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Published: March 21st 2008
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Ah, Yes Tennecatita
Such a beautiful and restful place after the rough ride down the coast. Well, here we are in Huatulco, after 600 or so miles south from La Cruz in Banderas Bay. It´s been a long time getting to a internet site to post our travels and photos. I hope I do our last 17 days justice, for we have done alot and seen alot. The photos will help, I´m sure.
We left Punta Mita in the morning. Not much wind at first, then we got to about 15 miles off the coast, and a nice wind off our starboard quarter kicked in, and we were sailing along at 6 knots or so. It was rather lumpy, so it was a rocky and rolly trip. After 6-7 hours of this, we were hoping for the wind to lighten up a little, so we could rest, but Noooo...not for us....the wind seemed to pick up quite a bit to 20-25 knots. We had to shorten sails a few times, until we had up only a little speck of our head sail peeping out. Ahhh, I was reminincing about that ¨fun¨time we had howling down the outside of Baja. Anyhow, the wind did finally ease up early the next morning. Needless to say, we didn´t sleep
Anchored in Tennecatita
Heading towards shore for the dingy ¨jungle¨ride so well that night. We were going to head to Barra de Navidad, but had heard about Bahia Tennecatita, so we decided to head there first.
There were about 25 boats in the anchorage there, and a pristine beach, that looked oh, so inviting. It was afternoon, and after we got the boat covered and things put away, we heard over the VHF radio, that they were going to have a ¨dingy raft up¨around 6 pm. Bring a plate and utensils and something to share. We thought, oh, we should go to meet others, then on the other hand, I was tired and just wanted to rest. We went, and it was really fun. We all brought something and subsequently passed around the group our food to share. Luckily I had earlier cut up a papaya, so my work was already done. We met some nice couples on either side. I was going to bring my camera, but I decided against it, and of course, there were others with their cameras taking pictures. Many, many yatistas were returnees, and many were going to be heading back up into the Sea of Cortez, a few heading west to the Marquesas,
Driver Robin
Whoah, watch out for those branches! and a few, like us, heading south.
The next day we took our dingy and went on this idylic dingy ride through the ¨jungle¨.. The ¨jungle¨was actually a lot of mangroves that grew very close together over an inland sea waterway. It was pretty cool, until a large skiff comes zooming by, then it changed from relaxing to a little more cautious motoring. We arrived at a beach that was more west to us, with tons of palapas, and a little super market. We had already eaten breakfast, so we had something to drink, then headed back. The little town drunk was there to meet us to charge us for using the dingy landing. We gave him 50 cents and moved off. Everything was great. But, we had heard about making sure you go there during high tide as the bar that separates the ocean and the waterways can be so high you have to get out and walk your dingy over it. Well , of course, we came back when the tide had dropped. There was another dingy following us, and we laughed with each other, as we were going to be the guinea pigs. Of course, the
Palapa Beach at Tennecatita
Another beautiful beach... the Mexcian Riviera is pretty awesome. engine started to hit bottom, and we reved it up, and splashed through the waves, me (in front) getting totatlly soaked, but we made it without damages. All the yatistas (if on deck) would watch the antics of whoever was trying to cross the bar. Ah, such entertainment....for whom I´m not sure.... We ended up meeting our following cruisers from Canada.. boat name is Don Pedro with John, Linda and Rob aboard. We went to their b oat and had some drinks and ¨poo poos¨, and it was fun...except the next morning wasn´t all that great...of course... haven´t learned my lesson have I.
The next day we decided to put away the dingy and pull out the kayaks. That was fun, and I learned to try and surf the kayak into shore as there was quite a shore break that afternoon. I was ahead of Robin, and a big swell picked me up, so I back paddled and told Robin, Ï think I´ll just kayak around the rock, see ya¨.
Robin went ahead of me and I watched him, trying not to laugh (yeah, right!) He got pretty close to the shore and I saw him jump out, and
Kayak Robin
This after I had backpaddled, and right before he took the plunge into the water up to his neck. he went down, down and down....He was up to his neck in the water. I was busting up laughing. The water felt good, I´m sure (as later I got soaked too). I paddled down to another area on the beach, and as I was trying to come into shore, the waves came behind me. I tried to use my paddle as a rudder, but our kayaks are inflatibles, so they aren´t very stiff, The nose went down, and it filled up with water. It was refresing. We walked the beach, and stopped at one of the unending palapas for a drink. This Mexico is really into palapas on the beach, they are almost everywhere, like McDonalds and Starbucks in the US.
We decided the next day to continue on the journey. We were going to go to Barra de Navidad, but we heard there was a real tricky entrance and lots and lots of yatistas there butt to butt (hull to hull), so to speak. We decided to head to Manzanillo instead. The weather was beautiful. We made it there in one overnighter, and the seas were nice to us. We sailed the afernoons when the breeze would pick
Wet as a Duck
Robin on the lovely beach that just dunked me and enveloped him in it´s cool water up, then motor-sail the rest of the time, so we could make our destination before dark.
We entered the bay of Manzanillo in the afternoon and headed for an anchorage next to this fabulous hotel complex called Las Hadas. If you remember the movie ¨10¨with Bo Derek , that is where it was filmed at. There was a very small protected anchorage outside of the marina there. We pulled up next to some boats to throw the anchor, and the occupants of this one boat, were voicing their concerns that we were going to be too close to them. Robin was speaking with the man, that we would be laying back off the anchor and would be behind them, but as we were falling off from the anchor, the women said, Öh, nooooo, you are too close! This won´t work!¨ Robin decided to pull up the anchor and anchor back further, but he was non too happy about it. There was some grumbling going on in our cockpit. Then after we are anchored, who motors over to speak with us, the husband of same boat! I was a little curious to hear what he had to say, but he
Hawaiian Bill
Crossing paths in the ocean, unexpected surprise to meet our first friends, Bill & Jean. acted like nothing had happened, and was speaking to Robin about our windvane. That was that! Never spoke to them again the few days we were there.
We went and visited the town of Manzanillo, which was really a neat place. Took some photos, had lunch then bussed it back to our boat. The next day we went provisioning again, as the next leg of the trip is longer, 5 days or so to Huatulco. It was hard to say ¨good-gye¨to this spot as we really liked the Mexican ambience of it. The last night there we ran into our friends from Don Pedro. They were picking up a few more crew members (who were going with the owner, John, to cross to the Marquesas). He was picking up his nephew, and a French woman who has had a lot of sailing experience. When we met the French woman on shore, we were talking about motoring when there was no wind. She says Äh, you need to wait for the wind..motoring is blah¨ or something along those lines. Robin pipes up, Ïf I need to motor I will motor, and she turns her head a little and says,Äh..you are no true sailor¨ Robin and I just look at her and smile, but that really goaded Robin. When we started sailing the next day, Robin says,..¨see, I am a true sailor¨ (we were using accents by this time ) I would love to be a fly on the wall of that boat to see how that crew is doing...
I will stop here and add some photos, and in the next day or so I will add more to the blog. Enjoy,
Jean & Robin
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gary and shelley
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celoso
Hi guys We jealous. Sounds like a great time. We might be heading to S AMerica in Sept for a few weeks; maybe we can hook up. All da best g and s