Chip & Debbie Willis on s\v Elegant'sea: Anchored in Melaque, Moving from Melaque to Barra de Navidad Lagoon

Middle January 2013 - Anchored in Melaque

When we first took the bus to Melaque to go to the bank from Chamela (Perula Bay) we saw the anchorage and this is what it looked like.

Melaque

You really need a stern anchor here as the swells refract around the point. We used our Fortress FX-16 sten anchor.

Anchored in Melaque, Moving from Melaque to Barra de Navidad Lagoon - 2013

Our boat (s\v Elegant'sea), when we arrived a week or so later we arrived in Melaque .

We called this the window to the sea and it would get quite the show when the seas would crash on the rocks.

You can see the stern anchor rode out here at Melaque, look close under the Achilles LSI-310E dingy.

The next picture is of us after we walked out to the end of this walkway.

Our Boat (s\v Elegant'sea), the Islander Freeport is over my right shoulder

(a gentleman took this photo for us).

Ya! no more dingy landing in the surf!

We are moving from Melaque to Barra-Bahia de Navidad Lagoon. There are a few reasons for the move – primarily because the cruiser fellow who has experience in working on Spectra Watermaker 200T Deluxe is there. We met him yesterday when he came over to Melaque. He brought us a spare part for us to try (which we did and did not solve our problem). So he suggested he take a look at it which means bringing the boat over to where he is. Next, the access to town is better – meaning we don’t have to do a beach landing with our dinghy. There is a local hotel that is cruiser friendly and they let you tie up to their sea wall if you support them by buying a drink or meal every now and then. Or there is panga service right to your boat – for a price of course (20 pesos round trip…not bad yet can add up since there’s the two of us). That will allow us to enjoy the town after dark – something we were only able to do back in Chacala or La Cruz. There is also water and propane service, which we might need soon.

The stern windlass comes in handy for stern anchoring.

The down side of using a stern anchor for a week is all the sea life and muck it brings back. Now to clean it up before we put it back into the stern lazarett.

Barra de Navidad is 2.5 nm across the bay.

Approaching Barra de Navidad.

Debbie took us in. She entered way points into the Garmin chart plotter from the Pacific Mexico Cruiser's Guide as well as a guide some cruisers published about this area, cruisers blog (Coastalengre Cruisers Guide) . The channel is narrow and the whole area is very shallow. The channel sides are steep so veering off is an automatic grounding. To make matters worse the lagoon channel is not marked nor is the anchorage in the lagoon. Also we do not have a depth sounder. The next night we were there a sail boat ran aground trying to get in. Debbie got us in fine.

Entrance to channel to starboard.

There is a good surf spot right off the jetty to port.

You can see some surfers there.

s\v Elegant'sea going in the channel.

Water taxi pick up on right of channel.

This seperate channel goes to the Sands Hotel and to Barra.

There is a town off to the side in the lagoon called Colimilla to the right in the picture.

One of the many sand bars. Most you can not see. It seems the whole place is a sand bar with a few deep spots, if you call 7' deep.

Boats anchored in the Lagoon.

Bridle not on yet. Bruce in the water.

Our primary anchor is our 45 lb CQR and our secondary is our 45 lb Bruce. We have never used the Bruce before. It sits up at the bow side by side with the CQR. Because the bottom here in the lagoon is mud with sand and clay under that it is recommended to use a claw anchor so we used our Bruce . We wanted to use the chain because of the mud, it makes a mess of 8 plat or other rope rode. The chain helps hold it better also. The rule here is to let out 100’ chain and a claw anchor. We just changed the swivel from the CQR to the Bruce by changing a shackle. The shackle came off easy, yep easy and went on easy. Then we put the chain over instead of under the wheel in the anchor locker in the Bruce went down just fine. Nice to have the anchors work that well.
Note:
After this we always just used our CQR with 100' of our Acco chain 3\8 chain and never ever have dragged or had a problem.

2 comments:

AnonymousJanuary 28, 2013 at 9:28 PM
What's with all the umbrellas and chairs on the beach? Are those for guests of a hotel or for anyone to use?

Don from FOG
Elegant'seaFebruary 4, 2013 at 9:13 AM
It seems each papala restaurant or hotel spreads out the tables and chairs in front of their business. It is very relaxed on the beach. No rules so to speak, just common courtesies. You can plop down on a chair at a table and eventually a person from the restaurant will come by to see if you would like something. Some Mexican families just bring their own picnic there to the table. There are beach venders selling coconuts with a straw or other food items which you can buy and eat at the tables. Often the kids just sit there and play in the sand or fall asleep. On the weekends and especially the holiday weekends they will get used a lot but during the week most are empty. People drive four-wheel off road vehicles on the beach, they swim and fish and move pangas about while others water ski or some jet ski and there is not really much separation. Some places there are swim buoys about.