Well not every anchorage you pull into is a paradise, and at this point I want to fire whoever "UPDATES" Charlies charts. What to say about Magdalena Bays Man O' War Cove????? Hmmm well it is very secure and an easy anchorage good holding in 25ft of sand, and its quiet, very very quiet, thats what we wanted remember. However this once busy little fishing village has died almost completely, the one resteraunt we had heard about hasn't been open in a long while and wont be again soon, there is now just one very small tienda with very little other than candy and chips. If you can imagine making a trip to your local dump usually outside of town, that is this whole little village, we never saw any kind of trash can, only piles of rubbish occasionally burned , and the plastic was everywhere, I mean everywhere it was actually sickening, we hiked to where they have a dumping area only to notice it was just piles of trash and plastic 100 ft from the water blowing every direction the plastic could fly.
We understand living the poor remote mexican fishing village , but really can anyone teach them to clean up their own backyard,( solar cooker /plastic melter anyone?) I cant imagine cruisers transiting this area would ever stop more than once and never return, Bahia Santa maria was spotless and makes a better stopover before heading south. The only reason to stop at Man o war cove is to overnight before heading up the channel to San Carlos( that's coming next and its awesome).
We dont want to focus on the negative but if we only reported sunshine and lolipops, it wouldnt reflect real life, as we know every paradise has its bug.
And speaking of bugs, there was one wonderful thing about Man o War cove. I had just commented that out of all these fishing pangas we had seen not one had stopped to try to sell or trade shrimp fish etc.. By the way they dont trade for sunglasses and americana tshirts anymore they use money like the rest of the world these days.UPDATE your DAMN cruising guides!!! GRRRRR! However they do sell you way more than you can eat for so cheap it makes you feel guilty and offer them cool old harbor patrol shirts anyway( they did think they were cool).
Adolfo the fisherman woke me up the very next day to sell me some of his catch, 1 kilo of shrimp for 150 pesos($12us), that sounded great 1 kilo that couldnt be too many could it, yeah a kilo is 2.2 pounds, thats right I love shrimp so what? And how did Adolfo measure a kilo? well I gave him a Gallon ziplock freezer bag and he filled it to the top, that was closer to 4 pounds of shrimp... did I mention we dont have a fridge on our boat?... did I mention they were still alive and the size of my hand? never again will I question the price of shrimp in a store, as it takes alot of work to make a kilo or more of shrimp meal ready especially when they fight back. This is why I didnt buy any of Adolfos live Octopus, it might have won the fight.
Leaving for San Carlos next, deeper into Mag Bay, The cruising guide says its a dirty place. will charlies charts prove wrong again or will they get this on correct?