La Cruz to Barra de Navidad

We left La Cruz in the evening and had a nice sail out of the bay into the sunset.  We rounded the point and headed south again.  We got to Chamela the next day.  We briefly encountered “the sailing vessel Sunday with no mast.”  Sunday is a cross trimaran who was heading out as we were heading in and was on the radio on a couple occasions as we were coming in.  Each time noting that he was a sailing vessel, but had no mast.  He was on his way to motor up the coast to Mazatlan to get a new mast.  His boom was on his roof.  Not sure the story behind the missing mast, but it was ever present in his mind and communications. 

Chamela is a nice bay and initially we anchored off the tourist corridor while we headed out to explore.  Our explorations found a gorgeous private beach with soft rolling waves and a long shallow approach.  We swam and snorkeled, then brought the boat around to our new private haven.  That evening we went to shore to have a campfire.  Integrity asked if we could roast marshmellows, but we told him that we didn’t have any.  He said he did and proceeded to go get them out from under the cockpit stairs where he had stowed them to hide them on our launch.  We told him we’d need a firestick (a lighter), well he had one of those too!!  A little background.  Integrity loves lighters and collects them whenever he can get his hands on them.  He has had many taken away from him since moving onto the boat.  He is only allowed to collect the rusty ones he finds on the beach.  Courage is sensitive to this since his boat burned when he was 9 years old.  When we asked Integrity if it worked, he said, “it did last night.”  As it was, we had a great campfire and he had a working lighter in his possession that he had been playing with in his bunk.

We sailed down to Tenacatita to an anchorage deep in the bay, bypassing the first , more popular anchorage.  While our location wasn’t identified or established as an anchorage, about 5 boats were here when we arrived, including another 44 foot catamaran.  Onboard was a lovely family from Tasmania who have been out cruising for the past 7 years and have 6 and 3 year old boys.

Tenacatita has a nice mangrove estuary that leads way back with pongas parked in little cut out areas along the way.  There was a great entrance with long shallow rolling waves that were perfect for learning to surf.  When I couldn’t paddle to get myself started, I could just stand on the bottom and jump onto to board when the waves came.  They were gentle enough to try turning, but long enough to get your balance and get a decent ride. 

There were also 2 relatively large dolphins in this bay that were going between the boats.  Occasionally you’d here a loud noise on your anchor chain.  One of the other boats heard that they were rubbing off on the anchors to clear their skin. 

I was sad to leave the great surfing of Tenacantita ‘cause it really made you feel like it was possible, but we had other great things in store for ourselves.  We headed out for Barra de Navidad.