The Trip to Ixtapa

Jack, Rudy and Patrick swimming in to shore at Maruata.

*****

We've ventured off our known path in the last few days and moved further down the coast than we've been to date. Most of the cruisers who ply the Pacific coastal waters of Mexico stay within the Mazatlan to Manzanillo area. Quite a bit fewer of the boats head down to Zihuatanejo and even less beyond that point, unless they are intent on heading to Central America.

As I've mentioned before, the Pacific Coast cruising is just a world apart from cruising in the Baja. The big differences are ocean swell, large towns, and the huge population of vactioners intent on having fun with jet skis, parasails, charter fishing, water skis, beach-side restaurants, music, boogie boards, surf boards and the like. It's one big party scene.

I didn't use to care for it much, but this trip down the coast has shown me some of the charm that I missed last time. The weather makes the difference. On our first excursion to Manzanillo, the weather was unsettled with lots of squalls, lots of torrential rain, lots of near death experiences. This season on the Mexican Riviera, the weather has been charming. There are still lots of clouds this year, but there has been little rain, and only mild land and sea breezes which are just pleasant. There's been no drama this year, and I really appreciate that. It's amazing how calm the Pacific Ocean can be.

South of Manzanillo,we stayed in three small anchorages which are just little indents on the side of the ocean. These stops allowed us to break up the 180 mile trip so we didn't need to make an overnighter. Not one of them offered much protection from the ocean swell or wind, yet each one was comfortable thanks to the mild conditions. Cabeza Negra was the least remarkable, Maruata offered the best protection, and Caleta Campos was absolutely a lovely town with an excellent beach for boogie boarding. All have big enough swell so we didn't even try to launch the dinghy into shore. Instead we just swam in to enjoy the restaurants, boogie boarding and beach vacation fun.