Sailing Adventures of s/v Talos IV: Tenacatita

We left Chamela mid morning and motored out and around the islands that mark the entrance to the bay. Winds were calm and our plan was to motor the relatively short distance of 8 miles to Paraiso for the night. As we rounded the islands the winds picked up and continued to build until it was blowing a solid 25 knots from the SE, the direction we were heading.

We stayed the course and plowed into the building wind waves and worked our way into Paraiso for what we thought was going to be a great day of swimming and snorkeling off the reefs that line both sides of the small bay. Once in, we dropped the anchor in about 12 feet of water. The sides of the bay were only about 100 feet on either side of us with large waves breaking over the reefs. While we were firmly anchored in relatively calm water, we both felt uneasy about staying here. It just didn't feel right. Up came the anchor and we were off to Bahia Tenacatita, another 22 miles south.

The winds were still blowing hard right on our bow and Talos was only making about 3.5 knots as we plowed into the wind and waves. We considered turning back, but after evaluating the distance and estimated time en-route, we determined that we could make it in before dark. We try our best to not enter into a new anchorage after dark. We hoisted the main sail to see if we could squeak out a bit of speed and were able to gain about a half a knot. This proved to be the right strategy as the land fell off more and more to the east, the wind came around to our starboard side and we eventually unfurled the jib and were sailing on a close haul. The motor was shut down and we were sailing. We sailed the last 8 miles or so into Bahia Tenacatita. We worked our way back into the far north corner of the bay, found the anchorage and dropped our anchor along with about 15 other boats. Tucked back behind the headland the winds were calm. As soon as we had the boat secured we were in the water cooling off in the 81 degree water.

The next morning we put the dinghy in the water for the much anticipated jungle tour up the estuary. It was a grand outing. The entrance to the estuary was just off from where we were anchored. We had to negotiate the incoming waves to the beach that lay just to the north of the estuary entrance and then we were in. The estuary, lined with mangroves was about 50 feet wide at the entrance, but soon narrowed to maybe 15 feet. Birds were everywhere. They would sit there very calm until just before you reached them and then away they would go. Further in the mangroves continued to close down on us and at times we had to duck to get under the foliage. Finally, we reached the end at a point where the mangroves just closed in so tight you couldn’t go any further. We turned around and made our way back out to the beach where we stopped and had an amazing lunch at the palapa restaurant on the beach.

The following day we pulled anchor and sailed across the bay to La Manzanilla, a small town on the south east corner of the bay. We anchored off the beach and spent two comfortable nights. The town wasn’t much, but it did have several small abbarotes to help restock the cupboards and as luck would have it a great little espresso shop with wifi. Mexico is a wonderful place.

While at La Manzanilla we had many opportunities to perfect our beach landings and re-launches in the swell and breaking waves. Janet said she thought we were going to die, but it really wasn’t that bad. A bit wet, but who cares when the outside air temp is 85 degrees and the water temp is 81 degrees. Far from expert dinghy landers, we now feel a bit more confident and knowledgeable about the process.

Tomorrow we are off to Barra de Navidad.