They say that if you haven't run aground you haven't been anywhere. I guess you could say we've been somewhere--to Barra de Navidad, at least. And at least we didn't run aground hard...just a few seconds in the mud before the wind took us off, but it was a thrill. Fortunately for our egos, everybody runs aground in Barra de Navidad.

Running aground here began at least in the 16th century. Barra de Navidad was the Spanish jumping-off point in 1564 for the ships that first explored the Philippines, naming them after their king. The Spanish chose the spot because of its natural sandbar and the lagoon behind it, which offered all-weather protection while they built ships to explore the Pacific. Today the sandbar is fortified, and atop it is a touristy little town. The entrance to the lagoon is at the south end of the sandbar, and a navigable channel separates the town from a steep hill to the south upon which the Grand Bay Hotel spreads its mangrove-edged golf courses, Moorish towers and triplex swimming pools.

The channel between the sandbar and the hotel is fine, and marked with buoys. In fact, it's kind of an aquatic wonderland. Jet Skis dart around, water taxis cut the corners and vacationing Mexican families soak themselves fully dressed in the warm water. But beyond, to get to the anchorage in the lagoon, there is a half-mile unmarked channel that is twelve feet deep along the bottom and three feet deep on the sides. Our boat draws five.

The lagoon is huge, but the navigable channel is a straight shot between the breakwater defining the hotel's marina and a small island half a mile into the lagoon. The sensible way to go in is to take a deep breath and head straight for the left edge of the island. But the savvy modern sailor prefers a more advanced method: Armed with waypoints from a messy photocopy of some other cruiser's guide to Barra, he watches his GPS carefully, trusting its electronics above his own vision. This way he can ignore the spectacular view while steering the boat according to cryptic lines and numbers on a tiny glowing screen. This method is not only modern; it helps justify the expense of all the equipment.

So we began following the waypoints toward the island. The GPS told us we were doing fine; the island grew closer and closer. But a gusty crosswind was picking up, and the cryptic lines started veering off to the right while the boat blew to the left, and it was kind of hard to see, and all of a sudden the boat slid softly to a halt. A water taxi rumbled by, its passengers waving, with puzzled faces.

The good news is that the Barra lagoon is soft mud, and we'd been going slowly, and so within a few seconds the crosswind blew us off and we were able to enter the anchorage without running aground again. But I'm not sure the GPS paid for itself this time.

We stayed anchored in the lagoon for nine days. For the first four of them, the wind picked up by 11:00 and howled all afternoon--to forty knots at times, at which times the radio crackled with the voices of other cruisers: "Yahoo!"--and only diminished again around midnight. In such conditions it's difficult to leave or return to the boat, so we spent our days holed up, listening to the wind and waves splashing on the deck and watching other boats run aground. We read a lot--The True History of Chocolate was a highlight. Sarka revarnished the cockpit caprail.

There is a local French baker who is famous for visiting the boats in his aluminum launch every morning, hawking his pricey wares in their tidy bins. "Zees ees za frahnsh baykehr" resounds on the VHF, and he motors around the lagoon, delivering bread and pastries. Having fresh chocolate croissants delivered to one's boat is the very image of luxury.

When the wind let up, we ventured into town. The town of Barra de Navidad is very touristy. And it was Easter week, one of the great holidays in Mexico. Easter is when people pack their entire extended families into cars and go to the beach. There was a two-story "Sol" beer pavilion with dancing bikini models and a DJ and an MC who told the crowd that if you agreed to climb up you could have a twelve-pack of bikini models for free, or something--our Spanish wasn't quite up to it. In town, cars disgorged six or eight people each, kids carrying inflatable lobsters twice their own height and parents carrying tents to set up on the sloping sand. Souvenir shops line the streets and small hotels dot the map.

One day we took a very hot, windy walk the length of the beach to another town called Melaque. We were enticed by tales of Melaque's greater sophistication: It's larger, with a little more going on--a supermarket with vegetables, for example, and a big store selling containers. The walk was a little more interesting than the town. The southwesterly swell breaks very dramatically on the shore because the beach is so steep, shooting geysers many feet straight up into the air. The sand was so hot at the top of the beach that we had to walk near the water, where the spray soaked us and cooled the sand. Strolling along, we found what looked like the desiccated corpse of a sea snake but turned out to be a Spotted Snake Eel (Myrichthys tigrinus) which is a not uncommon in the Pacific (to see a living one in action, visit http://www.oceanfootage.com/video_clips/PS04_019 --not our video!--and click here to see what we saw).

After buying a gelato from a store unfortunately situated on the sunny side of the street (they had wet towels covering their fancy display case), we took the bus back to Barra and dinghied back to the boat.