Manzanillo
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| Riding the bus in Manzanillo |
Manzanillo is a large seaport and a steady stream of tankers
and freighters is constantly entering and leaving the bay. There are usually also a few ships at anchor
waiting to go into the inner harbour.
The bus travels along the edge of the inner harbour and huge cranes and
stacks of containers stretch for blocks.
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| Shipping containers at the harbour |
At the waterfront near downtown Manzanillo there is a huge
sculpture of a sailfish as a symbol of the city as a world-class sport fishing
centre. Neil is at the centre bottom of the sculpture
giving an indication of the sheer size of it.
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| Sailfish Scupture |
On the way back to the boat we stopped for a meal at a
little pollo asada (grilled chicken) place.
Grilled chicken is available absolutely everywhere in Mexico and I can
only imagine the huge chicken farms that must exist somewhere. The larger restaurants and take-out places
have large rotisserie machines while the place at which we had lunch grilled the
chicken on a propane-fuelled grill about the size of a kitchen table. A few doors down I took this photo at a
restaurant where they use this wood-fired cement trough to cook the chicken
skewered on wooden sticks.
We went on a bit of a wild goose chase the next day looking
for a Volvo Penta dealer that could hopefully replace our leaking cooling-water
pump but it turned out that he doesn’t exist.
I guess our first clues should have been that neither the e-mail address
nor the phone number worked. We’re more
optimistic about the dealer (allegedly) in Puerto Vallarta and decided not to
let the engine problem affect Neil’s visit too much. We went back to the boat, filled up with fuel
and water and headed to Ensenada Carrizal 6 miles to the north.
Ensenada Carrizal
Ensenada Carrizal is a small bay that can hold about 10
boats. There is no town on the shore
which makes for a relaxing stop away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
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| Three Hour Tour and Cat at Ensenada Carrizal |
We arrived at about 5 pm on Friday, Feb. 24th and
Neil swam ashore to check out the snorkelling.
He snorkelled for a while but spent most of his time inspecting the
geology of the rocks on shore and when he returned to the boat he regaled us
with an account of all that he found and declared the snorkelling to be
excellent.
The next day we all went ashore to inspect the geology and
gather samples although my sample bag was at least half sea shells. I tend to gather rock samples in the manner a
magpie might e.g. Ooooh! shiny, pretty, while Neil goes into raptures over
something I would use as a door stop.
We had drinks with the neighbours, Thomas and Allison,
aboard their catamaran aptly named “Cat” and set off for an overnight trip to Tenacatita
where arrived at 7 am on Feb. 26th.
Tenacatita
The purpose of our trip to Tenacatita was to go on a
self-guided river trip up a brackish, mangrove-lined river where there was reported
to be good bird watching. The river
started out looking like this:
Then narrowed to this:
And just before it became impenetrable it looked like
this:
We were not able to get to the lagoon but did see some
interesting birds. Of course we have no
idea what they are.
All the way along the river, the mangrove roots were host to colourful crabs that scuttled away at our approach.
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| My gondoliers |
Back on the beach we had a fantastic lunch at a palapa
restaurant. A local specialty is “Rollo
del Mar” which is a breaded fish fillet wrapped around bacon, shrimp and
octopus and covered with an almond cream sauce.
Neil and I have been scheming about how to recreate it at home.
The next morning we began the return trip to Manzanillo
where Neil would be taking a bus to Zihuatanejo for his flight home on the 29th.
We left Tenacatita at 8 am on Feb. 27th and
travelled 11 miles south to Cuastecomate, also known as ‘Secret Anchorage’. I’m not sure how secret it is anymore since it’s
now written up in the new guidebook that all the cruisers have.
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| Cuastecomate |
Neil kayaked to shore to snorkel and check out the local
geology while I made bread. He came back
about an hour later and we all went ashore in the dingy. Neil went to collect some rock samples, I
went snorkelling (which was excellent!) and Mark walked around both blocks of
town and then settled himself under a beach umbrella to have a beer where Neil
and I joined him later for a drink. I
had one of those drinks they serve in a green coconut and was disappointed
later to find that green coconuts have only a thin layer of soft tissue inside,
not the coconut meat I was hoping for.
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| Three Hour Tour at Cuastecomate |
We hoisted anchor again and went a whole 3 miles south
around the point to Melaque where we dropped anchor for the night.
Tuesday, Feb. 28th was to be Neil’s last day on
the boat with us. We motored back to
Manzanillo, went out for dinner and put him on an overnight bus to Zihuatanejo
for his flight home the next day.
So this morning I’m hoping that everything went ok with the
bus and that he makes his way to the airport on time. Once a parent, always a parent... Happy Leap Day!
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| Sunset at Tenecatita |
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