Ocean Echo 1: San Carlos to Manzanillo, Mexico

Dear friends.

First, I would like to wish you all Happy Holidays and successful Year 2012.
Hurricane season is gone, things are good. Constant checking of the weather and reports are in little more relaxed stage now.
Approaching San Carlos from North resembles Rio De Janeiro with 3 rugged looking mountain peaks. S. Carlos waterfront and marina have a similar setting as Cabo San Lucas. This is an Arizona boater's playground. Most of larger stores are in Guaymas.
Entering Guaymas harbor requires some attention to the charts and channel markers/buoys. Channel is quite narrow, surrounded by shallow water. Guaymas is a commercial harbor with 2,5-3 M (7-9 feet) depth in most anchorages. Ocean Echo 1 was taken out of the water for bottom painting and some maintenance. Cleaning and painting of the hull in 38'-40' C is not much fun. The end result was not, what I was expecting. Too many little problems.
I have sailed from Guaymas to Loreto in light winds with spinnaker. I went to sleep for 6 hours in the middle of Sea of Cortez, when the winds died at night. No waves, just like a lake. I have slowly continued my migration South to La Paz and La Cruz/Puerto Vallarta with a few days stops in Puerto Escondido and La Paz. Southern crossing of Sea of Cortez/Gulf of California had some winds, but not all the way. One day huge school (several hundred) of spinner and spotted dolphins surrounded the boat. Jumping and spinning in the air was quite impressive. They were fighting for a bow wake ride. Isla Isabel is not far from Southern crossing route. Stopping there was definitely a treat, I really enjoyed visiting the island last winter on the way North. It is a special place.
After a few days in La Cruz I have decided to continue exploring Northern part of Mexican Riviera, before majority of other boats and Baha-Ha fleet (160 boats) go same way. This area does not have much of wind. Sailing around Cabo Corrientes - Southern entry to Banderas Bay can be tricky due to strong on shore current.
Chamela Bay is quiet little town with surfy beach and couple of small islands near by. Tenacatita Bay is popular cruiser's hang out in the winter months. When I was leaving Tenacatita B., good size yellow tail tunas (7-10 kg) started nibbling off growth on the back of boat. I could almost touch them, that was funny. Barra De Navidad is very interesting tourist town with large Grand Hotel resort across the bay. I have got "stuck in the muck" on the way into Navidad Laguna. Channel is not marked and local knowledge is essential. I had to "feel" my way in and out. Part of new bottom paint at the keel has been wiped off. Melague is small city across from Barra in Navidad Bay, which has most of the stores and services.
My most Southern place to visit was Manzanillo and Las Hadas. Manzanillo is an old commercial harbour. Old town has quite a few tourist souvenir shops. Las Hadas is a small rocky peninsula with 5 star resorts ashore and up scale residencies. Small marina allows cruisers to tie up their dinghies there for shore or town visit. Bus ride on narrow, curvy, cobble stone streets is interesting. Anchorage area is fairly small outside of marina and it gets full quickly.
Most of Mexican Riviera coastline is surfy, there for anchorages in many places are rolly.
I am typing this on my way back to La Cruz, where I plan to stay for rest of the winter months, before scheduled "puddle jump" to South Pacific. I have a lot of projects to take care of next few weeks.

Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.
I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman sv. Ocean Echo 1