San Blas to Banderas Bay
20 January 2009
Doug
After we catch up on a few hours of sleep, we take the dinghy off the deck and prepare it for the ride to shore. This will be some more breaking in time for the new Honda outboard. This will be a quick trip to shore to walk up to the Tovara River Jungle tour office to ensure that we can get a tour for the following day. Also it is a time to get Angel ashore to take care of some overdue business!
So on Monday, the 12th, we go ashore again with Wally, Linda, Fran, Russell, Marcy and I. The tour starts at about 10 a.m. and we buy our tickets for 110 pesos each and get into Juan's panga for the ride up the river. Get out the cameras!
Birds and turtles and cocodrilos, oh my. This is a very scenic ride with clear water and mangroves all along the banks. Many of the animal life blend in so it is a challenge to "find" them as we slowly wind our way up the river. We arrive at the cocodrilario, a preserve for some 200 crocs. Many are babies, but there are some really large old guys here too. It's a chance to see these devils up really close, but protected by heavy chain link fencing.
From the preserve we get back in the panga and move on to the headwaters where the six of us enjoy a lunch and a beer. The trip back down the river is a lot faster than the trip up. We will spend the next two days in San Blas exploring the town, eating ice cream, checking out the estuary and the south shore beaches.
On the morning of the 14th, we motor down to Punta de Mita at the entrance of Banderas Bay. It is a 10 hour trip and we anchor in about 22 feet of water and settle in to wine time and the sunset. Andanzas is still with us. Wally and Linda will move on to LaCruz where they have reservations at the new marina. We cross the bay on our way to Paradise on the morning of the 15th. More whales and and a lot of sun. We arrive at high tide so as to enter our slip with the least current. It can be tricky here.
And so here we are down on E dock at the beautiful resort where we will spend the next six weeks. Fran and Russell will stay on till the 26th when they will return to Australia in time for Australia Day where they will see family and present them all with gifts bought along the way from Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta. It was so great having them aboard Charm with us. It was their first visit to Mexico.