Tenaticita area, Barra Navidad, Melaque, and onto Bahia Chamela

PHOTO ALBUM —>> https://photos.app.goo.gl/4bbDzaR9cHvPD4YGA

Tenaticita area/Playa El Venadito

Beach walks, birds, fish schooling

The Tenaticita anchorage is wonderful for a number of reasons. The beach is perfect for walking and quite often at low tide there are shells to be found. We walked the beach everyday that we could while there. From one end to the other is 1 mile, John ran back while I walked.

When the wind and surf make landing in the dinghy, on the main beach difficult we would go to the other side of the river to Good Dog beach and land there.

From there it’s a matter of wading across the river, to the beach on the other side. I often would get wet to my waist.

The birds were abundant, just flocks and flocks everywhere. Many days as the fish schooled along the shoreline the flocks of sea birds follow them. There were the massive pelicans, the elegant egrets,

cormorants that swim like submarines partway under the water, and many, many other seabirds. The Laughing gulls were the noisy ones while the gull type birds with the long red beaks were the elegant ones.

Again here the locals will throw a line into the schooling fish and often catch a huge Jack.

The low tides that we had when we were at Tenaticita one time were quite incredible. Of course this made my beach walks extra special.

Along the shore

Off in the dinghy we went to cruise the shoreline of the nearside of the bay. The terrain is extremely rugged with very, dry, brush and cactus.

The type of loose, rocky, cliffs one would not attempt to climb. The pelicans watch all that happens from their craggy perches. The swells crash ashore with intimidating force.

We went all the way out of the bay and around the outside admiring the rugged scenery of the Tenaticita area.

We visited the small cantina, La Vena la palapa situated just behind the beach and had a wonderful lunch.

Sitting in the shade of the coconut palm trees, enjoying the beach scenes before us in the gentle midday breeze, life is great.

Barra Navidad twice over

After about a week to ten days in Tenaticita we would up anchor and head back to Barra Navidad and the lagoon.

There we would get our laundry done, enjoys excellent inexpensive seafood lunches, stock up with supplies and all other necessary chores. While Barra Navidad was wonderful for most goods there wasn’t a bank for cash. For a bank we would get a taxi to nearby Melaque.

Melaque outings

On one of our Melaque outings we walked to the end of town to the river. From the bridge we saw another large croc sunning itself half hidden by the overhanging brush near the shore.

Nearby of course were some lovely wading birds too. At the other side of the bridge was a trailer park with some very fancy RVs.

From there we could walk along a broad walk that followed the shoreline. At the end was a view point and a distant cross erected under the cliffs.

Again the scenery was beautiful.

The market in Barra Navidad

The market in Barra Navidad is on Thursdays and so we also managed our Barra Navidad trips so we could visit the market. The primary reason was for all the wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables.

Walking around the other stalls is always fun too.

The crafts, textiles, jewellery, etc are a feast for your eyes. The last time we visited we ended up purchasing some lovely silver and turquoise jewellery for our daughters.

Out to see the wreck

Having noticed the ship wrecked on the shoreline when we first approached Barra Navidad we were awaiting a calms day to visit and have a closer look. John determined that the winds and seas were down so off we set in our dinghy.

Now, it sounds easy, but sitting in the dinghy with Pacific swells around one can be quite intimidating especially when those swell are crashing on the shoreline. So after getting all the way out and around to the wreck we didn’t dare get too close. However we got close enough to see how badly damaged the ship been when wrecked.

Another occasion when back in Barra Navidad we went ashore where the golf course had a dock and had a walk to Mary’s for lunch.

The small pueblo where Mary’s is located is just that small, with 1 tienda. While at Mary’s a regular small fishing boat came in with his guests and the catch.

They had caught a massive marlin weighing just over 300lbs. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to practice catch and release here, maybe as the men wanted photos.

Tenatacita again

We stopped in Tenatcita for what we felt would be our last visit before heading along the Mexican coast to our next destination.

On the way there we saw several whales. There seem to be whales everywhere this time of the year.

For the few days we were there beach walks in the morning were again a daily occurrence, except for one day.

On this day we decided to walk a trail behind the beach, hoping to find a path around the pond. However this was not possible, but we did have a closer look at the landscape.

Being very dry and barron looking it was surprising the number of flowering trees there were along the way, also the size of the cactus growing amongst the trees was impressive.

That evening we had a whale swimming in the anchorage, in fact one of the other boats counted 3, but we just saw the one whale.

Compared to a boat the whales are massive! The whales were rapidly hunting the fish, maybe the big Jacks which school around the bay everyday and the Jacks were after the smaller fish and the birds were all after the fish too.

And then in the morning we set off for our next destination: