Isla Partida to Chamela

December 2, 2023- January 6, 2024

December and the holiday season has been quite busy. We’ve been on the move and covering some miles so I’ll try to quickly bring everyone up to speed on where we’ve been up to.

After leaving La Paz, we headed back out to the islands that are just offshore. These islands are great areas to cruise with many secluded anchorages, crystal clear water, and most importantly, northerly protection. In the Sea of Cortez in the winter, periods of strong north winds tend to blow fairly regularly, requiring us to anchor in areas that have protection from the north. Between these northerly wind episodes we take the opportunity to move around and check out new places.

We spent about two weeks exploring the islands of Isla Partida and Isla Espiritu Santo. We visited the anchorages of Ensenada Grande, Caleta Partida, and Ensenada Raza for snorkeling, paddle boarding, hiking, beach days, and game nights.

In mid-December we started the sail over to the mainland side of Mexico from the Baja side. We left Ensenada Raza and sailed to Bahia de los Muertos where we waited for a weather window to head across the Sea of Cortez. We left in the morning of December 13th straight to Banderas Bay in the Puerto Vallarta area. It took us 53 hours of fast downwind sailing to cover the roughly 325 nautical miles and when we arrived we were lucky enough to get a slip in the La Cruz marina without having to wait at anchor. Along the way we tore the boat apart trying to find the source of a terrible smell only to discover a squid had jumped up and lodged itself in one of our dorades (air vents on a boat). We also caught another good sized mahi.

While in Marina La Cruz we got re-acquainted with the town, did some boat projects, celebrated Christmas and New Years, and enjoyed a great family visit.

After the holidays we were off, headed south while enjoying some surfing at Punta Mita and a fantastic sail along the coast to the anchorage at Chamela. Along the way we were slowly chased down and passed by SV One World.

Over the next few weeks we’ll continue to explore the Pacific Coast of Mexico.