Chamela

When we arrived in Chamela I basically crashed till the next day. I was only able to get 3 hrs sleep the prior night and was just beat. Guess what? This is also a very rolly anchorage. I think all west coast anchorages are rolly. We are tucked behind a large finger of land but some how the northwest swell finds it's way around the corner only to make my nights miserable and restless. No wonder so many boats stay in Marinas. The next day we put up the sun shade and set out the flopper stopper. The first helped a lot, but the second just dampened the effects of the constant swell and waves. There is very large swell running out side so I think that is a big factor. Speaking of swell and crashing waves, we have a close encounter with these turbulent waters just to get to shore. There is only one small corner of the bay where there is small enough surf that you can make a beach landing. Coming to shore usually means surfing your dingy ( yeh dingy surfing, my New Years Eve desire)through 2 to 3 ft breakers. The hard part is you have to go back through those waters when you want to get back to the boat. Timing is everything. On our first attempt everyone thought we were going to flip over backwards as we climbed the largest wave in the set and came crashing down the back side. Bad Timing!!! With all our weight forward we were able fly over the top and slide down the back of a big breaking wave. This departure was after us helping 3 other boats make it successfully through the waves The next time we only got soaked waiting in shallow water for some calm to go through the surf. Good thing it is 85' and warm water.
There are about 6 beach front palapas that all have their specialities. We eat at the Corona tent for 50($5.00) peso chicken fajitas for two and 10 ($1.00) peso beers. I still get bad headaches form beer some mine are $1.50 Cokes. Go figure this is beer country. Water cost more than beer! As I sit hear tonight with visions of dingy surfing still in my head. I hear the non stop crashing waves just 150 yds from the boat and the constant rolling back and forth and think it is time to move on. Tomorrow we will head to Bahia Tenacatita. From what we understand it should be more protected and less rolly. This has been a fun beach front town, but I need some rest. Happy February and we are looking forward to seeing our friends from Canada Gary and Sandy who have rented a house down here for the whole month.

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Losing Track Of Time.

After about a five minute discussion and finally turning on the computer I found out it is January 31 the end of the month. That makes it almost 3 weeks since I have updated our blog and written most of our friends. After leaving Chacala we headed to La Cruz. On the way we stop for overnight at Punta Mita. It was a very open anchorage with not much going on for us to even take the dingy down. The town itself is most a resort and a golf course. It was an 8 mile run to La Cruz the next day. La Cruz is a great little town with all the ambience that Mexico can offer. The streets are paved with round stone. They all have a pattern that we have become accustom to. Being made with round rock and not flat cobblestone it is very difficult to walk for any distance with out hurting some part of your foot. The stones are simply laid in sand and dirt. The homes in the town range from million dollar beach front homes to shambles that look similar to deer camp on a bad day. The most troublesome part of all of this old world town is that a brand new large marina is being built right on old beach front land. Docks and shops now stand where once beautiful beaches once settled behind some million dollar homes. No longer are they beach front properties, and their only view is parking lots and store fronts. What a shame because I can only imagine the whole town will slowly change from a small Mexican community to a commercial tourist town. Starting at the waterfront then moving back towards the hills surrounding this nice Mexican town. The highlights of La Cruz for us during our stay was open mic at both Philo's and Britiania, and a 6 hour Mexican Train domino game aboard Rosebud from Portland. Philo's is the local cruisers hangout with $2 beers and $7.50 hamburgers. Not exactly old world Mexico food or pricing. The local talent in La Cruz was well worth the price. After 6 days we got tired of the rolly anchorage so we followed Hiatus over to Nuevo Vallarta. Nothing was available at the docks so we tied between two old dock pilings for $9.00 a night. It wasn't great but at least we weren't rolling, and Helen appreciated the showers. We spent 5 nights tied to the pilings mostly just exploring Puerto Vallarta and re provisioning. We didn't make it to old town but everything else we saw was just big city tourist town. I was glad to leave, but we had one last fantastic adventure that we did no expect. On our last night we snuck onto the beach in front of some very exclusive resorts. Walked about 200yrds down the beach and had a very moving experience. We were able to take part in the release of about 250 one day old indangered sea turtles. The eggs had been collect about 45 to 60 days prior and buried in a protected makeshift nest. They had just hatched that morning and were waiting for us to help coax them towards the sea. They didn't need any coaxing the turned straight for the sea and made their move. Our job was to help those wayward turtles that either were taking a side trip or just needed a little extra push so they could make it to the water with still enough energy to maybe survive the first couple of hours let alone days. They estimate that only one in a hundred survive to come back and either breed or lay eggs. It was totally cool. I have some great pictures and film footage to put on the blog when I get a chance.
The next day we left headed for Chamela after a short rest stop in La Cruz. The trip to Chamela was an all night trip and because of strong currents and sloppy waves it took us 21 hrs to travel the 100 miles. The trip was filled with whale sittings, dolphins playing at our bow, but no fish took my hook. We are finally in tropical weather. 85' and water temperature of 80. WOW

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Chacala chickens, palapas and civilization

We just pulled into a idyllic beach community. Palm trees are swaying, surf is softly kissing the shore, and the sounds of roosters and chickens rises above it all. There are palm roofed palapas within swimming distance and the promise of a $5.00 dinner made in the home of a local tonight; the meal choices are enchiladas or chilli rellanos. We may stay here for more than one day...the photos will be posed later and I hope you can see how peaceful it appears. Over the roosters I can now here music from the shore--if it is a club we may be hearing the music until 3-5 AM as it is Friday night and they party that late on weekends...oh well, even paradise has its downside. It is finally warm and sunny. We had fog till mid afternoon the last few days and cool temperatures. The no-see-um bites are itching now, 3 days later, but ammonia helps a lot with the itch. I don't think we will be going back to San Blas!!! As we were leafing we were treted towhales leaping out of he water only a short distance awy

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Back on the water again

After spending the new Years week back in Mazatlan with family and friends it is nice to be back on the water again. Meaning we are away from docks and crowds and high costs. We had a great time with Mike and Laura who flew home on Jan 2. We were invited to a fantastic Lobster and Shrimp New Years diner aboard Triple Star with Beyond Reason and Hiatus also being there. New Years Eve ended with a midnight surfing trip outside the harbor with the dingy. Probably not the smartest thing but it seemed right at the time. Then we spent the rest of the week with other long time friends Craig , Deborah Huntington, Johnny ,and Sharon Jordan. Great time was had, and it was fun to share our life style with them. Once we left Mazatlan we spent a day anchored just south of town in an area called Stone Island. We were anchored off the beach in front of about a dozen palapas (palm covered eating areas) just like Mexico is suppose to be. We spent the afternoon sitting at a table with our feet playing in the sand watching our boats just bob in the swell. What a way of life this has become. We walked on the beach for a short distance then back to our place at the palapa. After our ten minute walk we had worked up a appetite and had fish and shrimp on the beach watching the sunset thinking about what all of you were doing at home on this Sunday afternoon. The next morning we left for Chacala a small bay just short of Puerto Vallarta. It was a 24 hr trip which we cut short because of fog and went into San Blas, Matanchen Bay, I had been here before so I felt comfortable in the fog. Last night at about 4:30 am I had just come on watch and had one of the most wonderful and chilling experiences I have had. I was staring out into the darkness when I heard this god awful noise come from what I thought was the boat. It sounded like my entire sail had just been ripped from the mast. Right along side the boat I missed two large whales by just feet. They had bellowed and sprayed the side of the boat as I sailed past. I could see the whales underwater by the full outline of the blue Phosphorus. They blew again making that horrible sound all within about 50 ft or less from the boat. It amazed and shook me up just how close I had come to silently running over these huge animals on a dark moonless night. We are sitting at anchor getting ready for another magical sunset in 80 degree weather thinking of all you at home. Tomorrow we are off to head a little further south.

We added some pictures to out blog at http://svjammin.blogspot.com/
Our postion on google earth is at http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=kd7txh

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