After leaving Yelapa behind, we did an overnight to Chamela. This was a cool bay with chill little palapas next to a river…apparently there was a town…but we walked up the wrong road and never found it. We hung out a night there and caught up with Josh and Jill on s/v La Gitana (fellow surfer we met up in Punta de Mita). Both boats headed off the next day to a cool island name Isla Cocina which is a bird sanctuary. Great snorkeling and a perfect beach for a bonfire. We made hobos…a concoction from Scotty on s/v Ghost…which consists of meat, veggies and copious amounts of cheese and butter all wrapped in foil and hucked into the fire…good stuff!
The next day we had a long passage of 8 knots to Paraiso…which was our own private paradise. As we pulled into the bay there was a beach with 4 coconut trees and a beautiful white Sand beach…it was amazing. More good snorkeling….I’ll let the photos do the rest.
Palarran in Palm tree paradise
The landscape around the anchorage was a dinghy exploring mecca
This is listed as a great dinghy pass through…I don’t know Hello World…the oh shit factor was a lot higher here than the cave in Canada…we declined to “pass” through
Next stop was Tenacatita…this place was like LaCruz south. Tons of boats that had been anchored there for months…there was cruisers net on the radio and everything…this aside, the place was amazing. We also finally hooked up with s/v Unleashed who had left La Cruz to go south about a month ahead of us. They are now on the return route north.
Catching up with S/V Unleashed (the younger couple on the right) and some other cruisers
There was a cocodrillio reserve done up Mexican style with semi rotted board walks bordered by 3 foot high hurricane fencing that was in need of much repair…did this sway our 10 peso entrance…hell no! The following are photos taken on a regular point and shoot…no zoom required.
I swear…this dude is alive…never did move, but they say a croc can move 30mph on land in short bursts…I’ll take buddies word for it:-)
Next was the jungle estuary tour…who doesn’t like to explore a jungle via dinghy cutting through narrow passages carved by a tidal flow? The birds were beautiful and varied from Pelicans to Snowy Egrets.
There were also a number of large cobwebs that CB always managed to drive through on my side of the dinghy. The river was about 2 miles long and ended in a large lagoon where apparently you used to be able to beach your dinghy and hike over to the beach and have a beer at a palapa…unfortunately about 2 years ago there was a property dispute and a large fence went up preventing any access…then all the businesses went tits up…so we just turned around.
Yoda was just around the corner….swamp land this is, yeessss.
CB really could have cared less about the flora and fauna… he was all about the full throttle return trip. He flew the dink through tight turns narrowly missing pangas flying with Han Solo type skill (so he said) until we came out to the beach…it took us an hour and a half to get up there and only 20 minutes to get back…good stuff!
CB said this was just like riding speeder bikes through the forests on the moons of Endor
The next day it was onto Barre de Navidad…I can’t wait to see this place…updates to follow…I promise :-)