Punta Ipala to Manzanillo
It took us about 5 hours to motor around from Yelapa to Punta Ipala - this being the start of many very craggy rocky premontories. We anchored in about 40 feet in rock and were quite dismayed to see that the water was literally filled with small jelly fish. There were actually 3 distinct species - a round clear jelly fish about 1 1/2" diameter which look pretty benign, then a long very thin stringy one with little dots all along it, these sting - I've met them before, and then a tiny little dot/prism thing which reflected all colors. Well we had been roasting all day on the boat and needed to cool off. I have a thin suit which I wear under my dive suit which I call a luge suit so I was pretty well covered, Dick borrowed one of Tony's suits and Tony went in shorts and t-shirt - we didn't swim for long.
This tiny little bay had a few large palapas on the shore with hundreds of empty chairs - in fact nobody around, but once they saw a boat in the bay - the only boat - they cranked the music up to entice us in. We didn't want to launch the dinghy here so we stayed put, intending to leave early next morning to get to Chemala.
Chemala is a bigger bay, lots of room to anchor, no rocks, no other boats - looked like it would be easy to go ashore through the small surf and swimmable. Being able to jump off the boat when we arrive at an anchorage is important - we get pretty hot on the way and we need to move around -swimming is a great way to do these things. We liked Chemala, even though we didn't do very well coming ashore; coordinating the wave series and getting 3 people out of the dinghy is a challenge. So I went right under, camera and all, but as you can see from webshots the camera is still working. We walked into 'town', a street which runs parallel to the shore, found a store owned by a very nice woman who spent the time to educate us on a few things in Spanish while her son picked miniature limes off their tree for us.
Another little store further down the road - mostly dirt track - had the diesel oil we needed and could not find in Walmart or the fuel station in Puerto Vallarta. We also sat under a palapa here and enjoyed a cold one while watching very little happen.
In this bay we were again surrounded by small fish - about 6 inches long - thousands of them hiding from the birds in the shelter of our boat. The water birds were diving very close to our boat. As the birds dived into the water we started to see much bigger fish - about 3 feet long swimming towards the birds. These fish looked like yellow fin tuna, but we think they are probably jack fish or something less desirable - otherwise why would the ever present pangas bother to go out of the bay to fish.
Chemala to Tenacatita - a bigger bay with some other boats in it. And a 'jungle' river cruise.
(more to come on that)
We are leaving Las Hadas now and I will post again - probably at Zihuatanejo, 200 miles south of here.
This tiny little bay had a few large palapas on the shore with hundreds of empty chairs - in fact nobody around, but once they saw a boat in the bay - the only boat - they cranked the music up to entice us in. We didn't want to launch the dinghy here so we stayed put, intending to leave early next morning to get to Chemala.
Chemala is a bigger bay, lots of room to anchor, no rocks, no other boats - looked like it would be easy to go ashore through the small surf and swimmable. Being able to jump off the boat when we arrive at an anchorage is important - we get pretty hot on the way and we need to move around -swimming is a great way to do these things. We liked Chemala, even though we didn't do very well coming ashore; coordinating the wave series and getting 3 people out of the dinghy is a challenge. So I went right under, camera and all, but as you can see from webshots the camera is still working. We walked into 'town', a street which runs parallel to the shore, found a store owned by a very nice woman who spent the time to educate us on a few things in Spanish while her son picked miniature limes off their tree for us.
Another little store further down the road - mostly dirt track - had the diesel oil we needed and could not find in Walmart or the fuel station in Puerto Vallarta. We also sat under a palapa here and enjoyed a cold one while watching very little happen.
In this bay we were again surrounded by small fish - about 6 inches long - thousands of them hiding from the birds in the shelter of our boat. The water birds were diving very close to our boat. As the birds dived into the water we started to see much bigger fish - about 3 feet long swimming towards the birds. These fish looked like yellow fin tuna, but we think they are probably jack fish or something less desirable - otherwise why would the ever present pangas bother to go out of the bay to fish.
Chemala to Tenacatita - a bigger bay with some other boats in it. And a 'jungle' river cruise.
(more to come on that)
We are leaving Las Hadas now and I will post again - probably at Zihuatanejo, 200 miles south of here.
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