Yelapa->Ipala->Bahia Chamela->Tenacatita

Leaving NV we had planned for a short day sail to a small anchorage just at the edge and southside of Bahia de Banderas. Great set-up to leave for an early morning the following morning around Cabo Corrientes, which are strong currents that whip around the point. This cape acts much like Cabo and Point Conception in CA, so we wanted to get an early morning start around and hopefully avoid the worst of the winds and seas.

As I previously shared, we have been mainly been using Charlie's Chart and Cruising Ports by Pat & John Raines for all our anchorage navigation (outside of our digital charts on both our Raymarine and Navionix app) Charlie's Charts has been great, with loads of tips and pointers about anchorage holdings, nearby amenities and things to see/do on land. All things that our digital charts don't have (obviously) However, my biggest complaint prior to leaving was the lack of updated materials to go off of in all cruising books. The most recent copywrite I have of any of our books is Charlie's Charts, but with a copywrite of 2013....Naturally, there will be some mis-information since its 5 years old.

Yelapa was one of those "wish we had known" instances. As soon as we round the bend, drop the main and get all our gear out and ready to anchor, we are approached by a panga, beelining it to us, might I add. He circles our boat and then says hello. Followed by telling us that we need to moor here and cost is USD $20. As the charts and books all indicate is it a deep cove surrounded by 10 fathom shelves on either side, LOTS of rocks and subject to swells refracting around the point. Needless to say from the books no mooring balls were shown nor mentioned. In real life? Mooring balls now cover all of the potential anchorage spots. The panga dude, "Richard" is being quite aggressive and telling us that we cannot anchor here unless we moor and that he is giving us a good deal. Ok, this is his definition of a good deal. He motions to the other 5 boats moored, which are all over 60' + yachts and cats--I mean super swanky BIG ASS BOATS, that are all most definitely for charter with crew, if not just local tour companies renting them out for booze cruises—like THAT big. He tells us he is giving us a deal with only $20 because the others pay that too, and being late in the day with other boats coming he could charge more. DUDE, those are mega-yachts, you dipsh*t! AND we paid only $60 for a three day two night stay in a marina, with facilities! This anchorage was ok at best in terms of comfort. Needless to say, this guy’s haggling skills are terrible. Out of principle and because this guy wasn't even making an effort to negotiate costs with us, I tell Jay we are leaving and hell no not paying that guy one cent. (I typically cut off my nose to spite my face, but in this instance I was thoroughly perturbed and felt quite righteous in turning around and leaving)

I was happy to leave, but was bummed out as the books mentioned a beautiful waterfall just past the beach that I wanted to check out. Oh well, screw you Richard and good luck getting another sailboat to pay that with all the tourist activity and your damn pangas zipping around creating a pretty crappy anchorage. Plus with all the other nearby anchorages, very likely why there was only 5 boats there at all…. (lightbulb!!)

(no this isn't a picture of Richard, but finally caught a shot of one of the many, many turtles we saw enroute around Cabo Corrientes)

Anyway, we decide to head around Cabo Corrientes anyway and try and make it to Ipala, a super tiny anchorage just around the cape. We arrived to Ipala just around sunset and wow, thank you Richard for being an ass because this anchorage was gorgeous and we had no issue getting around the point at all!

With space enough only for about 3 boats max, we were the seconds boat to drop anchor. Chatted a bit on VHF with our neighbors, who had just started “The Bash” (meaning they are heading north and battling winds/seas) coming from Z-town, getting some tips and pointers on upcoming places of interest we should check out and weather conditions further south.

Called it an early night, so we could get up and get going further south. We were motivated to get to Barra de Navidad, a beautiful spot that numerous cruisers have told us is a “must stop.” And get moving thru Mexico to make it to Central America by the start of hurricane season.

Enroute to Chamela, I finally capture this moment on video:

Two whales, an adult and baby fully breaching for a good three minutes! I so so wish the video did this justice as even with the video they look very far away, when in actuality I was able to clearly see them, their colorings, markings and barnacles….I mean WOW! Anyway, now that I have documentation of it, you know I haven’t been lying this whole time about seeing so many whales. I have also learned and grown in my photography/videography skills. GoPro is always on and right next to me!

Next anchorage we stopped at was Bahia de Chamela

Also another beautiful anchorage. Since this was Easter weekend, the beaches were busy with crowds. We chose a secondary anchorage just off a few of the tiny island in Chamela thinking we could avoid crowd. NOPE! Pangas busing tourists in and out. We basically had to drop our hook right in the middle of their “freeway” Knowing we would only be staying for a short duration, we really didn’t care. Another early night, so we could get up and get going to our next stop, Bahia Tenacatita and MANGROVES!!

Arrived late afternoon the following day and dropped hook in a big open bay with absolutely clear emerald green waters and great holding sand bottom. The beaches and resorts as you can see are gorgeous!

The next morning, we got up early to time our mangrove trip at high tide (in order to make it into the grove entrance you need to clear some shallow lying rocks that are only passable at high tide and when submerged) The self guided mangrove tour didn’t disappoint!

How cool, right?! While we didn’t see any “crocodrilos” we basically had the mangroves to ourselves along with the birds and beautiful mangroves trees. The marsh continues for about an hour or more, in varying directions (you can tell where there is man made marsh as their are pangas that take tourists around, so likely they are trying to expand the mangroves to make for a longer more varied experience)

Great little find and after about an hour and a half exploring, the tide was starting to go out. We also wanted to get going to Barra and not stay over in Tenacatita another night. Thank you daylight savings for giving us more daylight to work with, making for a fun filled day.

We arrived back to the boat and lifted anchor setting off for Barra around noon. With a short day sail ahead of us we expect to arrive in Barra in the late afternoon!

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Last Passage Distance: 33.38nm (NV to Ipala) 47.87 (Ipala to Chamela) 22.73 (Chamela to Tencatita)

Cumulative Distance to Date: 1,675.76 nm

Days since last donating to Poseidon: many many glorious days :)

Items donated: n/a