02/25/2012, Bahia Tenacatita
From the time we hit Baja California Sur, we have been seeing turtle nests in protective pens on the beaches. Never before today had we connected with one when a caretaker was attending to the nests.
Today on a walk along the beach with several other cruisers, I noticed that a caretaker was in the one large turtle nest pen here in Bahia Tenacatita. Wouldn't you know I didn't have my camera on me (nor did anyone else). However, we got to watch the caretaker dig up the nest and collect the Leatherback turtles that had already hatched. He placed the 25 to 30 hatched turtles into a bucket to hold for release in the evening, when the chance of escaping the many birds is greater for them. He then gently placed any un-hatched and partially hatched eggs back into the hole and covered them back up with warm sand, their progress to be checked on again tomorrow.
He allowed us to hold the newly hatched turtles, which fit easily in the palm of our hands. It was so amazing!
Friday evenings in Tenacatita, the cruisers have a dinghy raft-up. One dinghy drops an anchor and the others tie up off that one in a circle. Everyone brings an appetizer to share around the circle and we all visit and share stories. The "Mayor" (a cruiser who accepts the responsibility of organizing activities in the anchorage) usually selects an icebreaker topic to include when we go around the circle and introduce ourselves. This Friday's topic was "amazing things we have seen in nature while boating/cruising". I now have a new "amazing thing" on my list!
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Comments [1]
Phil and Robin
01/18/2012
1/18/12 - 1/24/12
This was an interesting stop. The anchorage here isn't in the open bay like most. Instead it's inside a large shallow lagoon. Along one side of the entry into the lagoon is a luxury resort & marina, along the other side of the entry is the town of Barra de Navidad.
The cruiser friendly small Hotel Sands was our hangout while here. They allowed cruisers to tie dinghies at their seawall and use of their pool without any questions. It was a given that you just ordered food and/or drinks while you hung out. The pool was a nice treat and the restaurant prepared a couple dinners just for the cruising crowd.
Just north within the bay is the town of Melaque. We caught a bus and spent an afternoon getting groceries at tiendas and a cool drink at a beach side, palapa roofed bar.
During our week stay, we experienced an earthquake one afternoon. We were ashore at a fish vendor along the hillside. It was quick and short, but felt like the hillside has just rumbled down onto the backside of the building. Luckily, there was no landslide or any other damage done.
Just a few pictures from the area:
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Glad you are having such a good time!
Love
Fun, Fun!! You both look healthy and happy.
Love, Mom & Dad
01/10/2012
Ahhhh. We have heard about this bay for years from our Juneau cruising friends who have made this trip ahead of us. It meets all the expectations we held for it, although the mental image we held didn't match. It's hard to imagine something you have never seen before. The anchorage at Tenacatita really doesn't look all that much different than the other anchorages along the Mexican west coast. Long curving sandy beach, palapa restaurants along the shore, rugged rocky points at either end of the bay, and lush green uplands.
Some of the differences in this anchorage are the clearness of the water, an estuary with easy access for dinghies or kayaks, and panga taxi service availability across the bay to La Manzanilla and all if it's treats.
We spent a week enjoying all this bay has to offer, and will be making an other stop on our way back up north to the Sea.
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01/07/2012
We made the 19 hour trip from La Cruz to Bahia Chamela under full moon with lots of whale activity.
We spent just a couple days here and did little shore exploration. But we didn't miss out on the beach Palapas.
and the crumbling hotel was too much to resist a stroll down the beach to check out:
And as this stop was short... so is this post!
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12/22/2011, La Cruz & Puerto Vallarta
12/17/2011 - 1/6/2012
We left the islands outside of La Paz on Dec. 17th along with S/V Rose of Erin, Damon & Erin Cruz, to cross the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan. The weather forecast was for northerly winds to 15k, the reality was winds up to 30k. Because we were expecting a light wind sail, I didn't take any seasickness precautions, and ended up being sick the whole 30 hour trip. (I now have a seasick drug that is supposed to still be effective even if taken once symptoms have started.) John on the other hand was thrilled with the sail! We arrived in Mazatlan Dec. 19th and decided not to hang around long, and departed for Banderas Bay Dec. 21st.
Banderas Bay is a large area, containing the towns of La Cruz, Bucarias, and the city of Puerto Vallarta. We spent the majority of our time in La Cruz, splitting our time there between the anchorage and the marina, only taking the boat over to PV to attend our friends Daragh & Cathryn's wedding on Dec 30 and New Years Eve. La Cruz is a great small town that has access to a large area. I could easily spend more time there!
La Cruz, like most towns we've visited in Mexico has a percentage of expats and seasonal inhabitants from the US and Canada. In fact, Linda & Mark http://www.alaskacapitalinn.com/ from Juneau spend several months there each winter. We were able to connect with them and spend some time together. They are such gracious hosts and introduced us to several of their friends and favorite restaurants in the area.
They even included us in their annual Christmas day at the beach. I've got to agree that Christmas in the sun, under a palapa, with cold drinks works well for me!
Photo: Christmas at the beach palapa
Photo: Christmas eve in the marina
Photo: Local English class singing Christmas carols, in English
La Cruz is full of musical people, thus live music could be found most night in one restaurant or another.
We met Daragh & Cathryn and Georgie (the Westy Dog) of S/V Chantey V (hailing port Victoria BC) on our way down the US coast and they have become dear friends. They had planned their wedding before leaving home and had family coming in to join them. We were very honored to be invited to join them on their special day. The wedding was beautifully simple and elegant. 
New Years eve we again joined the "O'Nagle" clan for dinner, drinks and fireworks over the bay. 
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12/12/2011, Islands North of La Paz
When we left La Paz, we spent a week in the islands just to the north. It was a refreshing break from being at a marina in a city. We spent days hiking, afternoons kayaking, and evenings enjoying the fresh air in the cockpit gazing at the stars.
And this is what I did on my Birthday...
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11/11/2011
La Paz
Friday, 11/11/2011 - 12/11/2011
We spent a wonderful month in La Paz where we reconnected with our former Juneau sailing buddies, Damon & Erin Cruz.
Picture: Damon & Erin
The kids came and spent a week with us over Thanksgiving.
Picture: Thanksgiving dinner with the kids & 200 other cruisers
We had a wonderful time together and loved every minute of it.
Picture: Popsicle Love
Picture: Snorkeling with the Whale Sharks
Picture: Enjoying the local food
Picture: Touring the town
Picture: Trip to Todos Santos
Picture: Stroll on the beach
Picture: It was sad to see them go
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We just spent the last hour viewing your photo gallery and the pic's of the kids visit to LaPaz.
We enjoy and look forward to the updates.
Kitty & Rocky
11/04/2011
Photo: John & Bob in front of Bob's place in Cabo Pulmo
Friday, 11/4/2011 - Friday, 11/11/2011
From Cabo we headed up to Los Frailes to catch John's brother Bob at his place in Cabo Pulmo before he headed back home to Juneau.
As we neared Los Frailes a small bird landed on the boat and proceeded to thoroughly check it out. It spent a good hour exploring everything from the flaked main sail and mast winches to every detail of the cockpit, including us.
Photo: Curious little bird
Once anchored in Los Frailes we started watching the beach for Bob. As we were pumping up the dinghy, he showed on the beach and paid a fisherman a couple bucks to ferry him out to our boat. We visited for a bit, then returned him to the beach with a plan to meet in the morning and head over to his place. We spent most of Saturday and Sunday with Bob before he flew out on Monday morning.
On we went to Los Muertose. The winter northers had started and we waited one out in Muertose. Other Ha-Ha boats had caught up with us by then and we connected with some we hadn't had the chance to during the rally. The surrounding hills looked like a great place to go hiking so we rousted Rob and Shari from S/V Wings of the Dawn to go with us. But all the land in Los Muertose is locked up in private ownership and patrolled. We were directed off of two different roads, so made our way back to the restaurant that sits at the head of the bay for cold drinks and food instead. When the norther let up, we headed on to La Paz.
Photo: Before we got kicked off the road
Photo: After we go kicked off the road
Determined to catch a fish, we were again dragging a line and this time a pole as well. As we entered Canal de Cerralvo (the waterway between Isla Cerralvo and the Baja peninsula) we hooked a dorado. I tried to grab the pole out of the holder, but the fish was pulling so hard, John had to grab a hold too. It was big! But it didn't get that big by being dumb. It immediately made a run under the other boat that was also heading through the channel and broke the line on it's hull. STILL NO FISH! And now, we were down to only one leader.
We arrive in La Paz mid afternoon, Friday, November 11th. Our friend Damon Cruz was standing on the dock to catch our lines. Viva La Paz! Another milestone achieved.
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11/02/2011, Bahia Santa Maria to Cabo San Lucas
Wednesday, 11/2/2011 - Friday, 11/4/2011
Photo: Leaving Bahia Santa Maria under spinnaker
Light winds and spinnakers made for a colorful early morning start of the final rally leg. Although winds stayed light, they were the steadiest we had seen the whole rally. There were schools of bat rays jumping throughout the day and we were making sail changes in shorts and bear feet. This is what we came for!
Photo: Approaching Cabo San Lucas. The famed arch in the background.
We approached Cabo about 1:15 Thursday afternoon. Disney cruise ship in the harbor set the tone for the rest of the day. Cabo is strictly a tourist town through and through. We were already weary of traveling with a crowd, and just weren't in the mood to hang out in the Cabo crowds for the final rally parties. It was time to break from the pack. We grabbed a water taxi to shore, hit the grocery store and returned directly to the boat. We left Cabo early the next morning.
It felt good to leave the crowd behind, knowing that the folks that we had made friends with, we would meet again along the way in the coming month.
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10/29/2011, Turtle Bay to Bahia Santa Maria
10/29 - 10/31
Photo: Fleet leaving Turtle Bay
Leg 2 started Saturday morning, Oct. 29th. It was an idyllic scene with bag pipes and saxophone serenading the fleet as we weighed anchor and sailed out of Turtle Bay in light winds. Winds didn't hold though, and we were again motoring by late morning.
"Fish on" radio reports had been coming from the fleet since we left San Diego, but we had not yet caught one ourselves. Mid afternoon we finally caught our first fish, a Skip Jack. Not considered a good eating fish, we released it. Disappointing to say the least.
Photo: Another strike & no fish. Tore the hoochie apart this time.
About 3:30 that afternoon the wind picked up and we resumed sailing, running wing-on-wing (head sail poled out on one side and main sail prevented out on the other side of the boat) through the night. Seas increased throughout the night to a short period choppy 5 feet. Just after our 3:00 A.M. shift change the autopilot faulted and instead of taking his sleep break, John spent a couple hours head down under the bunk working on it while I hand steered. It continued to intermittently fail till we reached Bahia Santa Maria, when John finally figured out that it was overheating, thus shutting down. (He has now installed a cooling fan on the motor and it seems to have done the trick.)
We made our arrival in Bahia Santa Maria at 1:30 A.M. Monday morning. It is a beautiful place, wide open bay with dry rocky mountains along the north shore, long low sand beach reaching around the southwest shore, and mangroves separating the two. You could easily spend a week exploring this bay, then a couple more exploring Bahia Magdalena that opens to the south of Bahia Santa Maria and runs far to the north behind the rim of mountains. We only had two days to catch up on our sleep and explore what we could of the bay.
Photo: Bahia Santa Maria anchorage
Monday, we went ashore and officially checked into Mexico. It was a fairly smooth process, if not an exact one, as the fees seemed to be somewhat flexible. We walked about a bit, then returned to the boat for a nap. That evening we had dinner aboard S/V Hawaiian Sol with owners Les & Deb Cross and their Captain Lake Rickolt and his wife Jemma. We had met Les and Lake in San Diego at the marina we spent our time there in. They were preparing their beautiful new Beneteau 58 for the trip down to Cabo and were quite excited about it. Spending an evening aboard, it was easy to understand their excitement. It is indeed a beautiful boat! We enjoyed our evening together and a wonderful dinner of the fish they had caught on the 2nd leg of the rally.
Photo: Hawaiian Sol
Tuesday was our day to explore, so we took the dinghy in to the beach, through the surf, up through the mangroves, past small fish camps and around a small island. It was quite beautiful and amazing. Yes, a week would be nice here.
Photo: A fish camp in the mangroves
Later in the day there was a fish dinner and live music on shore. A tamale stand was also setup near the beach. We opted for the tamales over the fish dinner and were not disappointed. Only wished we had bought a dozen to take with us!
Photo: Beach party
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