Arrival at Barra de Navidad, Mexico

 

2/23/2022

Whew, made it to the Barra de Navidad anchorage!   The approach to this legendary anchorage is a bit of a nail-biter, with a very narrow channel with unmarked shoals on either side.  Our depth sounder read 4 ft at one point!  By all rights, we should have run aground.  It was only for a moment though.

               Pretty heavy wind blowing now, 15+ knots and building .  Generally, at a new anchorage for the first time we like to spend some time before leaving the boat – it’s a safety measure to at least make sure you’re holding well.  So we won’t go in to town until tomorrow.  One of the people that makes this anchorage legendary is the French Baker.  He comes by your boat to sell freshly baked pastries.  We hope to get some in the morning!

Jen buying fresh pastries from famous French Baker of Barra the morning after we arrived.

             

           I arrived here with a list of projects, of course.  The one I tackled today was repairing my beloved John Prine flyswatter (“There’s flies in the kitchen, I can hear’em there a buzzin’.”)  I used a lashing to reattach the handle to the business end.  Hope it holds.

               

            I’m starting to tan a dark brown.  I’m also always covered with wounds – my hands nicked and cut from working, a gash on my forearm from walking down a shoulderless Mexican highway to a raicilla cooperative, when some thorny bush reached out and cut me.  A sea urchin spine puncture wound in my foot.  No rest for the wicked.

            The beaches of Pacific Mexico seem endless.  Chacala, Chamela, Tenacatita, Barra de Navidad.  One after another as we sail along the coast, for thousands of miles.  Tiny beaches, secluded beaches, huge beaches, party beaches, surf beaches – every type and flavor you can imagine.

               Barra de Navidad (“Barra”) is as far south as we’ll sail this season.  We’ll spend a month in this area (Barra/Tenacatita), then sail back up to Puerto Vallarta to meet Jen’s sister Tiffany and her finance Jeff for a visit.  Then we’ll recross the Sea of Cortez for Spring cruising in Baja.  Finally, we’ll cross back in late May to put the boat up for a bit in Puerto Vallarta.

               I’m hoping to get some social time here in Barra.  We already know a few cruisers here – John and Meredith on Jack Daw, Nojan and Rachel on Pasargada and Mike and Karen on Somehow.  We don’t usually go out at night very often – dealing with surf landings, etc. in the dinghy at night can be tricky.  But one of the great attributes of Barra as an anchorage is the water taxi, which runs 24/7, that you call on VHF channel 23 and picks you up on your boat, and brings you back at whatever hour you want.  This opens up night life like few other anchorages offer.  Add to that a great live music scene in Barra and we’re in! 

On a boat improvement note, we are excited to get a solar upgrade done.  We recently made contact with someone that can help us with this when we return to Paradise Village in a month.   We have 200 watts and I want to increase it to 600.  There will be many dividends from this.  Key among them, extending our “off grid” time, running the engine less frequently because we won’t need it for charging the batteries, and the increased energy budget also opens up new possibilities like an additional freezer or even air conditioning, which will be nice for Central America later this year.