The Cruising Life of “Freshman”

At anchor in Bahia Chamela

We realized over the last several weeks that we are woefully behind in our blog so this post may be a little longer as we highlight our voyaging life from February when we left Banderas Bay until we arrived in Ensenada de los Muertos for the second time in our freshman year. The title of this post may seem a little odd but we often think of our first year of full time cruising as our ‘freshman’ year. We look back to a year ago as we readied ourselves and IG for the daunting task ahead of us. There were so many unknowns and so many questions: are we ready? do we have the right skills? will all of our new systems work? did we stow enough food, enough spares, enough alcohol? will we be painfully homesick? will we be frightened during storms or bored with long stretches at sea? The questions and unknowns were overwhelming at times. As we settled into our routine, we also learned a lot, experienced a lot, and realized that the 6 years we spent preparing for this adventure served us well. We learn something new just about every day but the BEST events are the NON-events! So let’s breeze through the highlights of our trip from Punta de Mita down to Barra de Navidad, back up to Banderas Bay, on to Isabela, and Baja 2.0.

We picked up anchor at Punta de Mita at about 11:15 on February 8th along with our friends on s/v Satori. It was good to be sailing again. We enjoyed a long spinnaker run through the night and arrived in Bahia Chamela in the afternoon of the 9th. We had 4 relaxing days in Chamela including touring the small town of Perula. One of our fondest memories of Chamela is seeing our friends Harry and Joy from s/v Oh Joy II on their way north back to Banderas Bay. We enjoyed hosting 3 other couples for sundowners and appetizers during Harry and Joy’s brief hiatus.

The town of Perula

Michelle and Sheila getting ready for breakfast in Perula

After hearing about Harry and Joy’s time in Tenacatita, we excitedly set sail on February 13th. We were still looking for places where we could unstrap the surf boards and float on a wave; we heard that Tenacatita may just fit the bill! Satori and IG arrived in Tenacatita minutes apart. We safely anchored and settled in for our stay. The bay was full of boats of every size, type, style, and vintage. Groups played Bocce Ball on the beach, others walked, some paddle boarded, some went SCUBA diving, adventure seekers took their dinghy up the estuary and visited the ever-popular Raicilla distillery. We hadn't been in Tenacatita very long before we unstrapped the surfboards and headed with them on the dinghy to Boca de Iguanas where we promptly got tossed "a$$ over tea kettle" (as the expression goes)! We dinghied back to IG with our tails between our legs. Over the next several days, we spent hours surfing the "baby" waves that form at the mouth of the estuary. We partook in all of the activities listed above (substituting snorkeling for SCUBA diving) and also took a panga to the small town of La Manzanilla for a fun outing. 

Raicilla Tour

Surfing at Tenacatita

Church at La Manzanilla

Beach at La Manzanilla

With both sadness and joy, we departed Tenacatita on February 26th with Satori and headed to a small bay at Cuastecomate where we anchored for 2 days. The anchorage was small and comfortable. We enjoyed snorkeling and watching the tourists riding the "banana" (literally a banana-shaped and colored float that is pulled by a panga or a jet ski)! At the end of the ride, the panga makes an abrupt turn and dumps the tourists off...it's hilarious to watch! 

The small town of Cuastecomate

At anchor in Cuastecomate

After pulling up anchor in Cuastecomate, we headed to Barra de Navidad where we anchored for 4 days. Unfortunately, the water is not suitable for swimming or snorkeling. But we had fun exploring the town, watching the advanced surfers near the entrance to Barra, and enjoying the company of our friends on Satori. This was to be the last time we would be with them as they were headed south to Panama and we were headed back north to explore the Gulf of California. It was a bittersweet moment as we bid them farewell and left Barra to head north back up to Banderas Bay.

On our way to visit the Capitania

Grand Isla Navidad Resort

On that beautiful day, March 4th, we set out under full main and Genoa. We were fighting a counter current but we were sailing! Before long, the winds stiffened and the seas grew. We passed by Tenacatita hoping to anchor in Careyes. By the time we reached Careyes, the winds were howling and we were more than ready to seek shelter. As we entered the bay, we discovered that the northern "finger" had pangas strung across the opening, effectively blocking the anchorage. There were a few boats on moorings and at least 1 at anchor. However, the seas were quite large and there was little room for us to anchor. We shortened sail and decided to head back out and reach for Chamela. We knew it would be dark when we arrived but we had anchored there before and felt confident that we could do so in the dark.

The next day, we left Chamela and headed for Punta de Mita at the NW tip of Banderas Bay. It was an overnight sail against the wind, seas, and current! It was slow going and a bit uncomfortable but we managed to round Cabo Corrientes in the early morning hours. We spent a couple of days anchored at Punta de Mita before heading to Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta. The marina is very well-maintained, the grounds lovely, and you can't beat the 2 for 1 drinks every day during Happy Hour! We had a wonderful stay in Paradise and also made a trip to Florida to visit with Michelle's mom. In our March 19th post, we highlighted our sailing adventure with a wonderful Mexican family so be sure to check it out!

As much as we loved Paradise Village, we were excited to be throwing off the lines and heading back toward Punta de Mita, one of our most favorite anchorages. From there, we skipped up the coast to Matanchen for a couple of nights and an exhilarating sail to Isla Isabel(a) where we anchored south of Las Monas. We were greeted to the island by 2 Humpies and some fishermen setting their nets. We paddled ashore and walked amongst the beautiful Blue-Footed Boobies and the free-lunch Frigates (they are always stealing fish from other birds). The island and surrounding waters are host to a wide diversity of plant and animal life. Here is a link to a great documentary about the island filmed by the Cousteau Society (in case you missed our April 16th blog post).

Kids playing in Punta de Mita

At anchor in Punta de Mita

We left Isabel on April 8th, along with 3 other boats, headed for Ensenada de los Muertos on the east coast of Baja. Click here to check out some exciting stories on our PredictWind tracking page. Suffice to say that we encountered all kinds of conditions, some exciting and some not, on our 3-day sail. The PredictWind blog posts provide more detail that is more "in the moment" as we can post in real time from our Iridium Go!

Blue-footed Boobies

The babies are so fluffy that they look bigger than mom!

Frigate baby

The Muertos anchorage set the stage for a jam-packed, roughly 2-month adventure exploring the Golfo de California. Now that we've gotten you caught up with our return to Baja, we'll end this post here. The next post will fill you in on the exciting new places, stunning scenery, and truly good people we met while hopping up the coast of Baja and back over to mainland Mexico.

Crew from IG, Juliet, Serafina, and Fly Aweigh II after our crossing from Isabel to Muertos