WEST TO MANZANILLO

Mirador is sitting in the beautiful little cove just SE of Punta Carizal, about 8 NM NW of Manzanillo, Mexico.  It is a calm, quiet Friday morning here with five boats in the anchorage.  I arrived here about 5 PM last evening after a 52 mile sail / drift / motor up here from Cabeza Negra. 

Click here to see a map of my trip from Tenacatita to Zihuatanejo and back to Punta Carizal MAP

I have been making 30 to 70 mile day hops westward along the Mainland Mexican west coast after leaving Zihuatanejo last Sunday evening (March 1).  When I made the trip, in January, SE from Tenacatita to Zihatanejo I did it as a non-stop 220 mile passage.  Going back to the NW, into what I expected to be prevailing NW swell and wind, I decided to try to make the passage with no overnight work.  The plan worked fine, except the anchorages have been open and exposed to what I found to be prevailing swells from the west and southwest. 

My first anchorage was at Isla Grande which is only about 8 miles from where I anchored in Bahia Zihuatanejo.  That was a good stop since it was only a little rolly and got me used to the general idea of anchoring in a somewhat exposed location.

I left Isla Grande at 4:30 AM for the 70 mile trip up to Caleta de Campos.  I had good sailing for a couple of hours out of Isla Grande as the wind blew off the land.  After the sun rose and the land warmed the wind died off and Miradors diesel came on.  Shortly before noon the wind came up from the SSW  and I unrolled the 165% 2.5 oz nylon drifter to enable Mirador to glide along at four to five knots. 

The wind slowly clocked around to the South and then WSW and finally around to the West.  Our course was 280° magnetic so the West wind was not so useful.  The drifter is useable up to about 55° apparent wind so I eventually had to furl the drifter and roll out the 120% heavy genoa.  Eventually the wind moved around to WNW and Mirador was unable to make decent progress towards Caleta de Campos.  So, once again the motor came on and it was off to Caleta de Campos.  This pattern repeated self each of the next three days as Mirador worked her way WNW to Punta Carizal. 

I almost didn't stay in Caleta de Campos because of the large and intimidating swell breaking on the beach about 50 yards from the anchorage.  The swell was about 5' and was rolling right into the little bay.  There is a breakwater but it offered no protection from the westerly swell. 

The picture to the left is Kula, a Tartan 41, anchored just a few yards from Mirador.

I circled around the anchorage a few times and finally decided that I could find a spot that would not be in the surf, not on the breakwater, and would allow some distance from the four other boats already anchored.

I expected an uncomfortable night at anchor because of the constant large swell but it turned out to be very nice since the swell had about a 12 second period and didn't make the boats roll too much. 

There was no question about going ashore, it just wasn't possible since the shore break looked to be three to four feet and quite violent.  This anchorage is typical of all the anchorages between Manzanillo and Zihuatanejo, about 210 miles, and is the reason most boats make the passage  non-stop. 

The next anchorage was Maruata which turned out to be much different than I expected.  Again, there was a big swell and a serious beach break but the Bruce anchor was completely buried in white sand when I dove on it in 22 feet of water, about 150 yards off the surf line.  I guess I was getting a little more used to anchoring in open roadsteads with big surf.

Michael from Wavy, a Kirt Hughes 42' catamaran, and I went ashore to explore the little village.  The beach landing was exciting but worked out OK after watching the pangareros land their 25' boats.  We came in on the back of a big wave and Michael gave the 15 HP Honda full throttle just as the wave started to break, then he chopped the throttle, killed the engine, and tilted it up as we hit the steep beach at 10 knots.  The wave carried us up the beach about 15 feet where I jumped out and kept the bow of the hard bottom dinghy pointed beachward.  The next breaking wave put hardly any water over the transom as we dragged the dinghy further up the very steep beach.

The pangas, with 60 to 90 HP engines, and long flat bottoms, hit the beach at 15 knots at which point they skip and skid about 10 yards above the surf zone. 

The village of Maruata was neat and tidy and appeared to be about a thousand people.  There were many palapas along the beach.  We saw about 20 small tents under the palapas and there were two or three surfer dudes sitting in front of each tent, staring at the diminishing surf.  Most of the surfers were Norte Americanos but there were also a handful of Mexican's waiting for the next big set. 

The Mexican Army was also very visible.  At  two different locations we saw 4x6 trucks with about a dozen heavily armed soldiers in each truck.  Michael explained that this part of Michoacan Mexico is famous for it's extensive, and excellent, marijuana growing operations in the hills above the coast. 

About a 1/4 mile inland from the beach was a lovely large town square with manicured grass, neatly laid out brick paths, and a cute bandstand in the center.  The square was about 200 yards on a side and was obviously well cared for. 

What was odd was there were no buildings anywhere near the square.  There were a few one story buildings (shown to the right) set well back from the roads surrounding the square but no village proper.  It was if the square had been constructed in anticipation of a village being built but then nothing further happened. 

Apparently Maruata is also a remote resort for knowledgeable travelers.  We saw several interesting large  thatch huts around the village and lagoon that seemed to house tourists, or at least folks that were not the local fisherman.

The one in the picture to the left had a great view of the bay and out over the rocks on the point to the Pacific Ocean.

The next stop I made was at Cabeza de Negra which is the rolliest and most uncomfortable anchorage I've been in.

The problem with all the anchorages is that the swell always comes from the same direction but the wind clocks thru 180° during the night. That means an anchored boat ends up broadside to the swell from about 9 PM until long after daylight.  While in Cabeza Negra Mirador was rolling about 20° every three to four seconds.  It was almost impossible to stay in bed, all the dishes in the cabinets were clattering, the bottles in the liquor cabinet were clanking, and the Portabote on deck was creaking and groaning.

I could put out a stern anchor to keep the bow into the swell but that seems like a lot of work when I am going to anchor for just 12 hours.   Oh Well!  I'm back in the area of quiet anchorages and wouldn't worry or whine about rolling for a while. 

I'm going to stay here in Carizal for a couple of days and then head further NW back to Tenacatita.  This is a small cove near Manzanillo that not many boats know about or stop in.  The cruising guides barely mention it since there are three other larger anchorages close by that are much more convenient for access to Manzanillo.  At 11 AM there are only two other boats anchored in the cove.  I think there is good snorkeling here because the dive shops in Manzanillo bring customers out here.

I'm not going to go into Bahia Manzanillo because it it full of large ship traffic and the air is extremely polluted.  The sky above Manzanillo looks like a bad day in the  Los Angles basin in during the early 1980s.  The atmosphere is just brown and murky.  There is a large oil fired electrical generating facility just SE of the harbor that spews smoke like you see in the pictures of the old steel mills.  Additionally, the large ocean going ships, Manzanillo is Mexico's busiest seaport, blow their stacks as they enter or leave the bay thus emitting serious clouds of black soot.  Several cruising boats that have gone into the inner harbor say their decks were black with soot and ash after just 24 hours. 

A couple of days before I left Zihuatanejo we went on a fun canoe trip up what we thought was going to be a small lagoon and river about 20 miles south of Zihuatanejo.

The picture to the left is of (counter clockwise from the little girl) Allie, and her parents Michael and Amy, Michael, Paul (hiding behind the paddle), Kathy, and finally Lisa in the yellow shirt who is the 2nd Michaels wife.

Allies mom, Amy, is really worried about the possibility of war with Iraq.  She is a Captain in the Inactive Army reserves.  She is an engineer with a lot of experience building troop facilities such would be needed if we invade Iraq.  The Army would give her less than a week to report to duty.

To get to the lagoon we had to walk about a 1/2 mile thru town and then  take an intercity bus about 15 miles SE of town.  We got off that bus at a small roadside cluster of shops where we climbed in the back of a small flatbed truck that had a seats and a roof built over the bed.  The truck seated 12 people and I was the 15th to board so I had to sit on the back of the truck, hanging my feet over the edge. 

The truck took us about five miles down a dirt and blacktop road to an area of palapas along a lagoon that opened into the ocean.  There were seven of us in the group so we rented, $4 per day, three canoes to paddle up the lagoon and the river.  The river was about 1/2 mile wide and varied in depth from 3" to 30". 

As we got in the canoes one of the women in the group asked the lady who rented the canoes to us about the crocodiles.  We were told not to worry, "all the crocodiles are at least 4 kilometers up the river."  Well, that reassured us. 

We made it about 2 miles upstream but were constantly running aground.  The river was getting no narrower and no deeper so we turned around and paddled back to the starting point. 

We had forgotten that the tide would effect the river so we paddled up stream on a slack tide and downstream into a flood tide. I was in the canoe with Michael, Amy, and Allie.  For some reason Paul and the other Michael decided the four of them should use just one canoe and tow the 2nd.  The results were less than spectacular as you can see to the right.

The canoe trip was fun but the lunch afterward was better.  Each palapa restaurant was set along the lagoon shore and served very good local seafood.  The restaurant we chose had about 100 tables with really nice and comfortable hammocks hanging between every set of tables.  We stuffed ourselves with lots of wonderful, and very cheap food and beer, and then laid in the hammocks, enjoying the sea breeze and telling stories. 

This cruising life is strenuous!