counted 27 yesterday. Fortunately, there is plenty of room and people on the other boats are friendly and quiet, so it doesn't feel crowded at all.

We had a really nice stay in Paraíso. The highlight was snorkeling the rock reef along the north shore of the cove in which we were anchored. There was plenty of healthy coral, forest green and purple, and lots of large colorful reef fish. The water was clear and the surge from the ocean swell made snorkeling along the rocks fun. We would hover over fish and be swept in and out by the surge, the fish below us moving in unison. Even the jellyfish tentacle that wrapped around my arm, stung me and left a big welt, was colorful; bright orange papules spaced along a clear string, like a garland.

As we swam from the reef to the sandy beach at the end of the cove, we passed through huge schools of minnows. Thousands and thousands of little fish. It was like flying through living clouds for a solid ten minutes. I've never swam through that many fish for so long before.

Before we set sail on Tuesday morning, we inflated the kayaks and explored the rugged shoreline and rocky islands outside our cove. We ended our time there with a swim from a tiny private beach.  It was hard to leave such a pretty place.

We had a nice downwind sail to Tenacatita under full main and jib. The wind was around 10 knots when we started out and built to almost 20 by the time we turned towards shore to enter the bahía. I'm really happy to have burned so little diesel since leaving La Paz. We dropped anchor in the middle of the gaggle of other boats, about a quarter mile off the beach.

Yesterday we did boat chores and projects in the morning, then kayaked around the anchorage. Robin practiced her kayak surf entries with, shall we say, "varied results". 

Today we paddled the kayaks about a mile and a half up an estuary to "The Aquarium" beach.  Renée, Marc, Marcy and I had explored this estuary with the dinghjy back in January 2016, shortly after Hurricane Patricia. It was a difficult trip, the estuary clogged with blown mangroves and downed trees. This time, it was a much easier passage and we saw lots of birds- egrets, great herons, not-so-great herons and night herons. The night herons were particularly numerous and would scramble into the mangroves to hide as we approached, scolding us with a chuk-chuk-chuk sound. I really enjoyed paddling through the narrow parts of the estuary, the tree canopy above forming a shady tunnel. 

When we arrived at The Aquarium beach, we had a nice lunch of ceviche, papas fritas and beer at a very rustic beach restaurant and did a bit of swimming before paddling back down the estuary and out to the boat. After cleaning up and resting a bit, we headed back to shore for dinner at the nice little palapa restaurant on shore where they serve a local specialty, rollo de mar, a fish filet rolled around shrimp and vegetables, smothered in an almond cream sauce.

Tomorrow morning we need to make a trip into town, La Manzanilla, to replenish our food supply. It's about a two mile dinghy trip across the bay, requiring landing and taking off through the surf. We'll go early when the waves are smaller and, hopefully, I'll time things better and not soak Robin or our groceries.

Tiny beach in Paraíso cove

Birds on Tenacatita rocks with cruiser fleet anchored beyond

Tentacatita rock formation

Estuary between Bahía Tentacatita and "The Aquarium" beach

Moved On to Paraíso

We left Chamela this morning and motored about 8 nautical miles to the tiny rocky anchorage of Paraíso. We are anchored just off the sandy beach of a boutique hotel, nestled between two rock points. There was one boat when we arrived here, plenty of room. Two more boats have arrived, including a big 50-foot catamaran. It's getting a bit crowded.

We enjoyed our three days in Chamela.

Friday we slept in after our overnight passage from La Cruz, then took the dinghy to visit the small islands in the middle of the bay. Our aim was to go snorkeling, but the visibility was not very good due to all the krill in the water. No wonder there are so many whales about. Still, we enjoyed a picnic on a rocky isolated beach, then a bit more time on a sandy beach with a few daytrippers lounding about.

Saturday we took a long walk along the long crescent beach of the bahía. The beach is over three miles long, fringed with small palapa restaurants, a few modest hotels, a handful of beach campgrounds and an estero lined with mangroves. It was long nice walk on a breezy sunny day. I had run along the beach barefoot the evening before and my feet were well abraded by the sand by the time we sat down at a palapa restaurant for a simple seafood lunch and beers. When we launched the dinghy to return to Intermezzo, I misjudged the surf and shipped a big wave over the bow. Fortunately Robin was there to block the wave from getting me wet.

Sunday we relaxed on the boat and go work done. I did my monthly administrative "paperwork", called my Dad, reviewed my to-do lists.  Robin scrubbed the dinghy and got rid of the sand from the previous day's wave mishap. 

Today's short passage was uneventful, though we did see a couple of whales "commuting" northwards. I'm glad we arrived when we did because I probably would not have stayed if there were as many boats here as there are now. We'll do some snorkeling, swim over to a tiny private beach, maybe inflate the kayaks to explore the rocky islets just outside the anchorage. No complaints.

View from Paraíso anchorage, big catamaran arriving to crowd us

Picnic lunch beach in Bahía Chamela and our trusty dinghy, which I am naming "Intermeccito"

Chamela islet shorelines, our sandy beach stop way off to the left in the distance.

These boobies need tough feet to roost on spiny cacti

Anchored in Bahía Chamela

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.

Entering Bahía Chamela at dawn

Whales, Rounded Cabo Corriente, Fine Sailing

Cabo Corrientes, En Route to Chamela

We weighed anchor off of La Cruz at 0930 and motored away under calm conditions under mostly cloudy skies. There were lots of whales about, so we set about watch them rather than steer our rhumbline course.

I'm not sure what sort of whales were were seeing, but I'm guessing they are humpbacks based on the ones I saw breaching in the distance later. They slowly surfaced in a graceful arc to blow and then take a big breath of air, diving down with their tail flukes in the air.

We saw a large group of whale-watching boats off in the distance and then whales breaching around them, their heads coming out of the water and then re-entering with a great splash. We made our way quickly over to the action but, alas, the whales had done whatever number of breaches they had agreed to with the tour operators and were back to their graceful feeding routine when we got there.

We got back on our course and motored towards Cabo Corriente where around 1500 the wind piped up, we raised the sails and shut down the engine.

It's now 1700 and we've rounded the cape and are sailing nicely on a deep broad reach in 15 knots of wind under full main and jib, loping along at around six knots in a gentle swell. The weather forecast is calling for winds to build a bit until midnight and then steadily fade by morning. We'll probably be motoring the final few hours. I'm estimating our arrival in Chamela at around sunrise.

All is well. Boat is happy. Captain and crew doing well. Boat feels a bit empty without Dan.

Leaving La Cruz

 La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

We've enjoyed four days anchored off La Cruz in lovely weather. Tomorrow we set sail for Chamela, about 96 nautical miles (nm) down the coast.

We enjoyed wandering the streets of the town, a tasty meal at Cevicheria La Cruz, a small seafood restaurant along the main highway, watching the 49'ers playoff game (too bad they lost) and relaxing with good coffee in the Octopus's Garden.

Yesterday afternoon, we took a short bus ride to the neighboring town of Bucerías and relaxed at Adauto's, a beachfront palapa restaurant. We pulled three lounge chairs under an umbrella and enjoyed drinks and snacks. After taking a swim, Robin and I enjoyed a fish filet in white wine sauce dinner while the sun set. (Dan had eaten earlier.) We took the bus back to La Cruz and drove the dinghy back to Intermezzo in the dark. It was a really nice day.

Dan left Intermezzo today, flying to L.A. to visit a friend before heading home. I really enjoyed sailing with him. Though we have known each other for over 30 years, we had never spent this long a time together. I'm glad to know we can coexist happily in close quarters.

Tomorrow's sail should be pretty easy. We need to round Cabo Corrientes (Cape Current) which can sometimes be a bit rough but, after that, it should be smooth downwind sailing in moderate winds. It should take us about 24 hours to get to Chamela. Last time I sailed this route, it was with my friends Marc and Marcie in January 2016.

Looking at the bigger picture, our plan is to get to Barra de Navidad for Robin to fly back home to take care of some family business on February 19.  Barra is only 38 nm from Chamela, so we'll have plenty of time to linger and enjoy time in pretty anchorages along this section of the coast.

Arrived in La Cruz

La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

Intermezzo is safely anchored in La Cruz, captain and crew a bit tired, but happy. It's a hot, sunny day, clear sky to seaward, hazy along the shoreline. The boat is gently rocking on calm waters as we clean up the boat and ourselves.

The second half of our three-day passage was delightful after a tough first half. We sailed almost the whole way after leaving Bahia La Paz and the San Lorenzo Channel. It was one of Intermezzo's highest percentage sailing passages ever. No bashing into headwinds and seas, no becalming. Intermezzo performed well, as did Dan and Robin. Dan now has several night watches under his belt and Robin is getting more confident in making decisions on her watch. I'm very grateful to have had such a great crew for this trip.

Our entry into Bahia Balandra early this morning was exceptional. In the pre-dawn darkness, a planet was perfectly aligned with our course into the bay, shining a guiding, sparkling light on the surface of the water. Then the thinnest crescent moon rose over the mountains ahead, a golden sliver, hanging in the sky ahead like an ornament. Finally the dawn sunlight behind the mountains bathed the sky in a soft yellow-orange glow, a gently changing the night into day. All three sources of light were visible for a bit of time, as if the planet, moon and sun were briefly greeting each other.

We were also treated to three whale sittings as we sailed further into the bay, the whales briefly surfacing before diving again, their tail flukes in the air. A very pleasant welcome, indeed.

We'll have a lazy day today, going into shore this morning, then heading back to the boat for afternoon siestas, I expect. We'll stay anchored here until at least Wednesday. Dan will be leaving the boat and Robin and I will continue southward.

Calmed Down

En route to La Cruz

We just passed the Tres Maria's islands, located about 70 nautical miles northeast of La Cruz. The weather has calmed, a light breeze from the north and a gentle swell. Captain and crew are much happier, glad that 36 hours of strong winds and steep, uncomfortable seas are behind us.

We're reaching under full main and jib, barely making 3 knots. We might need to motor soon, though there is no need to make any great speed or we'll arrive in the La Cruz anchorage in the dark. Better to go slow and arrive after sunrise.

The sky is clear, powdery blue-white on the horizons,light blue overhead, turning the sea into an appropriate Navy blue. As we approach the mainland, the air has turned more humid, a big difference from the dry desert air of Baja. I haven't got a whiff of the musty jungle scent of land yet, as the wind is blowing from the sea. I find that odor to be a welcoming one for a landfall.

I found half a dozen small squid on the deck this morning. They jumped out of the water at the wrong time last night. Surprising that these little four-inch long mollusks can launch themselves more than four feet out of the water to make it over Intermezzo's gunwales. I thought about cleaning them and having them for breakfast, but was too lazy to recall how to clean squid. Had eggs instead. Squids returned to the sea with brief moment of silence.

Intermezzo has behaved very well, so far. Nothing has broken, knock wood. Looks like we have a small leak from a broken hose clamp for the water maker intake, but that will be an easy repair. Meanwhile, we'll close the seacock when we're not running the water maker.

I'm going to time our arrival in La Cruz for between 0700 and 1000 tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to a lazy day and a restful night in these calm conditions.