Rounding Cabo Corrientes can be challenging no matter which direction your boat is traveling. The (very) general rule is to round this cape in the early morning hours when the winds and seas are often at their lightest. We used this approach and intended to round Cabo Corrientes at or before sunrise. However, just a day or two before we had picked up a handy piece of local knowledge from one of the net controllers on the SSB Amigo Net.
This gentleman told us to expect that the strongest breezes and choppiest seas would likely not be found precisely off of Cabo Corrientes itself, but in a 10-20 mile area to the south. He was 100% correct: somewhat south of Chamela, at 4:00 PM on February 20, 2015, our northwesterly winds increased from 10-12 knots to 14-17 with the usual chop one can expect in such conditions. Just after rounding Cabo Corrientes the next morning at about 6:30 AM, the winds had eased to less than 10 knots and dropped even further as we entered Banderas Bay. Thanks for the tip, Mr. Net Controller!
Crossing Banderas Bay to our goal of the anchorage at Punta de Mita, we encountered many humpback whales. It's always a delight to see them, and they are very hip to the overall busyness of the bay, especially when boat traffic increases on the weekends like this one. These semi-resident whales also obviously understand that people love to see them. So all these humpies swam very slowly and deliberately; made sure we got a good look at them; and eased up on The Fox to make extra-sure we got the whale encounter we wanted. Too bad I was busy driving the boat, or I would have gotten a better photo of one of them than this one.
We dropped anchor at Punta de Mita a bit past 1:00 PM. The weather was flat-calm; the anchorage was rolly but definitely tolerable, and there was plenty of weekend activity on shore. Totals from Tenacatita to Punta de Mita = 136 miles and 27 hours.
And in the three weeks since leaving Puerto Chiapas, we'd traveled a total of 961 miles.
m
Leave a Reply