In this cruiser lifestyle, you make good friends quickly and then have to say goodbye in similar fashion. Bittersweet, for sure. Hannah and Kathryn, in particular, bonded with two girls from SV BellaLuna (they have been cruising for 10 years!) and we all grew close very quickly. It was a tough goodbye, especially when you see your teenagers (what?!?!), who you worry about so much, find friends, but we have promised to meet up again in the near future. Another tough goodbye was leaving the amazing Kids Club. I really bonded with the fearless leader, Kat, whose warm but spunky energy was immediately contagious. Beyond our aforementioned activities with the club, we took place in sushi making class and the Trash Boat Regatta (we have a lot to learn about creating sailing vessels made of trash, but they looked great)! My super creative, detail-oriented Kathryn put a bathroom (visited by Lego people), bedroom, kitchen and couch on her boat!
Beyond Kids Club activities, we had a blast as a family in La Cruz. We visited the hip surfing town of Sayulita.
We hiked an awesome hike up Monkey Mountain (the favorite parts were the vines to swing on and rock scrambling to the top where we faced several cute but unintimidated coatis).
We enjoyed shopping at the extensive craft and food fair at the marina (we picked up a couple of hammock chairs for the back of the boat, and I discovered my favorite Mexican dish of chilaquiles). The kids and I did an excursion to Isla Marietas. Marietas Islands are a small group of federally protected islands, so we had to go by permitted boat. It was a fun trip with a lot of water toys and snorkeling and included a swim to a hidden beach.
We also took the Fournado to Los Arcos National Marine Park – beautiful rock formations, but the snorkeling was not very good.
We brought out the tube for Hannah’s and Kathryn’s birthday. Paul was unsuccessful at tossing them on their birthday (I also nagged him not to hurt them on their birthday; I didn’t want to ruin our plans to go to Marina Vallarta for a delicious steak dinner and shopping that evening); however, he successfully tossed all of the kids on subsequent days.
The pain of leaving was alleviated by the arrival of Lacey and her two boys! I had an evening to show off my temporary home in La Cruz, and Lacey and I took the paddleboards out to find whales the next morning (successful)! It will never get old to listed to the whales breathing, especially on the quiet paddleboards. After about a 5 hour cruise, we anchored in Ipala Bay and put out the water toys for the kids to enjoy for the evening.
The next day we motored a couple of hours and anchored in Tenacatita. Lacey and I paddled 1.5 hours each way through a beautiful mangrove-lined, brackish waterway connecting the bay to the open ocean (I didn’t take my camera!?!? Thankfully, Paul took his earlier when he went half way through). Paul had to turn around when the waterway became narrow because of his oars. The mangroves closed in and were not that much wider than about 6 feet and were low enough, I paddled from my knees.
The older kids turned around after about 1/3 of the way, stating they were bored, but we wanted to forge ahead (Kacper and Claire were our paddleboard navigators and nature spotters!). After an hour, we debated turning around but the sound of the ocean and spotting of palm trees made us determined to reach the end. We ended up at a gorgeous beach with soft sand and green water (as opposed to the brown water of the bay). We took a dip and make up some ocean dance choreography before heading back. The kids had all met other kids at the beach, so we decided to stay another night. We were all famished, so we settled into the beach restaurant (if you can call it that; picture a bunch of mis-matched umbrellas covering tables and a half-standing building). The food (we accidentally ordered fish sticks not realizing it was fish ceviche) and margaritas were delicious though!
The next day, Lacey, Peter, Kathryn and I took the Fournado to a snorkel/dive site called the Aquarium. Peter had a great time with his first scuba dive!
We collected the beach-goers and headed back to the boat to get ready to pull anchor and leave. We were going to try to go to a crocodile sanctuary in Manzanilla; however, the water was rough, and unable to beach the Fournado (it is too heavy), the waves were too intimidating to surf in. We headed back to the SeaXII, which Paul had already gotten underway. I unloaded the passengers, but determined the water was too rough to try to tow the Fournado (especially when I still don’t know my knots and could not be confident the tow rope would hold with my granny knots), I decided to drive the Fournado to Barra de Navidad. It was a wild and wet ride but was a blast and I was rewarded by breaching whales in the distance.
Barra was too shallow to try to make it into, so we set anchor by Melaque and headed to the town of Barra by the Fournado for a delicious dinner and ice cream. The next morning, we had to drop Lacey and the boys off at Barra to get a taxi for the airport, and we headed to Grand Isla Navidad Resort, where we lounged by the pools and drank cocktails all day.
After a swim to the beach and run around Melaque the next day, we pulled anchor and headed further south. We anchored in a super rolly Carrizal Cove, about 5 miles north of Manzanillo. The next day we got Hannah and Paul out for their first scuba dive.
We headed to Santiago Bay hoping for a slightly less rolly anchorage (it is slightly less…we may need to get a flopper stopper as the water is flat and our big boat is still rollin’)! Another kid boat (we connect through a app called No Foreign Land and then communicate via WhatsApp) reached out and told us about a turtle release at Tortugario Manzanillo. So we loaded up the Fournado and headed for the marina and met up with other families for the release. Manzanillo is a beautiful city, filled with Mediterranean-esque, white architecture lining the hills surrounding the bay!
