We spent the night anchored in Tenacatita and then the next day, after doing the jungle ride, in a panga because the outboard wouldn’t start, we upped anchor and headed down the coast 15 miles to Barra de Navidad.
I remembered where the channel through the lagoon was from my time here last year, so we found a spot in the anchorage with no problems. Only 12 boats were there before me. It gets crowded with 45 not being unusual during the season, and somebody mentioned the record is around 70 boats at one time. Bottom is mud, poor holding. There are a lot of problems with boats dragging anchor when the wind kicks up. The wind comes right into the lagoon from the ocean, straight down the channel.
We had a gas hanging out in Barra. It is a neat little funky town, nothing pretentious and a lot of eateries and bars and hangouts and street vendors and street markets and flea markets. I think a lot of Mexican families come here to hang out when they are on vacation. The Grand Bay Hotel is on the south side of the inlet to the lagoon. It is really a pretty grand place, as is its Marina, which is new and well up to US standards.
On the 8th Spike and Carol took the bus back to Puerto Vallarta to catch their plane home. The bus is a nice comfy bus, maybe once it would have been called a luxury bus, and is cheap and runs on time.
The practice when anchored in the lagoon is to either dingy over to town or to VHF hail one of the many, and cheap, water taxi pangas, which run frequently and maybe all night. It is so easy to catch a taxi to town, hang out, and cruise home pleasantly stuffed and groggy. And lots of fun to be zooming along at high speed through all the boats and harbor traffic.
We took a water taxi into town one day and walked to the Port Captain’s office to check in. It was easy, took only a few minutes, and if memory serves it was free. Nothing tricky in Spanish, they did the paperwork. Ditto on the check out. Vilma later explained to me that it was impossible for her to have checked me out from Paradise Village, that the yacht Captain has to sign papers personally. That may only be true in PV, or may be true everywhere. However, the Barra Port Captain didn’t even raise an eyebrow about my lack of paperwork from PV.
In the morning the French Baker can be heard on the VHF, letting you know his location and when he will get to your area in his panga, and asking for your order for that morning and for special orders for the next morning. He is a great baker in the true French style, using quality ingredients including a lot of butter. Amazing how cheap his stuff is, too. Bread, pastry and pies. Yummmmm. He pulls up in his panga and displays his wares, daring you to buy only one or two things.....
The lagoon is one of the main anchorages on the Gold Coast of Mexico. It is very shallow and tricky, and it is at least a weekly occurrence that somebody goes aground until the tide changes. Since the bottom is mud, there is usually no damage to the boat if you just relax and wait for the tide. Don’t go aground at high tide, though. That said, a friend of mine got stuck in the lagoon close to what is called Dog Island (because of all the dogs that live on it) and asked a big panga to tie onto the bow of his old Formosa 56 (54 or 58?) and spin him around 180 degrees. His boat spun all right, but his rudder didn’t spin as fast as the boat. He bent his rudder controls and thereafter couldn’t really steer properly. He could turn to port or maybe make a degree or two to starboard. A bunch of fellow sailors showed up with tools and managed to straighten out things enough so that he was able to limp to Mazatlan for a haul out and repairs.
As a note, I was really amazed at how soft the shaft coming up from the top of rudder was. Really soft metal that, under the force of the dragging, had developed a big twist. Also, the emergency tiller's connection to the rudder post was so incredibly lame, dangerous even, but was probably the state of the art in the mid-1980s for Chinese made boats. I don't think it would have worked out in a big storm at sea, either.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Paradise Village to Tenacatita January 2009
We spent New Years eve w Spike and Carol, Judy’s friends from Michigan, at their hotel in the romantic zone in PV, on the hill just above Ondela’s and Los Arcos. We all had fun watching fire works, drinking some beer, hanging out, watching the people, ringing in 2009, etc. I must have had a lot to drink because I remember walking up to Ondela's donkey and smacking it really hard on the ass as it stood there on outside on the sidewalk, thinking (drunkenly) that it was a wooden donkey. I was so surprised when I felt warm donkey flesh. To its credit, it didn't kick me or even acknowledge that I'd smacked it hard enough to bruise it.
Next day we hung around the boat getting it ready to check out of the Marina. I took Gina at the Paradise Village marina office up on the marina's deal that if you leave for a month or so your slip cost is reduced to $10 per day while you are gone and you get the same slip back. We loaded up with water and groceries. Gina reminded me that we were supposed to ‘check out’ of PV with the Port Capitan as we were going to another Port Captained city, but by then Vilma’s Documentation Services was closed and the Port Capitan was also closed, so I emailed Vilma all of my documents and asked her via email if she could do it while I was gone and email me the ‘check out’ document.
Anyhow, we left Paradise Village and sailed over to La Cruz with S and C. Saw whales, of course, and lots of dolphins. Anchored out, went to shore to eat and explore. Spike and Judy and Carol are very old friends – Spike and Judy in particular are birds of a feather when it comes to partying – every night all night wouldn’t be too much for either. Carol likes to stay home and go to bed early. Same as me. Thanks to Spike and Judy prodding us we had some fun! Spent the night on the hook, and did shore again the next day. We left the anchorage around 1 pm or so on the 3rd and set sail for Tenacatita, about 120 miles south.
Cabo Corrientes was relatively calm when we rounded it. This was Judy’s first overnight sail, and it was a rousing one. We had 17 to 19 knots of wind on our tail all day and all night, until maybe 4 or 5 am when it dropped to 10. The swells were not huge, maybe 5 or 6 feet, but they were coming from astern, too, and pitching the stern around, throwing us off course. Due to the wind angle we had to run on the edge of gibing. I rigged a preventer, but it was still touch and go as we were sailing right on the edge of gibing with the coastal wind dead astern. The helmsperson had to be on their toes. I heard one big crash while I was dozing in the cockpit and Judy was steering, but no harm, the sail crashed right back to the proper side without breaking anything. I wound up steering most of the night, because we continued on the edge of gibing, too close to let the autopilot steer. S and C slept through the night, as did Judy for the most part. The stars were really really amazing after the moon went down. The sky was clear and of course there are no lights on this part of the coast. I think the Southern Cross was out, but I need to see a photo of it to be sure as to whether or not this was it. We are still about 20 degrees North, maybe too far up to see it.
We kept going the next day, with me at the helm steering because of the following seas/gibing situation and because I was the only one that was comfortable steering. We got into Tenacatita around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I don’t remember exactly as was pretty groggy by then. We anchored and I went right to sleep after being at the helm for 26 hours straight.
I love Tenacatitia. It is a wonderful beautiful anchorage, well protected except from the odd and unusual south wind/wave pattern. Good holding, sand, and a nice hill blocking the prevailing northerlies. Not much on shore, one palapa restaurant/bar that serves the auto campground there, but which is only open from 8 to 5 or so. A two mile dingy ride up the jungle river takes you to the town of Tenacatita, which is really tiny. It has maybe 12 beach front palapa restaurant/bars and a little tiny grocery store. There might be more to the town, but if so it is over the hill and a long hike. We spent the night anchored there and then the next day, after doing the jungle ride in a panga because the outboard wouldn’t start, we upped anchor and headed down the coast 15 miles to Barra de Navidad.
Next day we hung around the boat getting it ready to check out of the Marina. I took Gina at the Paradise Village marina office up on the marina's deal that if you leave for a month or so your slip cost is reduced to $10 per day while you are gone and you get the same slip back. We loaded up with water and groceries. Gina reminded me that we were supposed to ‘check out’ of PV with the Port Capitan as we were going to another Port Captained city, but by then Vilma’s Documentation Services was closed and the Port Capitan was also closed, so I emailed Vilma all of my documents and asked her via email if she could do it while I was gone and email me the ‘check out’ document.
Anyhow, we left Paradise Village and sailed over to La Cruz with S and C. Saw whales, of course, and lots of dolphins. Anchored out, went to shore to eat and explore. Spike and Judy and Carol are very old friends – Spike and Judy in particular are birds of a feather when it comes to partying – every night all night wouldn’t be too much for either. Carol likes to stay home and go to bed early. Same as me. Thanks to Spike and Judy prodding us we had some fun! Spent the night on the hook, and did shore again the next day. We left the anchorage around 1 pm or so on the 3rd and set sail for Tenacatita, about 120 miles south.
Cabo Corrientes was relatively calm when we rounded it. This was Judy’s first overnight sail, and it was a rousing one. We had 17 to 19 knots of wind on our tail all day and all night, until maybe 4 or 5 am when it dropped to 10. The swells were not huge, maybe 5 or 6 feet, but they were coming from astern, too, and pitching the stern around, throwing us off course. Due to the wind angle we had to run on the edge of gibing. I rigged a preventer, but it was still touch and go as we were sailing right on the edge of gibing with the coastal wind dead astern. The helmsperson had to be on their toes. I heard one big crash while I was dozing in the cockpit and Judy was steering, but no harm, the sail crashed right back to the proper side without breaking anything. I wound up steering most of the night, because we continued on the edge of gibing, too close to let the autopilot steer. S and C slept through the night, as did Judy for the most part. The stars were really really amazing after the moon went down. The sky was clear and of course there are no lights on this part of the coast. I think the Southern Cross was out, but I need to see a photo of it to be sure as to whether or not this was it. We are still about 20 degrees North, maybe too far up to see it.
We kept going the next day, with me at the helm steering because of the following seas/gibing situation and because I was the only one that was comfortable steering. We got into Tenacatita around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I don’t remember exactly as was pretty groggy by then. We anchored and I went right to sleep after being at the helm for 26 hours straight.
I love Tenacatitia. It is a wonderful beautiful anchorage, well protected except from the odd and unusual south wind/wave pattern. Good holding, sand, and a nice hill blocking the prevailing northerlies. Not much on shore, one palapa restaurant/bar that serves the auto campground there, but which is only open from 8 to 5 or so. A two mile dingy ride up the jungle river takes you to the town of Tenacatita, which is really tiny. It has maybe 12 beach front palapa restaurant/bars and a little tiny grocery store. There might be more to the town, but if so it is over the hill and a long hike. We spent the night anchored there and then the next day, after doing the jungle ride in a panga because the outboard wouldn’t start, we upped anchor and headed down the coast 15 miles to Barra de Navidad.
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