Barre de Navidad

Keira enjoying the view of the "hidden cove"

Our first anchorage north of Zihuatanejo was "Hidden Anchorage" at the further most northern tip of Manzanillo. A very nice little place that we had all to ourselves with the exception of a little floating fisherman's hut and a fish pen. After a quick one night rest, we continued on.

We approached Barre de Navidad with the plan to stay for a bit before continuing north into the sea. Barre de Navidad is a good halfway point between Zihuatanejo and Banderas Bay (Puerto Vallarta).
It is dry season when we arrive and the hillsides are very brown and extremely thirsty. But the grounds of hotels and resorts like the Grand Bay are lush and green - of course.

You can anchor in a small bay at the seaside town of Melaque. Unfortunately, we were seeing heavy swells and wind coming from the Southwest, which would have made such an anchorage extremely rolly-polly. Fortunately, there is a beautiful resort marina in Barre de Navidad, the Grand Bay Hotel, that has great summer rates of .28 cents per foot per day for marina slips. The equivalent for us is about $420 per month and that comes with full use of the hotels amenities. So compare $420/month with $300/night in the hotel, and you begin to appreciate the bargain. 

The approach to the marina at Grand Bay Hotel in Barre de Navidad

The holy week activities of Easter had wrapped and the Mexican tourists had headed back to school and work so the hotel was virtually empty when we arrived. We splurged on one breakfast in the hotel dining room and literally saw only 10 other people. The resort is a Wyndham property and I have seen mixed reviews of its service prior to the Wyndham purchase, but I can tell you that thoroughly enjoyed the pool and food and the service was very courteous and welcoming.

A nearly empty and VERY clean marina with the Grand Bay in the background.

We lucked out to find another cruising family from Ensenada, Baja California were in the marina with their two young sons, making for great playmates with the kids. The wife of another Mexican couple also took the time to show the kids and Mike where the ripe mangos were falling so that they could collect dozens. Great treat and so tasty. It is not usual to find Mexican sailing families. We have met many that are on motor vessels (like the majority that you see posted above) but not on sailing boats.

The hotel has two slides that connect the terraced pools and our kids could be found here most days.

A deserted lagoon all to ourselves at the hotel

We ventured into Melaque a few times, taking the water taxi from the hotel property to the town of Barre de Navidad and then a taxi into the larger town of Melaque. We had learned that there was a national immigration office in Melaque and we hoped that we might get our 6-month tourist visas renewed there, rather than making the long trek back to the border at Nogales.

We met with the very nice officials, who informed us, very nicely, that we were completely SOL. We began to make plans for getting back to the US.

Around this same time, Mike was noticing that we were leaking hydraulic fluid from out boom vang. He contacted the manufacturer and we learned that we would have to ship it to San Diego for a likely rebuild. One thing that we have learned here is that you do not want to ship anything that is of value down to Mexico. Not because we have had anything stolen or lost, but because of the high import tariffs. We have an Temporary (10 yr) Import Permit (TIP) for the boat which allows us to import parts for her without additional tariff. But, unless you are right there with the permit talking to customs officials, they have a tendency to ignore the TIP copy that is plastered to the boat part.

It looked like we were destined to make a turn-around at the border to get new visas and to get our parts fixed. Also, Mike's passport was expiring in November, so we needed him to do an expedited renewal from the states.

The decision was made to hi-tail it to either La Cruz at the entrance of Banderas Bay, or on to Mazatlan. The official hurricane season appeared to hit a week early with a storm depression that came in from the southwest, making for some rain by the time it reached us, but not much wind. After 7 days at the marina, we headed north to our next stop.