Well Melissa, our daughter arrived on the 31^st of February so we are back on tourist mode for two weeks. We spent the previous two weeks just gunkholing up and down a 7 mile stretch of coast, exploring bays and diving on coral reefs. Been grand and we loved the alone time with only ourselves to worry about but having Melissa here would be fun. We spent the first three days after her arrival shopping for provisions and the ladies went dress shopping in the local markets. Once we managed to get playing tourist done in town we left the marina and sailed over to the harbor of Santa Cruz where we anchored next to the cruise ship dock by a nice little reef on the east side of the harbor. The reef here is nice with lots of coral but not many fish and there was a bit of a plankton bloom happening so the visibility was a little poor. 

We took the dink to another nearby bay called Playa en Trenga where there is another nice and more extensive reef with a lot more fish. In the north east corner of the bay a spring enters the sea creating a pocket of almost perfectly clear water. This is where we managed to get some of the best of our underwater pics. There were some very aggressive little Blue damsel fish that, if you swan too close, would attack and bite after sneaking up on your blind side. Melissa had one bite the back of her arm just above the elbow. The little beggar actually drew blood. Almost two weeks later you could still see the teeth marks. 

After a couple of days in the harbor, we up anchored and hoisted sail for a little site seeing trip to the west, and back up the coast. There are 7 beautiful bays with spectacular beaches along here but unfortunately, they can be a bit rolly for sleeping so we carried on to our favorite, Bahia Chachcual. I gave a description Chachcual in a previous post entitled “ Tranquility base” so no need to repeat it here except that the little corner that we staked out for ourselves was the calmest spot along this whole coast no matter what the wind or sea direction. 

We spent several days here with Melissa just swimming, sunning and exploring the coast by dinghy. I had rented some additional diving gear from a local dive charter operator so I could get Jan and Melissa a chance to become reacquainted with scuba. Both are excellent snorkelers and certified divers but both needed a little refresher course that I gave to them in the shallows off a beach in Chachcual. 

Again the visibility was poor but I had fun taking Melissa by hand and diving the perimeter of the reef with her. I had booked a dive charter boat for later in the week for the three of us so I was hoping that the operator would be able to show us some dive sites that were better that we could see by just snorkeling. Jan would later op-out of going diving so Melissa and I went on our own. The two dives we made were fun and we saw some great rock and coral formations down around 60 feet but in truth, I thought we saw more coral and fish just snorkeling on our own. San Augustine proved to one of the best sites with the reef just off the beach where many palapas crowd the shore. Good place to have lunch afterwards. 

Melissa decided that she wanted to make a land trip to see some of the interior and perhaps some wild life so we hired a taxi for the day ($120 US) for a tour up the coast on a very dubious road through rural Mexico. So after moving the boat back to the harbor at Santa Cruz we made a road trip. 

On the morning of our road trip we awoke to find that we had a new neighbor, a cruise ship had arrived. After I cooked breakfast, we took the dink ashore, waved at the new arrivals and met our driver for the day. As we were about to see, most of the locals live very modestly in crudely constructed brick and block homes with thatched or corrugated tin roofs. And of course, most with outdoor plumbing. (translation,  out houses).  Chickens and bare footed kids abound and scratch and play in dirt yards that they often rake or broom. Our first stop was at a coastal town called Ventanilla (“Little Window”) where a two by four kilometer island sits in a mangrove lagoon. Here we would hire a guide to paddle us around the lagoon then take us to walk on the island. It is here where we saw hundreds of iguanas, some up to a meter long, perched in trees or wandering along the ground. We also saw many crocodiles along the shore, some up to 4 meters long. The little community itself is quite pretty and have done a lot to attract tourist and their beach is spectacular as it stretches unbroken for over thirty miles and due to the nature of the shore, the sea pounds the beach with great curling waves. 

Then it was off to the little coastal town of Manzunte and a makeup factory where Jan and Melissa bought some goop. The it was to a government sponsored turtle sanctuary . Then after a brief stop at Zipolite, the hippie community and the only recognized nude beach in Mexico, we were off to Puerto Angle for a late lunch then it was back to the boat. We got home just intime to see the great ship depart. But not without some concern. The ship was so huge and the engines so powerful, even when they were barley moving, they created such a suction the Maiatla was pulled towards the great propellers and if we had not had two good anchors down and holding well, I’m sure we would have collided with the stern of the ship. Once the ship had left the harbor, I was forced to rest our stern anchor as it had been dragged for some distance. After which we all had a nice moonlight swim next to the boat.