Tenacatita

We left Chamela on January 18th and sailed southeast with fair winds and following seas. We headed toward Bahia Tenacatita, a famously pretty anchorage that is popular with cruisers. Our chartplotter again gave us inaccurate readings. The Navionics electronic charts are reportedly based on inaccurate charts created many years ago, before the advent of GPS. In this part of the coast the chartplotter often places our boat about 1.5 NM northeast of our actual position. This can be disconcerting as the chartplotter occasionally shows us sailing over reefs and onto land while we are actually safely out at sea. The maps on Google Earth are dead accurate--so I don't understand why commercial firms like Navionics continue to put out inaccurate information in their expensive electronic charts. Below is a shot of the chartplotter screen taken when we anchored in Bahia Tenacatita. The black symbol that looks like a boat indicates the position of Sabbatical. The other dark triangle is an AIS signal indicating the position of another, nearby boat. According to Navionics, we both managed to anchor on land!

In fact, we are in a big, beautiful bay with about 30 other boats. There is a long, white sand beach and a number of reefs with excellent snorkeling. Here are some shots of the anchorage.



Liberty arrived in the anchorage shortly after we did. Seth had caught a 40-pound MahiMahi on the way down from Chamela, so they invited us over to dinner. We brought sticky rice and wasabe, they supplied the fresh fish, and we made fabulous sushi. Another great evening with this interesting family. Here are a pictures of Liberty at anchor and of the crew of Liberty preparing to take the famous jungle river tour.





Into the Heart of Darkness (sort of...)
As in Chamela, a river empties into the bay. Going up river takes you west, through a mangrove swamp behind the berm formed by a series of beaches. Eventually, after passing through narrow passages and under a canopy of trees, one emerges behind the beach berm at Punto Hermanas, where there is a beautiful beach, a number of palapa restaurants, and a tiende with supplies. Cruisers call this trip the jungle river tour. Claudia and I took the tour in both our kayaks and our dinghy--it felt very adventurous and fun. Below are some jungle photos.



Here is Casey from Liberty during the jungle tour.


There are lots of fish in Bahia Tenacatita--some large Crevalle Jacks (aka Toro's) like to hang out right under our boat. Naturally, I have tried to catch them--although I didn't have much luck at first. Some big inedible puffer fish, that also parked under our boat, ate every piece of bait I threw out. When they got hooked they chomped through the leaders, line and hooks with their powerful, beaklike jaws. I tried lures and they ate the lures as well. I mean they actually chomped pieces of the plastic, managing to destroy the lures. Seth gave me a wire leader, which helped, but I still wasn't attracting the Toros, which are edible.

Eventually, I got on to the technique. I was telling Claudia that I'd like to try small fish for bait but didn't have anyway when I noticed that a small fish had jumped into one of our kayaks. I put a hook in him, dropped him over the side, and immediately caught one of the Toros, which we ate for dinner. I caught another Toro trolling a lure from the dinghy. They are okay to eat, but not nearly as good as MahiMahi or tuna. Some of the other cruisers have caught nice barracuda in the bay, but I haven't been so lucky--yet.