Hiking and beach time in Chacala, Mexico

 

We sailed out of Ensenada de Mantanchen on Jan 13^th for the 23 mile journey to Chacala. Chacala is a lovely beach town, with a row of palapa restaurants along the beach, breaking surf, and lush jungle-covered mountains circling the bay.  

There is a sheltered inlet by the Port Captain where we would dinghy into town to avoid the surf landing.  

The surf landing is no joke.  I got toppled on the paddleboard and lost my sunglasses.  

The town is small but there are a few mini markets where we stocked up on fresh fruits and vegetables.

Our friends on Skookum V and Mapache came into the anchorage, so it made for a fun place to spend a few days.

The anchorage itself is a bit notorious for being rolly.  For the first time, we set our stern anchor to hold Brightnest's bow pointed into the swell to make life a little more comfortable.  The process involves getting in the dinghy with an anchor, rowing out and dropping it, and then winching the rode taught (at least that’s our process, there are many ways of setting your stern anchor).   Most other boats had put out their stern anchors as well.  It was a good skill for us to practice so that we are comfortable with it.  Despite being a bit rolly, we found Chacala more than made up for it with its palapa restaurants, beach scene, café/bakery near the Port Captain, fun walks through town, and cool jungle hikes. 

As for cool jungle hikes, Jen and I are always looking for a chance to stretch our legs.  We found this jungle hike up the mountain, around a caldera, through a soursop (guanabana) orchard, and then down to a beautiful, secluded cove.   

View of the anchorage from the guanabana orchard.

Guanabana (soursop) orchard.  They use these precious fruits to make our favorite paletas (popsicles).

Hidden cove.

We had to “tip” the guard to get down to the cove.  It’s really a special spot, and it continues to amaze us how many fantastic little beaches there are in Pacific Mexico.  There are also plenty of huge beaches.  While hiking through the soursop orchard, that eventually gave way to a mango orchard, we came across a flock (right term?) of Chachalacas, inspiring me to coin a new song Chachalaca de Chacala.  Jen thought it was awesome, and we sang along as we walked. We tried to take a different route back to town from the secluded cove but ended up kind of lost and had to retrace our route.  This was fine, except when we checked our phones it was suddenly an hour later than we thought!  We needed to get back to the boat by sunset because we didn’t have the anchor light on (it’s not photoelectric, which is on the list for upgrades).  So, the forced march through the jungle began.  Of course, when we reached town (with plenty of day light left), we had regained that lost hour.  Turns out we were right on the border between time zones – up at the caldera it was one hour later than it was down at the beach!

 On that return hike we came cross this Common Black Hawk hunting along the creek.   Wonder if that hawk ever attempts to take a Chachalaca?

Does this hawk hunt chachalacas de Chacala?

A couple of other incidents of note.   We had our first tsunami warning – a volcano eruption in Tonga in the South Pacific created tsunami danger.  We were at anchor and did not notice much, but some folks in the marinas experienced strong currents.  It may seem a little counter -intuitive, but the safest place for our boat to be during a tsunami is out at sea. 

Also, I made a huge bowl of guacamole out of one gigantic avocado. 

This huge bowl of guacamole from a single avocado!