Tenacatita, Mexico

I cannot seem to resist these bird shots. This is going up the crocodile river at Tenacatita. Our boat is safely anchored in a protected bay so we're able to take the dinghy for an adventure. There's a little river on one end of the beach that ends up at a lagoon. The only issue is to get your dinghy over the bar at the entrance. Timing the tides is one way to minimize the problem. Also having strong crew to help pull the boat over the shallow area helps a lot too.

The river trip entails maneuvering your dinghy through the mangroves. Traveling at slack tide is the best strategy. However, that's nearly impossible both ways. One return trip we had quite a ebbing tide that created maneuverability problems. After trying to rip the dinghy apart several times on the mangroves along the side of the stream (joke!) I turned the helm over to Scott.

Some of the palapa cantinas are quite attractive! We visited during Easter week and the beaches were crowded with local families on vacation (same as in the U.S.).

More colorful scenes from the beach at Tenacatita! I'm always attracted to views that are unique to the area or are much different from the U.S.

You can tell the heat and sun is intense by my clothing! We hiked up to a promontory to view the whole area. On my left is a snorkeling area - very beautiful. Behind me are the rocks which one leaves to port as you enter the bay toward Tenacatita.

Barra de Navidad

We were in Barra de Navidad on Good Friday. 

This realistic Goof Friday pageant drew quite a crowd.

Another scene on the beach at Barra that day!

A cute little restaurant on the beach at Barra.

Because of Easter vacation the resort cities were crowded with many Mexican families. It was fun for us to be among the few gringos in town.

Sometimes it's not hard to find the cruiser hangouts by looking for all the cruiser dinghies. Sometimes it's not hard to find the cruiser hangouts by looking for all the cruiser dinghies.

We anchored Quest in the lagoon and enjoyed this fabulous moonrise. You can tell how still the water was by the clarity of this shot!

These little guys visited us in the lagoon in Barra.

This is the shore of the lagoon in Barra where we anchored Quest. Colima is the little settlement on the shore of the lagoon. There are several little restaurants along here. Great for lunch, but look out for mosquitoes at night!!

We finally had to leave Barra de Navidad, but I have more photos of this elegant marina in Mexico - 2003  Moving south (and east) we saw lots of very smart birds resting and hitching rides on sea turtles.

Ixtapa/Z-Town

We anchored behind Isla Grande before entering the Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo area. This is a cute little island mostly visited by day. Vacationers include locals, visiting Mexicans and Europeans (or yes, a few gringos from the states like us!). There's quite an expatriate community all along the coast: folks from Canada, the U.S. and U.K. We met some in Z-town (that's the cruisers' way of saying Zihuatanejo).

An inviting scene from Ixtapa.

Pretty marina, don't you think! We're in Ixtapa Marina here (left). We're lazing about on Lazy Bones.

I might get shot for this shot! But, when you see what's in the water I think you'll be as amazed as we were! (Jim's Photo)

Do NOT think that because this is April first that this is an April Fool's joke! You don't want to clean the bottom of your boat in Ixtapa!

This guy means business! He's a primitive eating machine. (Jim's Photo)

Here we are in Z-town! All this activity on shore was pretty entertaining. Especially when Scott & Jeff were trying to grind the lock off the dinghy engine with a 110 volt grinder!!! I was glad when they put that away, especially since the jet skis loved to go fast around the anchored boats. Little did they know that a good splash could ruin a good day! The dinghy engine is still an ongoing saga. We got the engine itself fixed in town, but then the gear shift gave out necessitating a row back to the boat of about a mile (though we did get rescued and towed part way!).

Acapulco

We came into Acapulco at sunrise after sailing all night. Our buddy boat, Lazy Bones, is shown in the reflections of the rising sun.

You can see how tough it is to hang out at Club Yates de Acapulco! In addition to this great pool we enjoyed a gym, an internet room nice outdoor dining room and many other amenities - well worth the extra $10 compared to a nearby marina. The two guys at the pool are Mike and Andrew from Lazy Bones! Can you also see the mangoes hanging from the tall tree on the right?

These yellow breasted birds flitted around the area.