On location in beautiful Tenacatita Bay.

After 18 days in La Cruz located in Bandaras Bay we were more than ready to pull anchor and head south. I was so excited to hit up Banderas Bay after almost two years of reading what a fantastic place it was.  Honestly, we didn't like the bay as much as we had hoped. Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta is great if you like marinas, which we don't. Bucerias is a cute town that provides self serve laundry, but after a day or so, we had seen all that Bucerias had to offer. La Cruz, one of the only towns where you can anchor in all of Banderas Bay, is a cool little town where most people speak English, bands play at various bars every night and has a decent amount of cruising resources. We orginally stopped at La Cruz to have our genoa and outboard repaired so that we could continue to Melaque for their Saint Patrick's Day party.

La Cruz had different plans for our crew. Rather than staying 3-4 days we were "stuck" for 18 days. Jessica had a 103 degree fever for days, I needed a tooth pulled,and on a day we thought we'd be leaving Emma had blood coming out of her ear due to a ruptured eardrum. If this area has a claim to fame, it's that you can easily find a doctor, dentist, pharmacy and there's a Johnson outboard dealer in Puerto Vallarta.  As always, we tried to make the best of our stay by visiting with friends we had originally met in San Diego, and taking day trips to Sayulita, Bucerias and Paradise Village.

Want to see our crew get cranky fast? Stick us in the same place for almost 3 weeks. Anchored outside of La Cruz proved to be tough for us. Between the red tides and rain run off there was no way anyone was jumping in the disgusting water. The four of us do best when we're on the go, swimming, snorkeling and exploring. It was also tough to keep the batteries charged and the watermaker clean.  Even  our trusty Perkins Diesel engine started to protest by blowing smoke after being run for too long at idle while attempting to charge up our batteries. So, needless to say, we were all thrilled to pull up anchor and head south.  We still need to go back to Banderas Bay to pick up the part for our outboard we weren't willing to wait on, but that will wait for now.

We headed out in the late afternoon to head about 120 miles south to Paraiso. A bonus to "buddy boating" are the pictures you can get underway. Many thanks to SV YOLO for the fantastic pictures they go of us sailing. 

Although Paraiso proved to be beautiful the anchorage was a too rolly for anyone to sleep.

Paraiso is a small anchorage with one lonely beachside hotel.

After our tired crew suffered through a sleepless night in Paraiso we sailed further south to Tenacatita Bay

Tenacatita Bay offers four different anchorage spots. Our first stop was near the town of La Manzanilla. 

Somehow there's always just enough sand to serve dinner on the beach.

Without realizing it, we hit Tenacatita bay during Semana Santa causing huge crowds at the beach.

Enjoying lunch at a beachside cafe with SV Terrapin in the background. 

Phil and the girls tried shrimp on a stick. Verdict: "it was just okay"

Candy Man on the beach. The girls loaded up on gummy worms.

The anchorage in front of La Manzanilla proved to also be a little rough at night so we sailed across the bay (takes a whooping 20 minutes to get from one side to the other). We've been anchored near the entrance to the estuary which is also close to a campground and palapa restaurant.

A bathtub for three? 

                               

We're hoping to sail back north starting tomorrow towards Puerto Vallarta to get our outboard part. We "plan" to spend only a day or two before heading north into the Sea of Cortez for the summer.