Cabo Corrientes (December 14)

Sunrise, leaving the Bay of Banderas


Cabo Corrientes, one of the Great Capes of the World… or at least one of the capes of some minor significance on the North American continent. Its supposed to be comparable to Point Conception in California. We rounded it without incident, leaving Puerto Vallarta and the Bay of Banderas behind. Winds were 15-20 knots, following seas 4-5 feet. Boat speed averaged 5-6 knots. A cakewalk. Until we went to jibe and didn’t haul in the mainsheet enough before taking the stern through the wind. One of the quirks of this boat is that it has a very long boom. During this maneuver, the boom raised up and got stuck on the backstay (the wire that keeps the mast from falling forward). Hmm… that’s not right… we both stayed calm as I took the helm off autopilot and fired up the engine to turn into the wind. Dan grabbed the boathook to snag the boom and pull it down to get around the backstay. It snapped free of the backstay and then quickly snagged on the radio antenna wire. Ooooh… THAT’S not good either… but he pulled it off that also. And nothing broke, which was a real bonus! We were more careful during our next jibe, and everything went fine. The infamous Cabo Corrientes -- Cape of the Currents

The next anchorage was called Ipala. I wouldn't call it a town, because that would imply some ammenities, but there were a few houses. We were shocked at how small the anchorage is, and didn’t believe we were looking at it until we had the suspicion raised by seeing a couple of cruisers anchored there was corroborated by the GPS reading. Ok, I guess it is that little nitch in the rocky cliff… not that big sandy area further east… huh.
Ipala -- All of it
The weather was warming up, like its supposed to do south of the Bay of Banderas. There was a hot wind blowing off the surrounding rocky hills covered in desert-like vegetation. But the water was warm (78 F) and I went for a nice swim, though didn‘t see much in the way of interesting sea life, the vis was only about 10 feet. This was one of our more interesting anchoring jobs. After we dropped the hook, Dan noticed that we were too close to a big very hard looking rock covered by about 3 feet of water. We came so close to it while re-anchoring that I could almost hear the cruch against the hull. Gulp. But all was fine. Gotta pay more attention to odd features on the water surface...

Sitting on deck drying in the sun after a swim, listening to Johnny Cash and sipping a beer (note: this scene would have been improved if the beer had been something other than a Moosehead light -- not my purchase), watching the waves crash over the rocky shore, I got to thinking that Ipala grows on you. Apparently cruisers are encouraged to bring school supplies for the local kids, who otherwise have to make an 8 hour journey inland on a rutted dirt track for such things.
Dan gave me a couple of pats on the back that night. First, for talking the price of lobster down from $220 to $150 (pesos) at the restaurant the night before, and second for doing well during that day’s (mis)adventures. Which was nice… I always like to get an attagirl.

We broke into a new box of oreos at Ipala. One side of the cookie sandwich is the traditional chocolate, and the other side is vanilla. So simple. So good. They’re my new favorite.

The most interesting sea life I’ve spied so far has been turtles. I was idly looking toward shore, and noticed something odd in the water not far from the boat… a plastic bag maybe? Then it poked his head up to take a breath, and I could see it was a sea turtle swimming south. I was delighted, never having seen one while sailing. There is life out there! I saw another one later that afternoon. I’ve also seen a few dolphins, much smaller than the ones I’ve seen further north. I’ve heard reports from other cruisers of humpback whales and one lucky boat saw a blue whale breach near them. Very cool. Even cooler was the boat who was sailing along at about a knot (e.g. a slow walk), when a pod of dolphins started playing near the boat. The boat was going slow enough that they both jumped in to have a swim with the dolphins. They said it was really cool. Yeah. So, that’s my new goal. Its good to have goals.

Am happy to hear that “intelligent design” was declared “not science” by the courts.