San Blas and Matachen Bay

We are now underway to Chacala Bay after spending a wonderful day anchored at Matachen Bay and visiting the nearby village of San Blas. The anchorage as noted in the guidebooks is delightful for the bay is wide open with a gradual sloping sandy bottom with very little swell. We anchored in 20 ft and upon arrival was the only boat in this large bay - amazing!

First thing we did on shore was take the jungle tour of La Tovara. This three hour tour (not quite Gilligan's Island) on a panga took us through the lush mangroves with abundant wildlife (including crocodiles) and ended at La Tovara springs where one could swim in these crystal clear cold waters, view the wildlife up close in a small zoo, or have lunch and a cervesa overlooking it all. We shared our panga with a lovely young couple who were both doctors from Guadalajara vacationing with their two young sons. It was fun to listen to them call out the names of the wildlife in both Spanish and English to their sons. Dave and I were able to add some more Spanish terms to our limited vocabulary.

After the tour, we took a taxi for about a four mile ride to the town of San Blas. This shrimping port has a population of about 8,500 and is not a tourist trap, but a fishing village. However, we were wondering if the locals were tired of fish as we could not figure out why there was a line out the door and around the block for Chinese food at a local stand. Dave and I though forgo the Chinese food and elected to eat at the neighboring "McDonald's" where Gail gave in to her love of Mole and had Enchilada Polle Mole. Delicious! The tourist sites included a very old cathedral, a mission of Father Junipero Serra before he left for San Diego, California and started the California missions, and a fort on top of the hill with a wonderful view of San Blas.

After the San Blas tour, we were back at Matachen Bay where we sampled the local treats from the road side vendors of pan de platano (banana bread), cocadas (very sweet coconut ball), empanadas, and cocos (coconut water sipped from the coconut). Check out the accompanying video which shows the preparation of these cocos. One can pretty easily guess that bananas and coconut trees are abundant here in this lush, humid, tropical area.

Even though the locals were burning the coconut husks at dusk, unfortunately the jejenes (no-see-ums) did attack us as feared along the walk back and we are scratching today. However, the boat screens appear to have worked as we were quite comfortable back on the boat although hot, sticky, and very tired. All in all, a spectacular day!

Whale Update - As I am updating this blog this morning on our departure from Matachen Bay, Dave sighted a whale on a collision course with us 50 ft from port side! He immediately throttled the boat to neutral and fortunately the whale decided to dive. Whew! And this was in about 50 ft of water.... The whales are definitely around but thankfully they try to avoid us almost as much as we try to avoid them!

Now on to Chacala Bay and then Banderas Bay which includes Punta Mita, La Cruz, Nuevo Vallarta and Puerto Vallarta. Another update as I write this - Dave just caught a fish! Although it is a gorgeous Mahi Mahi, we decided to let him go since he is so small (about one and a half ft). Sigh... Oh well Dave, better luck next time!