Northbound: Chamela to Banderas Bay

Chamela

Our passage north to Chamela was uneventful and beautiful.  We ended up staying in Chamela Bay for 3 days to wait out strong winds coming from the North.  While in this beautiful little bay, we weren’t able to spend too much time on shore due to strong winds funneling into the bay (we were a little nervous about our anchor dragging again).  Bob, being the stud that he is, never let the winds and waves stop him from taking Salty to shore. 

  I think every cruiser has a good dinghy beach landing story and we now have one too, thanks to this bay.  Actually, we were departing the beach (landing is the easy  part!), thinking we had waited for the opportune moment, and piled Salty in the dinghy along with all our groceries from town and the two of us (Bob and Shari).  Bob was just getting the motor down when I saw a very large swell coming towards us.  Before we knew it, our dinghy was heading skyward, but luckily didn’t flip.  A big ol’ foaming wave crashed on us, filling the boat nearly to the top with water and sweeping our crazy Salty dog overboard.  Looking around, all of our groceries were floating in the dinghy, Salty was swimming back to the dinghy and another wave was coming towards us.  Bob floored the dinghy and got us past the break and Salty swam out to us.  We were drenched and laughing our heads off!  What a ride!

The beautiful beachfront of Chamela Bay (of coarse it looks as calm as a kiddy pool!)

Banderas Bay

Our window of opportunity opened for us to sail North to Banderas Bay, so off we went.  We had a wonderful trip.  The stars were out at night, the seas were calm as well as the wind.  Once we made it around Cabo Corrientes and began our entrance into Banderas Bay, the phosphorescence lit up the ocean.  The most spectacular sight was the dolphins swimming along with us.  They were so amazingly clear to see in the middle of the night due to the phosphorescence.  Their tails left  brush strokes of bright aqua green behind them.   It was as if glowing ghosts were guiding our way in.  There were whales everywhere, so I was happy to have our motor running as to warn these mammoths of our presence.

We pulled into La Cruz in the wee morning hours.  It felt good to be back.  We cleaned Pearl up, filled up her water tanks, reprovisioned, visited with friends and readied ourselves for visitors.  Our great friends from Seattle, the Brosius Family (sv Ghost), came to visit us at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta.  We had such a great time with them.  We even got some sailing in, along with whale watching-of course!  Their visit was much too short and just when we were settling in, they had to leave.  We spent one extra day at Paradise Village Marina to celebrate Annie’s 10^th birthday.  We celebrated by swimming In the pool, playing bocce ball, and eating lots of cake.

Annie, Ellie, and Zak having a blast swimming off the boat in Banderas Bay

We had the most amazing pleasure to witness the cruising acrobats while staying at Paradise Village Marina.  If only Bob or I could aquire this skill to climb our rigging!

Ang enjoying her much deserved pina colada at Paradise Village.

Shari getting a little smooch from one of the locals.

Bob and the girls had a blast playing pool volleyball on Annie's birthday.

Happy 10th Birthday sweet Annie!

Back to La Cruz we went after that.  We were so happy to see our friends from Endeavor and Harmony had arrived there also.  We all took a taxi into Sayulita to have a “tourist” day.  We had such a good day (and so did the beach vendors!). Our time in Mexico was dwindling so we knew we had to be ready to cross over to Baja when the weather looked good.  Our friends on Endeavor and Harmony, being the great people that they are, made sure to send us off with a hangover.  (There’s always trouble when Evil Uncle Terry and Rick are around!)