03/31/2008, Bahia Santiago
What a gorgeous 5 hours we spent motoring and sailing from Barra de Navidad to Las Hadas. Miles of white sandy beaches with some dramatic rock cliffs was the back drop for slow rolling swells and light breezes on our nose, as we headed south to Bahia Santiago. Several sea turtles were spotted just frolicking in the seas and gave island restbits to birds on their shell backs. Dolphins seem to come out and greet us and escort us into Santiago Bay. Manzanillo is a major shipping port for Mexico, so a couple huge container ships dot the horizon. The area of Las Hadas is a cove built up with huge hotels and condo projects, not high rises, just sprawling right up into the hillside. This is where much of the movie "10" was filmed, so I hope to do my Bo Derek impression and run on the beach! While dinghy docks are a bit pricy here ($15.00usd/day), the Paradise Restaurant is really trying to woo cruisers to their side of the cove with 10% off food and working on a dinghy beach...as well as having the best Blackberry Margarita I have ever tasted (granted that was my 1st blackberry margarita, but it was YUMMY) We have a few boat projects to complete before heading to Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo so we shall enjoy a few days here. The water is really clear here and the temp is 80. So it's off to explore the big city of Manzanillo and resort town of Las Hadas.
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03/29/2008, Barra de Navidad
Well, what an interesting stay in Barra. We enjoyed the 1st 2 days of pretty "Charlie Charlie" weather (that's cruiser lingo for chamber of commerce weather, or beautiful weather...) light winds, very calm lagoon, making us feel almost like being tied to a dock, it was so calm. We explored the flea market and the town and beach of Barra on Thursday and got internet actually on the boat for the 1st time in weeks! Then Friday afternoon came, had Happy Hour planned with a couple of other boats and the famed afternoon winds came in....Kicking up about 2pm, the winds got up to 25 knots! In a lagoon, when we heard the winds out in the bay were only 6 knots! So happy hour was postponed until the next day...You guessed it .... The winds actually were blowing 6-8 knots before noon and by 2pm were blowing 25+ and even saw a couple of gusts registering 30 knots!!! A boat that had been anchored already for 2 days actually dragged and it was quite entertaining to watch 7 dinghies rush to it's rescue, as the owners were in town at the time! All's well that ends well, and the boat was safely re-positioned and re-anchored with no incident and 250 ft of chain out!. It's just a good thing that there were only 18 boats in the lagoon at the time, instead of the 60 that were just there a week ago! The winds came up again the next day and we all stayed really close to home, as it seemed no one was immune to such an unsettling event. We decided to make plans for breakfast with the other boats instead of waiting for happy hour, as the winds dictate our behaviors! Between the windy afternoons, the disco music late at night and the strange noises in the middle of the night (fish nibbling at your anchor chain because of the "growth" on it after only a couple of days) while we thoroughly enjoyed Barra and the area, it was time to continue our trek south! Au voir to the French Baker - his Chocolate Mango tart was to die for and Adios to our friends on "Mira" (Jan & Dwight) and "Tahoma" (Linda & Bob) as they head north to spend the spring/summer up in the Sea of Cortez...
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03/26/2008, Barra de Navidad
After only a 3 hour motor from Tenacatita Bay, we entered the Barra de Navidad area! All the stories we heard about "Don't worry, if (when) you get stuck on the way in just call on the radio and the dinghys will come running or just wait until the tide comes up!" Rob went very slowly and watching the chartplotter closely, following the course he programmed using the coordinates handed down to us by cruisers before us, while Jan watched for the landmarks to guide us...namely "look to the port of the island and head for the tallest palm tree"! The winds were pretty light (10-12 knts) but pushed us off just a little bit so we rubbed the sandbar. Rob backed us up just alittle bit, lined us up once again with the tallest palm tree and we navigated to the lagoon...with no official grounding! WooHoo... The lagoon only had 24 other boats (down from 60 only a week ago) and we had no problem anchoring in 10 ft of water putting down 100 ft of chain to be sure we wouldn't drag! The waters were calm and very flat all night and we awoke in the same place as where we went to bed! We were greeted by the French Baker at 10am and had FRESH ham & cheese croissants for breakfast....delivered to the boat...It just doesn't get any better than that! We also enjoyed a personal tour by Mike & Barb on"Machrihanish" of the town of Barra and some favorite hot spots. We even explored a VERY POSH hotel, the Grand Bay Hotel, which as a beautiful outdoor pool, surrounded by lush palm and tropical plants, on the 10th floor! This is a definite place we will enjoy an afternoon reading a book, alittle swimming and enjoying life! Our plan was for only a couple of days in Barra, but now, well don't look for our point on the map to change until at least Sunday or Monday! Anyway, I'm sure more will be written about Barra, so check us out later... It's 5:00pm and you know what that means........
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