Chamela, Beautifuol Chamela

What can I say, it's a beautiful anchorage. Long sandy beaches with a decent dinghy landing, a nice clean little village with enough little shops to keep prices good and lots of room in the anchorage. We walked the beaches, explored the town, spent the day yesterday snorkelling just off islands in the southern portion of the bay, and generally have had a wonderful time exploring this part of Mexico. This, for us, has been the best place we have been so far. We weren't hassled constantly to buy something; everyone just seemed to be pretty relaxed. It could have something to do with the heat and humidity. During the day temps are in the high 20's with high humidity. It cools off enough at night to sleep with just a sheet and maybe a blanket in the early morning hours. The water is around 23-24 C and reasonably clear. We met a few other cruisers on the beach and in the anchorage, shared a meal with David and Linda from Toketie and RELAXED. The repair job of the week was the Duogen drive shaft. I had the wind blades up and all of a sudden the blades went nuts in 10-15 knots. The drive shaft had pulled out of the coupling to the wind blades and dropped down. Well, I took it all apart and the pin that secured the shaft to the coupling was placed so that it was only around 1/8 of an inch from the top of the fibreglass drive shaft. After over 300 miles of cruising with maybe 2/3 of it using the Duogen, I was surprised it took that long to part. Some epoxy, high density filler and a second bolt through the coupling further from the top of the shaft and all is once again good with the world. Yesterday's snorkelling didn't go exactly as planned but it was fun nonetheless. We motored over the Isla Colorado with the intention of staying the night. Well, Toketie dropped their anchor first and dragged. They finally caught so we gave it a try, we dragged. We finally caught and headed to the beach for a swim and snorkel. There wasn't alloy on the bottom but I did see a stingray, puffer fish and some greenish coloured fish that liked to stay in my shadow (I'm guessing to hide from the ever present pelicans). We spent maybe an hour or more in the water and walking around the beach before we rowed back to our respective boats. I decided to take a wire brush to the keel cooler for the fridge to try and keep ahead of the fouling issue. I ended up wiping down the hull again. I cleaned it two weeks ago in Isla Isabella and it was as bad again. Warm water is a blessing and a curse, but I still prefer it.
We are currently underway to Bahia Tenacatita just north of Manzanillo. Our plans are pretty vague from here except that we will start working our way back north to Puerto Vallarta around the 18th of Feb to meet up with Rob and Nancy on the 24th.

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