Barra de Navidad

For a long time I'd been hearing about Barra de Navidad and the adjacent lagoon.  Mostly from friends who were cruising Mexico's Pacific coast. Since I had arrived in Puerto Vallarta, Barra was high on my list of places I wanted to visit. After my short stay in Chemela, I thought about going straight to Manzanillo , staying there a month or so, then work my way north as the season wore on. But Barra was to tempting, and Manzanillo and Tenacatita are really close. I figured I could make this area my home till it was time to find a place to summer over

Barra is an amazing place on several levels. First, the town is my favorite so far. Very cruiser friendly. It's very clean and the entire town is situated on a peninsula with easy access. There is a hotel on the water (The Sands) which lets cruisers dock their dingys near the pool. This a convienient place to get into town. 

          Getting into the lagoon is a different matter!! The main entrance is well marked and deep. There is a marina ( the most expensive in all Mexico)  a few hundred yards inside the jettys. After that it opens into a huge lagoon with a very narrow, unmarked channel. The channel is about 50' wide with shoal water on either side.

I came in with eyes glued to the depth sounder and found 16' at the entrance to the lagoon. As I entered the meter went quickly to 3 feet, with mud churning up in my wake.!!!!  I backed off and called the anchored fleet on chnnel 22 (this is the cruisers channel) A fellow cruiser answered and gave me directions. I move over jsut a few feet from where I had been and saw 10' and moved ahead dead slow untill I was in the anchorage area. It seems a lot of boat go aground using this channel, so I did'nt feel too much the bone-head. I anchored among the sailboats and had 6' of water under the keel. One has to leave or enter at low tide to best be able to see the shoals. That way, if you get stuck in the mud, the tide will soon rise and release you. If you try on a high tide, you'll be stuck as the tide falls. Since I got here I have been mentally marking all the channels for when I exit.

 Every morning about 9am the French Baker (Henri) comes around in a small boat selling things he has baked that morning. Fresh bread, pastires and anything you have ordered from the day before. He has a bakery shop in Barra and has been a wealth on information about where everything is in town.

At anchor in the lagoon

The Sands Hotel and cruisers hang-out

Lagoon beach

Downtown Barra de Navidad

Henri, the French Baker

So far , with the exception of a few generator issues, my boat has preformed really well. Looks like all the work I put in before I left has paid off. Not too bad for a 32 year old boat.

Heading south...Chemela

At Anchor in Chemela

Incredible Beach

Is that a sunset.....or WHAT?

After family departed Jan. 6th, I waited for a weather window to head south. After 3 rolly days anchored out in La Cruz, I left 4am Jan 10th. for Chamela.  Cabo Corrientes has a reputation for confused seas and curents. Corrientes literally means currents. And it lived up to it's reputation. I passed by at dawn to 6' seas from three directions. While not dangerous (there was little wind), it was an uncomfortable ride for a few hours.

After clearing the cape the seas remained the same but only came from the northwest. Even though I had the seas from astern, I could only make 6.5 knots. I figured there was a northbound current slowing me down. Thirteen hours later I sighted Punta Rivas, which is the entrance to Chamela Bay.

What a fantastic place. Chamela Bay is 2 miles wide and has several isands and great snorkeling areas. The water was clear down to about 25 feet. I anchored up off the little village with about a dozen sailboats late that afternoon and promptly crashed for a long sleep. The water was calm, so I had little motion.

The next day I figured to expolre a bit ashore. This requires a beach landing through the surf. I launched the dingy and rode up and down the coast a bit to see where the calmest place was to land. As I was cruising, I saw another inflatable heading for the beach moving fast. I laid off and watched him run his boat onto the beach on the back of a wave, turn around at the last minute and tilt his outboard up. As I was admiring his style, I heard something to my left. Turning my head, I realized I had drifted INSIDE the waves while watching the other dingy!..The wave rolled me over about 45 degrees and I thought I was going over for sure. At the last second I hit the throtte full on, spun my bow around and hit the beach at full speed right next to the guy I had been watching. Talk about a rush!! The other guy was watching me and he got a good laugh from my kamakazi landing. We helped each other pull our dingys up on the beach and he gace me a ride into town in his Jeep.

There wasn't a lot to see in the town. About 1/3 the size of Chacala. Mostly just a few palapa restaurants. I stopped into a little tienda (market) and then realized I had brought no cash with me from Puerto Vallarta!!. I had SOME food aboard, but not enough for the time I wanted to spend in Chemela and Tenacatita.

I ended up staying a day and a half, and left 1-12 with the plan to return to this pristine place on my way north later in the season.

Strangers in Paradise

No discharge sign in Chacala

12-31-2010 in La Cruz

Wow, what an adventure!!..Alex and Kaitlyn arrived Dec.29th as planned. But NO RONELLE!!!..Seems she had a passport meltdown and required 3 trips to LAX to finally board the plane Dec. 30th. She IS persistant!! I had moved the boat to Marina Vallarta a few days prior so as to be close the airport.


After we picked up Ronelle at the airport we went shopping at Wal-Mart. Yep, this is the best place to provision. The girls went wild in the produce section while Alex and I exchanged knowing glances. A taxi full of groceries and back to the boat we went. After a fantasic Italian dinner overlooking the marina we all crashed.


The next morning, New Years Eve, we motored the five miles north to La Cruz where I got us a slip for the day/night so we could go into the small town there for some celebration. We had dinner at a local joint called Philo's. The owner is an Ex-pat that sailed into town one day and never left. La Cruz is very rustic, with cobble stone streets, friendly locals and sever nice restaurants. Philo also plays in the house band and Alex was interested in one of the players banging on a washboard. Complete with cymbols and cow bells. I expect he'll have one of his own soon enough. Philo's was packed with Ex-Pats that made even me feel young. We stayed till about 10-30 then walked back to the boat. We stayed up long enough to do the Happy New Year thing, then hit the sack so we could leave the next morning for Chacala.


Chacala is a small village about 60 miles north of Puerto Vallarta. It's name means " where there are Shrimp" in Nahuatl. In the 1980's Dr. Laura del Valle,  a Zen Buddhist,  built a lodge for medical
students to come and stay while helping the poor. It retains the rustic flavor, with cobblestone streets and open markets. We were there during the holidays, so it was packed with Mexican tourists. We explored the town a bit and Ronelle made an appointment at a spa for a massage at a place we had seen from the boat. Alex found some interesting photo opportunities (see pix).


Ronelle and Kaitlyn, being the more adventerous ones went snorkling several times. The water was a bit murky, about 73 F and calm for the most part. Alex threw iron at the local fish and caught a nice Bonita, which I quickly turned into Ceveche'.MMMMM!!!

Iguanas in love....

Crocs

Paradise Village Pool

Underwater grotto

Girls in the hot tub

After 3 beautiful days in Chacala we un-glued the anchor from the bottom and headed back south for Puerto Vallarta. As we had been to two different marinas already, I took the crew to Paradise Village. This place has everything a fine resport shoold have. Fine marina, shopping malls, hotels, pool and a beautiful beach. If you were taken there blindfolded, you might not even know you were in Mexico. We did, however, have time to take a long dingy ride up the estuary up from the Marina, on a jungle cruise. It goes on for a few miles. We were looking for crocadilles. As we can around one sharp bend, we saw two sitting on a bank. As we neared them, they both were spooked and took off into the water, straight at us!!!   Everybody screamed for a second till we realized they were more afraid of us than we were of them. Ronelle, ever the perpared one, caught it all on video.  We also saw many giant iguanas of different colors. Even two that we caught doing the wild thing, LOL

Everybody had a great time taking pictures poolside ( and underwater, thanks to Ronelle), walking on the beach, having our last supper at sunset, beachside. All quite serene and romantic. We all seemed to avoid talking about time running out.........

And then , suddenly it seemed, they were gone.................