12/11/2010 - Continuing South

That's a Limonada in Jake's hand that is NOT his beer :)

After leaving the estuary at San Blas, we only went around the corner to Ensenada de Matanchen, a little bay right outside San Blas.  There, we had the best fish either of us has ever eaten.  It was smoked with salt, pepper, lime, hot sauce and worcestershire sauce and of course, butter.  We ate so much we made ourselves sick.

From there we went about 8 miles south to a place called Chacala.  This was a very pretty cove with palapas up and down the beach and lots of restaurants.  As we were pulling up the anchor to leave, we saw a whale right by our boat.  Incredible.  Little did we know, we would spend the next few days watching whales!

The Beach at Chacala

Downtown Chacala

Whale right by the boat!

Another close encounter with a Shrimp boat.  This was underway.

We found this little guy attached to our anchor.

Bahia de Jaltemba

Our next stop was Bahia de Jaltemba.  Here we started to get the feeling we were getting close to Puerto Vallarta.  More hotels, more restaurants and more vendors.  We anchored one night off of a little island in the bay.  The next day we moved closer to the beach so we could explore there a little.  While eating dinner we met a very nice couple from Arizona, Earl and Marge, and enjoyed their conversation very much.  It’s people like this that make cruising fun.  They were down here on vacation for four months, just relaxing and having fun.

Today we dropped our anchor at Punta Mita, the first stop in Banderas Bay.  On our way here we saw many whales and even saw a few breech!  We tried to go ashore for dinner but the swell was too much and Jake had forgotten his life jacket so we didn’t want to chance it.  So tonight we’ll eat a few steaks (our last in the freezer) and shrimp while watching the sun set over a very large golf course belonging to a very expensive Four Seasons hotel.  It looks like we have arrived in the Mexican Rivera for sure.

Jake playing more Star Wars on the front of the boat.