North to Chamela

After a few days in Las Hadas, we were ready to head back up North. We are both anxious to get up to the Sea before it gets too hot (and crowded). So directly from Las Hadas we went to Tenacatita skipping Barra. That trip taught us a lot about our boat as it was the first upwind journey we have had to make so far.

We were motoring up and things were going well until we hit Bahia De Navidad, which always has a wind pick up in the afternoon. Around 1500, we were less than 10 miles from our destination, rounding the Southern point of the bay. We rounded the point straight into 15 knots of wind. Our 26 horsepower engine managed to push our 12 tonne boat at a pitiful 2 knots against the wind and chop. The wind kept building to 20-25 knots, and it became clear if we wanted to make any way we would have to put up sails. We reduced our sail area by putting up the working jib and a double-reefed main. We then proceeded to motorsail while tacking upwind and we were still only making 2 knots or so in the direction we wanted to go (in retrospect, we probably had too little sail area out).

Finally arriving in Tenacatita at 2000 by moonlight and feeling confident because we had been there before, we promptly dropped our anchor next to the only hazard in the bay: a reef submerged due to the high tide. Waking at 0200 in the morning, we saw how close we were to the reef and re-anchored by moonlight once again. In the morning, we went over our GPS history and found that while we were never in danger of hitting the reef, we were certainly a little close for comfort. After so exhausting a day (11 hour sail and sleepless night) we spent two days recovering in the bay. Of course, the water was still murky.

After cleaning the bottom for the next upwind leg, going up the river for ridiculously slow lunch and generally having a ho-hum time, we left for Chamela on March 13th. This time luck gave us a wind such that we were on a single tack upwind for most of the day. Experience gave us the wisdom to know to start tacking early and keep our speed up even at the price of pointing further upwind (trigonometry does not lie). After a relatively easy sail, we arrived in Chamela after 8 hours of sailing.

The swell in Chamela was at least 6 feet from the South, which translates into a very uncomfortable anchorage. Isla Colorado, our favored little deserted island was simply out of the question as an anchorage for waves were sweeping the island from both sides. In the main anchorage, it was swelly, but that is better than wavy every day of the week, especially if the waves are breaking as they were at the island. The swells were so large, in fact, that it was more comfortable in 30 feet of water than in 20 feet. In 20 feet, the swells had already started piling up and becoming steep. The entertainment was watching the pangas (20 foot fiberglass fishing dories) deal with 8-10 foot breakers on the beach. We vowed to leave as soon as the waves died down in two days to round the infamous Cabo Corrientes in the upwind direction.

Stuck on our boats due to the waves, the boats in the anchorage (Sirius, Aurora, Samantha, G-Rated) passed the time by psyching ourselves about the horrors we would experience when we tried to round Corrientes. We decided to leave with Aurora around sunset on the 15th of March, hopefully rounding Corrientes around mid-morning to arrive in La Cruz that afternoon. The backup plan was to head into Ipala (a bay just South of the point) for the day if things got nasty or we could not make the point by noon.