Passage and anchored in Chacala Mexico 1 of 2 - 2012

12-7-2012  Chacala, Mexico

With the autopilot still broke Debbie is doing the hand steering here.

Seas were just fine! 

With not enough wind to get us there before night we motored sailed most of the way.

 

We are there.

 

 

 Our boat second from left.

That's our Breeze Buster hatch scoops you see.

 

We are the middle boat.

From the beach.

 

Fluenta, a Stevens 47 had two kids the parents (the Shaws) and a crew member who sleeps in the hammock. He is there sleeping now. A Baja Ha Ha boat.

 

Lots of talk by the Baja Ha Ha'ers.

Just catching up with every one. Lots of Baja Ha Ha'ers also.

There is a federal park here for camping. 

Chacala is a nice place which is quiet with the exception of the usual restaurant/bars on the beach. They do close before midnight and they are not real loud. The music does not start until late afternoon for the most part.  There have been about ten boats anchored here most of the time we have been here. They come and go. They say that is unusual as there are only a few most times. It is a bow and stern anchor because the wind clocks around at night and blows from shore. It turns your boat around and broadsides the waves making it roll-y.

 The sounds of the waves crashing on the beach were at first a little unnerving but now we like it a lot. We are about a hundred yards from the beach and the breakers will break up the boat into little pieces real quick if the ground tackle gives way.

We anchored in 5 fathoms of water. We let out 155 ft of the 3/8 3B chain out into the water then put on the bridal.  The 45 lb CQR anchor had set right off.

Part of the good local music. 

  Not really anything to dislike about this place. You kind of wonder why it is not grown more but we like it this way it is of course.

 The little markets in Chacala have most basic items.

We found pop corn at Jaltemba so Debbie cooked it up in the pan with butter and we watched a movie on the boat!

Want a bank and it is a six mile van ride to the next town Jaltemba, which seems like twenty. For the most part, the road is paved road and winds around and is a nice ride nonetheless.

The dingy landing is by the panga pier and you can see the green and red bouys which are towers on the shore.

Our dingy. The dinghy landing is nice and the dinghys are safe.

Just this tree kind of growing up into the wall by the Port Captians office.

The Port Captain was nice and stamped our paper work and that was it. We or Debbie hailed him on ch 16 to let him know we would be a day late or so, no problem.

We hijacked some restaurant WiFi but you need to wait till they turn it on in the morning. It is slow of course but does work for email etc.

The roads are coble stone and views are great. The sunsets are nice and slow motion of the boat is nice to sleep with.

 The stern anchor makes the use of the stern steps and dinghy davits a challenge when the wind is pushing the boat to starboard. That is when the stern rode is crossing the stern steps.

 

 To work around this we lower the dingy getting it around the rode with boat hook if needed. Then we lower the steps same way to avoid the rode. I then walk down the steps into the dinghy and Debbie brings up the steps. Easy with the block and tackle, not hard on the back. I then ready the dinghy and Debbie passes the dinghy around to the starboard side where we have the EdisonStep and she climbs onto the dinghy. We cannot leave the steps hanging out of the water and then retrieve them by the block and tackle as usual because of the danger of the stern rode ripping them off or such. So the reverse works well also for boarding.
 We are hanging the dinghy on our Kato Marine Island Davits with a full gas tank, seat, pockets with stuff in the seat cover, dinghy lock (25’ heavy life line cable), a cable to lock the dingy on the davits (bicycle cable lock) and bar lock on the motor and a Honda 9.9 hpoutboard which is about 95 lbs and dinghy wheels which are heavy. The stern rail is a bit iffy by the swim steps and we have found some cracks by the winches where the forward part of the stern rail bolts to the deck. At Nuevo Vallarta  where welding is at least 20% less than the states we will get some work done on the stern rail. All in all it is working out just fine.

When we leave to the next anchorage we put the motor on the mount using the lift and store the gas tank in the anchor locker. DaNard DingyWheels in the lazerett. We always strap the dingy at anchor or while sailing to prevent it from moving back and forth or side to side.

With so much weight on the stern of the dingy we have devised an easier system to lift the dinghy’s stern on the starboard davit. We use a snatch block and run the lifting line through the snatch block so it is a fair lead to the Harking 6.1 lifting blocks and then to the starboard winch. Works great and Debbie can raise the stern side no problem.

While here we also re-configured our sail cover (Stack Pack type system) so it would be easier to work with and zipper up.

Just lots of tweaking of the systems to make them work smoother.

Another item that has come in handy s the LED spot light for the dingy davits.

An item I wish I had gotten is a blow up paddle board 😭 I have been looking on PV craigslist in Puerto Vallarta Mexico.