Mainland Mexico!
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| El Faro, Mazatlán |
Hello dear friends and family,
We’re currently in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, one of our new favorite towns, situated on the northern shore of Bahía de Banderas. We’ve quietly settled into life here as we await our big voyage next month: the passage across the Pacific Ocean. Oh boy, it feels good to say those words! We’re feeling all the emotions: excited, prepared, unprepared, confident, scared, focused, foggy, feverish, chilled, raspy…oh yeah, we came down with bronchitis too. Bad timing.
Since I’m bored in bed, you get a long blog post this time!
In the last two months, we’ve explored new towns, fell in love with Isla Isabel, attended ocean faring seminars, visited my family in Washington, and enjoyed visits from Dave’s family here in La Cruz. Dave and his dad enjoyed a couple weeks together exploring the coastline from Bahía de Banderas to Playa Tenacatita and back. And in true sailing fashion, we let our to-do list get way too long. The boat work treadmill never stops; it only slows down sometimes. Preparing for an enormous ocean passage is not one of those times!
These last couple months have been memorable. Mainland Mexico: definitely recommended.
Baja to the Mainland
We crossed from Ensenada de Los Muertos to Mazatlán: a 40 hour trip. There was a little swell, but an overall comfortable passage. With consistent wind on the hindquarter, Sammy, our Monitor windvane, adjusted each time De Novo teased heading up, and we felt balanced. Lessening winds on the second night required more sail adjustments, and our stubbornness kept us barely coasting when the wind nearly died. Fortunately, we found we could ease back into overnights and discovered our new shift schedule works well:
We decided on four and a half hour shifts instead of the typical four hours to increase the likelihood of actually sleeping four consecutive hours in two biphasic sleep shifts each. We found we were more rested this way. Also, we chose not to move shifts forward or backwards each night and simply draw on our strengths instead: Dave’s naturally a morning person and I’m a night owl.
Old salt cruising couples often say they don't grow tired of each other on long ocean passages, rather the opposite: they surprisingly start to miss each other: one person is asleep while the other is on shift. To counter this isolation, we chose to carve out six hours each afternoon to share meals, make sail changes, do boat chores, and weather route together. Realistically, we'll probably spend some of that time catching up on sleep, but our intentions are good.
We’ve only tested this new schedule out so far on the two night passage to Mazatlán and the one night to Isla Isabel, so we’ll let you know how well it works on the much longer crossing next month.
Mazatlán
After heaving to outside Mazatlán Harbor for a good forty minutes, listening to the radio for the protocol for asking traffic control to enter, our friends on SV Palomita informed us we didn’t actually need permission–and in fact, the less busy anchorage at Isla de Piedra was better anyway. So we dropped the hook in the little bite behind the island, just a few hundred meters from their boat. Thank you to Palomita for giving us the tour of all things Mazatlán. What a fun and beautifully Mexican city.
I especially appreciated how the community takes care of neighborhood cats in parts of Mazatlán. Multiple TNR campaigns work to protect cats and dogs here. While hiking up the hill at El Faro, we noticed several volunteers putting out daily meals for the hill’s many feline residents. Martín, the dinghy dock attendant at Club Nautico onshore, has adopted and cared for twenty four cats on the property. In lieu of giving him a tip when you tie up to the dinghy dock, you can bring him cat food. Or both!
After a few days, we decided to make Christmas feel special. In the stark opposite of De Novo fashion, we actually paid for a marina slip for a few days at the fancy El Cid resort. And in true De Novo fashion, we used this time with shore power to get some boat work done, including one unexpected, crappy project. As we mentioned in our last post, we had several issues with our raw waste macerator on the Baja coast. We spent several days with a bleached bilge and buckets of related trash in our cockpit on that passage. Not fun.
We thought we fixed this problem earlier in La Paz, when we replaced our broken unit with a new Sealand T-series we ordered from Amazon Mexico. Sealand is a good brand, and this model is a good macerator–if it’s the real product. After talking with Marine Sanitation in Seattle and closely inspecting our product though, it appears we bought a knockoff.
Christmas afternoon, after a relaxing swim in the resort’s pool, we returned to our boat to an overwhelmingly putrid, sickly-sweet smell. Under our floorboards was another pool–one of human waste. Apparently, waste leaked out the knock-off bellows and into the bilge. The full-interior clean up, sanitization, and temporary fix took the rest of the day and all of our patience and holiday spirit. Sometimes living on a boat is shitty. Literally.
Fortunately, Amazon Mexico made things right, and Dave’s parents brought us a real replacement when they visited us in January. Again, lesson learned. And we enjoyed a Christmas do-over in Isla Isabel.
Isla Isabel
We love Isla Isabel. Also known as the “Galapagos of Mexico,” it lives up to its name. A natural park so protected that wildlife don’t view humans as threats. We have never seen so many frigates, iguanas, or boobies in our lives. In fact, we’ve never seen any boobies before Isla Isabel, let alone been close enough to play with these wonky, playful creatures.
(Perhaps at this point I should clarify that we’re talking about the brown and blue-footed boobies, the tropical birds on Isla Isabel.)
The overnight from Mazatlán was bouncier than our earlier passage, with contrasting seas and wind. Still, we were able to get some sleep. And we were able to witness the countless birds circling the bluffs in the morning. It felt so rugged and untouched, like approaching Jurassic Park, but only after the dinosaurs had evolved fifty million years.
The snorkeling? Excellent. The hikes on the mainland through a birdwatcher’s paradise? Excellent. The anchorages? Not so great. Was it still worth it? Definitely. It’s a small price to pay for visiting this magical island.
You have two options for anchoring: the eastern or southern anchorage. Neither is ideal. The southern shore has a largely rocky bottom while the eastern shore is largely unprotected from swell and wind. We found the eastern side too rolly for comfort and took our chances among the rocks in the southern anchorage. For us, this was much better. Our suggestion is to anchor in the northeast quadrant of the bay where it’s shallower and therefore easier to see patches of sand and rock from your bow. If you can’t do that, at least anchor shallow enough to dive on your tackle if it wraps around rock. Regardless, add a float to the chain to more easily retrieve your anchor. A trick we may or may not have learned from experience: use a mooring or fishing buoy, not a swimming buoy, so it won’t pop if a raptor lands on it with its talons. Once again, lesson learned!
Bahía Matanchén and Chacala
After nearly a week of living in paradise, we continued southbound toward our next destination: Bahía Matanchén, just south of San Blas. With light wind and calm seas behind us, we sailed under jib only while humpbacks breached in the distance. Once in, we dropped the hook off the beach near town. The anchoring was easy: just a long underwater four-meter plateau of sand. Matanchén is a friendly, traditional town and offers delicious banana bread at local roadside stands and jungle tours through crocodile rivers. But it also offers lots of little jejenes, the vicious cousins to the dreaded no-see-um bugs. Bring bug spray. We ate at a palapa restaurant on the beach one afternoon and forgot the spray on the boat, a big mistake. Fortunately, our meals came with limes and we smeared ourselves silly with lime juice. Good for avoiding bugs, but terrible for cuts and scratches! And yet again, lessons learned.
We also learned the Administración Portuaria Integral (basically, the port authority or API) collects funds for anchoring at their beach after a certain number of days–an uncommon practice in Mexico–so despite loving it, we left after four days.
Our next stop was Chacala. We were eager to keep going to Bahía de Banderas so we only stayed one night, getting in just before dusk and leaving before dawn the next morning. We decided to break up the passage here instead of overnighting to Bahía de Banderas to avoid entangling our prop in any fishing long lines occasionally used in this area. By sailing only during the day each leg, we would be more likely to see these dangers.
Chacala seemed lovely and lively from the cockpit, but we didn’t linger. We didn’t set a stern anchor for such a short visit, and it’s one hell of a bouncy anchorage without one. As the only boat without one, we anchored some distance from the other two so we wouldn’t swing into them, which meant we had to anchor further out away from the bluff’s protection. Instead, we braced ourselves in our berths as we rolled from rail to rail and attempted to sleep.
Bahía de Banderas, specifically La Cruz de Huanacaxtle
The sail south from Chacala was an unusual one, simply because we saw some of the lightest and strongest winds since leaving Baja on this leg, all within minutes of each other. We started off motoring in clear glass–a surprise after the night we had–but picked up some light north winds as we drew closer to the cape. Between Punta Villela and Islas Marietas, we suddenly saw 20 knots on our nose. Immediately after the cape, we reefed our foresail as winds increased. By the time we passed Punta Mita, we dropped sail completely and motored again in flat, windless conditions the few miles left to La Cruz.
La Cruz is like La Paz: a big sailing community where people help one another. The Pacific Voyagers group runs ocean-fairing seminars, street tacos are delicious, the kids club and kids’ net for boat kids are real active, there are important projects and volunteer opportunities to get involved in, and again, most community cats and dogs are well taken care of (the mark of any great town in my opinion). There’s the occasional crocodile in the marina or anchorage, but I’ve heard they’re friendly so whatevs. Most importantly, we’ve met several others who will head across the Pacific from here around the same time we do, so we’re relieved to be sailing in a group out there.
We decided to invite Dave’s family here in January and February. After a visit with Dave’s parents, I left with Dave’s mom back to Washington so I could spend some time with my family (and cat, of course). In the meantime, Dave and his dad enjoyed a fun passage south to Tenacatita. Since I wasn’t there, I can’t provide any details, but maybe Dave or Charlie will add a post about that adventure at some point? No promises.
Dave’s siblings and niblings and I flew in after De Novo returned to La Cruz, and we enjoyed showing off our new town, the market, the restaurants, and the beach (sans crocodile?).
So that catch up takes us to now. We’re collecting information, skills, and never-ending tasks on our to-do list, and we’re so, so ready for the next step in our adventure. We’ll check in here briefly before we leave for the 3000 mile crossing (!) to The Marquesas Islands so you can, if you choose, follow us every step of the way.
Photos!
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| Mazatlán Art |
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| Learning to tie up at Club Nautico's dinghy dock |
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| Bonding with Martin's rescue cats at Club Náutico |
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| New Years on Palomita and friends |
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| Reunion with Talisman |
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| Overnight to Isla Isabel |
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| Frigates on Isla Isabel |
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| Bebe frigate |
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| Blue footed boobies |
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| Brown footed boobie in foreground; Humpback in background |
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| A magical evening visit from a humpback! ...that we missed! Thanks to SV Coconut for the shot. |
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| Wide open Bahía Matanchén Zoom waaaay in to find De Novo |
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| Tovara Jungle Tour in Matanchén |
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| A movie set left over from the the 1991 movie, Cabeza de Vaca, filmed partly at Tovara Springs |
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| Swimming hole at Tovara, fortunately blocked off from the crocodiles! |
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| This beauty washed up on the beach during the last hurricane. |
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| Beautiful murals abound in La Cruz |
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| Un Vaquero in La Cruz |
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| La Cruz Sunday Market |
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| Dave's parents stayed in idyllic La Cruz Inn |
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| Made a quick visit to see family in Washington and got to fly with this awesome travel companion, Raggi. He wanted to meet everyone at the gate and chase the planes. He had a new furever home waiting for him in Seattle and just needed a human companion to take him there so he could join them. If anyone is flying from Mexico to the PNW, ask me about flight angel programs! While I was bummed to say goodbye to this adventure kitty, I was thrilled to say hello to Uma for two weeks. ❤️  Sadly, I didn't take many pictures of my time back in Washington, but I was so happy to have that time with family. At least I got this shot: my nephew Kellan and I hiking Mailbox Peak, North Bend  Meanwhile, Dave and his dad Charlie sailed south  ...Stopping first in Punta Ipala
 And finally to Tenacatita.  Dinghying through Tenacatita's estuary    I didn't know what they were either. When Dave first sent me this pic, I thought he discovered a long-lost herd of miniature brachiosauruses.  The rest of Dave's family met us in La Cruz once we returned which made for a fun trip.  The best part was we got to spend time with our niblings
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| Very nice of family to stay somewhere with a pool! |
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| It was Tegan's birthday while they were here, so we celebrated Hogwarts-style |
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| Nosotros te amamos, La Cruz! |
Thank you for reading our blog.
Denise and Dave 💙
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