Los Cabos to La Cruz and the Mexican Gold Coast anchorages: Chemale, Tenacatita, Navidad, and Las Hadas.
We follow the blue-water coastline closely before rounding Cabo Falso into Bahia Cabo Lucas.
Rounding the pinnacles and arches at Lands End, into Cabo San Lucas bay.
San Jose Del Cabo: 23 degrees 03.5’ N, 109 degrees 40.4’ W
It is exciting to see Cabo San Lucas emerging from the west. At dawn a fleet of fishing boats race toward fish nirvana in the north dodging us closely at a good clip. I watch the cape come to life. Widows beach, Los Arcos, Lovers beach where Sarah, Vanessa and I spent a short time Thanksgiving 2007 getting away from Cabo’s frenetic beach front: paragliders, water taxis, banana boats, cruise ships, glass bottom boats, loud music, tequila guzzling competitions.
Lovers beach, where Sarah and Vanessa and I took respite from frenetic Cabo San Lucas in 2007.
Kate, the Ozzie boat had arrived at 4:00 AM. We knew them from San Diego. “Welcome to Paradise!” he called out sarcastically in his clipped Oz accent. “This is TERRRIBLE!” and was pulling up anchor in the bobbing swells and chaotic wakes to go on to La Paz and the Sea of Cortez.
“We’re out of here too. Happy sails! Adios.” We called back and headed north to Puerto Los Cabos marina--away from the maddening crowds-- for a night to restock and refresh.
It was a quiet haven with dust paths swept by women in the early morning in cloths and caps over their heads. Newly planted bougainvillea struggled to bloom, palm trees swayed in the breeze. Birds called out to each other with song.
The harbor master stung us with $100 slip fee and no showers or laundry or nada. WiFi was so slow I could not get my blog on the beautiful gray whales posted.
A mega yacht pulled in next to us after fishing. Mexican helpers jumped into action washing it down from top to toe, while the gents had drinks in the cabin. As they came out I asked if the water there was potable, so we could fill our tanks. I got yes and no. So chose to skip it.
“Where are you from?” the over-imbibed gent asked loudly.“ From South Africa, originally.” I responded, knowing well he hears the now fully diluted accent.
“Wow!!!! Wow!!!!” he exclaimed and started veering at a 45-degree angle down the dock.
“Hey girl!!!!” he did a 180 and stopped dead in his tracks calling out to me again. Considering the source I politely gave ear to him rather than pushing him in the drink.
“Did you just pull in from South Africa NOW???” he slurred.“No, we pulled in from Magdalena Bay. This boat is from Seattle. We are slowly making our way around the world.” I clarified to narrow his blurred geographic focus.
“You are going around the world in THIS THING???” He pointed to Zulu as if we’d just pulled into Florida on a float from Cuba.
“That is right.” I smiled at him. Poor chap I thought. You are going to drink yourself to death by evidence of the paunch and purple nose!
“Wow, Wow, Wow!!!!” and he zig-zagged down the dock in his crisp white shirt and sack-of-potato belly supported by spindly legs.
After a trip to the Mega market and taxing back to the marina, the harbor security swarmed us as if the Taliban had just arrived. They determined all Ok and gave us the green light. More security chaps emerged from behind virtually every palm tree and piled my packages onto a golf cart and sped off at the 11:00 PM hour with me on the back clinging to my eggs.
The next morning I cast pride aside and hosed off with cool water on the dock between the mega yachts and did the wash in a bucket. After clearing the upscale harbor, I hung the wash on Zulu’s lifelines, Napolitano style out in the open waters. We raised the sails and headed straight shot for La Cruz.
Sailing Napolitano style out from swanky Puerto Los Cabos marina in San Jose straight shot to La Cruz.
La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Banderas Bay: 20 degrees.44.5’ N, 105 degrees 22.2’ W
Coming into Banderas Bay is glorious. We edge close in to the outlying western Marieta island to avoid the underwater pinnacles closer to Punta Mita—Banderas’ northern tip-- with only 3 feet water clearance. The sea life is vibrantly alive and virtually at arm’s length. A whale, hundreds upon hundreds of booby birds, dolphins, frigate birds: they call from the ocean blue. A kaleidoscope of movement.
We drop anchor in 30 feet outside the La Cruz Riviera marina and bob gently in the swell. There is a breeze out here!
Banderas (flags) bay is Mexico’s largest bay measuring about 20 miles by 15 miles. The southern end’s backdrop are the 9,000 ft Cerros Moronades mountains that end at Cabo Corrientes, the southern tip of the bay. No hurricane has hit the bay in 156 years.
It is a cruiser’s Mecca. In the summer the four marinas berth about 400 boats, while some of their owners escape the wet and extreme heat of the hurricane season and go back to El Norte only to return in the winter or spring.
We choose La Cruz, rather than Puerto Vallarta because there is a breeze and it is away from the concrete tourist jungle. The proper name is La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, which takes its name from the cross carved from the Huanacaxtle tree. The town is small and simple and quiet. The people mild mannered. Siesta time is a long time and in the evenings families come out to eat from the street tacorias, or sit in the square eating ice creams, or young lovers steal a kiss or two from each other.
At Ana Banana’s the Gringo’s have gathered to listen to some fellow cruiser band play songs from the 60s. Trucking, ta da da da da. Broadly speaking in judgmental way for this particular night, they act like they are still all in the Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. The young Mexican waitresses take their pinafores off to dance, in between serving drinks. A lot of them are smoking. The music is LOUD. I have to leave all these silver beard geysers to their own. They are Mexico’s Gringo hardliners. Let’s get out of here I say! Hey, we’re geysers too! They’re just having fun! Go easy.
Russ makes for the taco stands at night like a demon. He inhales the barbecued pork on tacos with an assortment of salsas. I sit there holding my breath. Give me a mango somebody!
We come into the marina for a few days. To do laundry, shower, clean the boat. It is a beautiful marina. Brand new. The staff and amenities are tops. The air-conditioned room called “The Yacht Club” has big comfy modern sofa chairs for reading and relaxing in, while connecting to the internet. There is herb tea and books to take or exchange.
A restaurant upstairs under a peaked palapa (thatched roof) has a 360-degree view of the bay and shore. A mahi mahi special baked in a Mayan sauce with rice and fields of green, warm fresh bread with olive tapenade, and two glasses of Chardonnay come to $24.00 for two. All with white linen tablecloth and serviettes, and candlelight after the sun goes down.
Up on the roof is the Skye Bridge Bar. It overlooks the whole bay. The lights of Puerto Vallarta are ablaze. A cruise ship must have left. The sky explodes with fireworks. This night the bar is closed and only Russ and I sit on the beautiful, comfortable modern sofa chairs and sip a Corona watching the night lights. This world is ours.
The next night there is a benefit concert at the end of the marvelous causeway. An amphitheatre has been built into the causeway. The townspeople can enjoy this venue too. The benefit is for La Cruz’ elementary school. They need to buy a computer and fix a room up to house it.
The townspeople bring homemade appetizers of all sorts. Russ bites into some chicken breasts in a red hot sauce. He then dives into some cornhusk centers. Coronas flow. I say give me a mango!!! I am too fussy to eat ad hoc.
The Duo Mango musicians go on stage and play the most amazing Spanish guitar music. Classical. Then tangos. A gentleman who looks just like my cousin Ronnie Marx gets up in front of the stage and starts dancing with his wife, who wears a purple straw hat.
Then come the elementary school children to dance folkloric ‘ballets’ from the different regions in amazingly beautiful costumes. There is a dance from the town of Boucerias, one village down from La Cruz, emulating the aged. The dancers come on stage all in white and stooped over holding knobby sticks that support wobbly, bandy legs. The dancers keep collapsing on the stage having to help each other up. It is hilarious, especially seeing the few tiny children acting like they are old. They all wear masks resembling old men with long white beards.
Children in the audience laugh. They eat this crispy fried chip bread of sorts with hot sauce on it and drink lemonade and play jumping games from one seat to the next. Tomas, the school teacher, has his beautiful teenage daughters walk around collecting donations. The goal is met! The school will get a computer. The night ends.
The next afternoon it is up with the main sail. Come up on the anchor. Haul it up. Sail away with a brisk breeze to the south end of Banderas bay. Don’t look back on all, including the days revisiting Sayulita where we ate warm cinnamon rolls and croissants with coffee or guava juice, walked the beautiful curved beach, swam in the waves, and Russ catching his last tacos at his favourite stand.
We feel our darling children’s presence from the wonderful time we spent there last Christmas. Don’t look back. Sail on through the myriads upon myriads upon myriads of translucent jellyfish through what look like the fins of sharks, but really are manta rays that fly out of the water into the night. Don’t look back. Head south through the night to Chemale.
Chemale: 19 degrees 32’ N, 105 degrees 07’ W
We round the islands of Pasavera, Novilla, and Colorado coming into Chemale, the first bay on the Gold Coast of Mexico after La Cruz.
“Marilyn, wake up. We are coming into Chemale.” Russ gently calls at the end of his watch. We pull into the quietest spot at the north east end of Isla Colorado. The water is almost clear and I see a line of clear green breaking on the quiet yellow beach. Anchor. Into the dinghy and row ashore. Into the water I go. Swim in the liquid cool.
Russ wonders the outskirts of this cactus and scrub tree-filled island. He reads the sign. It is a rookery for pelicans. He points to the big nests. The mama birds sit aloft and fluffy movement in the nests can be seen. Little heads pop up now and again. Priceless.
“Our beach” at Isla Colorados, where pelicans sit on nests with baby bird heads popping up and down.
The island is ours to enjoy. All ours! Alone. I swim ashore and do yoga on the beach. I sit on the rock and meditate. I listen to the breakers crash and clear my mind of busy thoughts. It is a day of rest.
The night, however is rolly polly from the ocean swell. And the next morning with another yacht arriving, we pull up anchor and go to the north end’s protected waters. The vanilla cream beach is fringed with palapas and palm trees. We row ashore for breakfast. Pedro is eating alone at a table in front of us. We are the only customers. He brings his breakfast over to show us what he ordered after eavesdropping on our broken Spanish conversation with the waiter. This all in the name of being helpful.
The palapa restaurants on a vanilla cream beach fringed with swaying palm trees.
Pedro is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and has a painting business there. He drove 56 hours to get to Chemale, his home town. He owns an orange house up the street from the beach, which he rents out. He made sure we knew it was listed on U-Tube under Perula. I think.
Our bill for breakfast was $6.00. It included an order of ham and scramble eggs with salsa on two tortillas, an order of 2 quesadillas with rice and salsa, three Coronas and a fresh-squeezed glass of orange juice. We came back for a fish dinner that night after an afternoon swim. Night came on. The beach a few palapas down was ablaze with two fires. Palm fronds to start them and perhaps it was garbage day burn time, including a white plastic chair.
Time to leave. Push the dinghy into the small breaking waves. Jump in. Try not to think of the sting rays. Row for the dickens before the next wave breaks. Zulu awaits us: anchored still in the night, with its mast light bright.
It is time to say goodbye to the vanilla cream beach surrounding the bay at Chemales.
It is only 20 nautical miles to Tenacatita. It is time to say goodbye to the miles and miles of beach vanilla cream beach at Chamela.
Tenacatita: 19 degrees 17.91’ N; 104 degrees 50.71’W
In we motor giving Isla Pajaros and Punta Hermanos wide berth. Two of the most beautiful dolphins grace our entry into Bahia Tenacatita. They surf our bow about an hour. Russ and I lean way over the bowsprit watching their antics. They absolutely LOVE riding the bow wave and are powerful swimmers.
The colour of their backs are almost lavender-gray. Their bellies white. Seeing their wonderfully designed blow hole open as they surface and close tight when they dive down holds me in awe. Their eye’s, for what I can see of them, seem shut into slits. They swim together, sometimes crossing over each other in what seems like the endless wave ride of all rides.
Around Punta Chubasco we slowly motor and drop the hook as the sun colours the sky pale apricot. I stand at the bow at peace with this place. And then get startled by a whoooooosh blowing at the bow. A huge black dolphin crosses the bow back and forth, back and forth: it is fish for supper. The sunset glistens on its smooth back. It dives down and you can see a chunk out of its dorsal fin. It stays with the boat for hours until darkness comes. 
My friend Chipper the dolphin, who circled Zulu with a chunk out of his dorsal fin for three days at sunset in Bahia Tenacatita. Whoooosh was the sound it made coming up for air.
It comes the next night at sunset and again stays for hours. I call it Chipper, my friend the dolphin, for the missing chunk out of his fin. I don’t want it to ever leave us. But tonight, the third night, the waters are calm and quiet around Zulu. Where did my Chipper go?
We’re going up the jungle river for the second time. Russ lowers the wooden dinghy into the water. I’ve called it Dancer, as in Zulu Dancer. He attaches a small two-stroke engine he got from Jerry in Santa Barbara for two bottles of wine. (Jerry was from Sitka and his boat looked like a 2nd-hand chandlery. His projects were enormous. I think he had wine on his mind to charm his new girl friend, because he gave Russ a bronze oar lock to replace the one he [Russ] dropped in the water for one bottle of wine.) And away we go toward the spit and rocks where the small breakers hit the beach.
Dancer our dinghy rests on the spit before we take it up the river.
Putt putt putt. We’re on top of a small wave and ride it in. We jump out on the bar each grabbing a line and pull the dinghy across into the calm waters of the river and onto the beach to size things up. In we get and putt putt we make our way through the brown green waters, avoiding the shallow sands of the spit. On the right is a palm grove, cooling to the eye.
A palm grove cooling to the eye lies to the right of the river mouth.
Russ navigating through the shallow spots, before picking up the river Queen.
The river is reasonably wide with cacti higher up and sparse mangrove trees down to the water line. Green, green, green they say on the far side of the hill! An Egret sits on the lower branches and flies off in front of us, close to the water in reflection. An hour later we feel as if we are in an enchanted mangrove underworld.
Russ at the helm of the two stroke. Mr. cool cat river guide.
An Egret flies from its perch as Dancer, our dinghy interrupts the interlude.
The river narrows and the mangrove tree canopy is high. On each side, sometimes virtually all around us, are the long intricate root formations of the trees. The branches send a long tendril downward toward the dark green-brown water and just feet from touching, they fork into numerous sponge-like tendrils that dip down into the cool: that nourish the branches of the trees. How innovative. I feel wrapped in a cool, cool place.
The river narrows with tree line higher. We flow into reflection.
We’re in a wonderland of root tendrils. Various species of birds swoop down from on high and fly low over the water, or perch still as statues camouflaged. How inexcusable not to have bought a bird book! But that is the fact.
There are pure white delicate Egrets with long black spindly legs and yellow feet, like a dancer’s. There is a large tawny-coloured bird with a long beak, chocolate and white stripes under its neck, and cream-coloured legs well camouflaged. There is a small black bird, a swift flyer with sporty black and white short tail feathers. There is the aristocratic heron, whose still presence at the waters’ edge you can feel. Its slate-gray feathers and long neck and long, long legs, and long beak call for a moment of quiet awe.
Another Egret stands in the quiet of the river flowing.
We come to a narrow spot and switch the engine off. The bird calls make this underworld a magic place. Light shafts through the root tendrils caste milky patches on the waters. A yellow butterfly threads its winged path in loops around us. Up a root tendril a small black crab with bright orange legs scurries. I breathe deeply: as deeply as I can, drinking in this jungle river trip.
Light shafts through the root tendrils caste milky patches on the waters.
The river opens up a bit and a panga with two Mexican men come into view around the bend. They cast a net. They smile at us. Their faces calm. Out further, minute silver fish by the zillions jump out the water making bubbles on the green water surface. I understand there are small crocodiles in the river. Don’t overturn! Into the wide we come. To the end.
Into the river wide we come. To the end.
I choose the table with the bright orange cloth. Although I eyed the chartreuse green one too. Which to pick? There are no other customers. The view is one in a million. We look out on the blue, blue ocean with the slightest tinge of green where the waves then curl and break. The rocks of Punta Hermanos stand guard.
We walk into the first palapa restaurant with table cloths of pink, orange, chartreuse, and purple.
“Dos Coronas por favor.” Russ has the line down.
Two cold Corona beers with a saucer of rock salt and cut limes are served. Russ orders Camarones (shrimp) and I order cheese quesadillas. With both come chili-flavoured rice, sliced tomatoes, and cucumbers. A bowl of homemade red salsa. Hot!
Russ’ favorite line: dos Coronas por favor. Tres, quartoz. Where is the aqua??
We enjoy, looking out across the yellow beach to the blue Pacific Ocean. The bright green parrot whistles and talks in Spanish. A seemingly mischievous and happy chap, however encaged. I smile. What a place to be.
The view from the palapa out onto Tenacatita bay.
Just a few hours motoring in glass seas from Tenacatita, we pull into this secret anchorage in 25 feet of blue water: a green line rims the yellow beach with small breaking waves. It is a quiet spot with a hotel built into the hill and a few palapa restaurants. All are vacant. Dead closed. Not much happening.
We read and sleep the afternoon away. Russ rows ashore to investigate. I wanted to take a naturalist guided trip to see the Monarch butterflies that have migrated 2,500 miles from Canada to the Michoacan peaks here in Mexico. Millions of them cling to the trees and hills before departing in April. I have to find the town of Zitacuaro first. Now I hear it is too late to go.
We missed St. Patrick’s Day celebration March 17, the biggest party in town with St. Patrick being the patron saint of this area. Melaque, one bay over, is the site of huge celebration. Too bad, too sad, no problema.
Will go to Melaque tomorrow, a bay just around the corner.
Manzanillo is a port of entry. It is here, hopefully, we will get a “zarpa” or exit stamp from Mexico. But our next steps are uncertain because we did not-cannot get a three-month visa. There is vascillation on direction and time. Carry on south or jump off to Marquesas? We will let you know through Zulu news.
.JPG)
.JPG)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment