Son of a Sailor

188 miles between Manzanillo Bay and Zihua...where we would spend Christmas.

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We were determined to have Christmas in Zihuatanejo, which was a straight two day sail from Manzanillo. Most folks did/do the run straight through, as the anchorages on the way are not terribly popular and tend to be rolly with marginal safety. We took off from Las Hadas in Manzanillo Bay with three other buddy boats, intent on making the run to Zihua as quickly as possible with a good weather window to support the down/off the wind run. My log says we had a 188 mile run all the way to Zihua, which would be about a full two days of moving down the coast. This was very doable, with the only things to think through being the weather and the possibility of snagging nets at night, a real possibility unless we went way out to sea…like into the shipping lanes.

This first day, there was little wind till the afternon, with us spotting at least three net systems and snagging a fourth that we were forced to cut (we didn’t like to cut the net systems if possible). We finally were able to able to get some sails up as the afternoon winds came up and sailed smoothly throughout the afternoon. Later in the afternoon, the swells came up from behind us, pitching the boat to the point we decided we really didn’t want to do that all night….Tulum wasn’t great straight downwind so we would have to motor with a steep swell from behind us. After 9 hours and 50 miles, we had a choice and we decided to try it. Our buddy boats wanted to continue except for one boat we really didn’t know, they would stay with us until Zihua….we would not see or hear from them again after Zihua..I think they went back north again.

So at around 415 in the afternoon, we let our buddy boats know we were going to try Punta Cabeza Negra for the night and would catch them again in Zihua. Our internal agreement (noted in my log) was that if it was a really rolly or crappy anchorage, we’d just continue through the night. But at this point, we had the engine back on and the big ginny furled up, so we turned due east and started our six mile trek across swell…into Cabeza Negra. Here’s what it looks like on a map:

**Here’s approximately where we anchored. This is also about the location of the Heather and Shawn Waypoint MIC002 on page 179 of their Pacific Mexico Guidebook.**

So after another six miles and another hour…we swung wide of the obvious rocks coming off the inside of the point and found the waypoint where Shawn and Heather recommended anchoring. In fact, we did anchor right about on that waypoint, anchoring in 30 feet over a sand bottom. On this day we put out 5x scope….so about 150 feet of chain that we made sure was really well dug in. The buddy boat that came with us anchored behind us, but we were pretty haggered because of the steep swell, so we let them know we’d be taking off at dawn in the morning and bid them good night. The anchorage wasn’t the best so we put out our flopper stopper, made quick dinner, prepped the boat for sea the next day and got some restless sleep.

Overall, this anchorage wasn’t too bad and definitely exceeded my expectations. I’m glad we decided to check it out, I think very few cruisers stop here but it’s a definite option.

Here’s more info:

Ease of anchoring: We anchored close to or on MIC002 from page 179 of the Shawn and Heather book, Pacific Mexico with good holding. We anchored in 30 feet of water with 150 feet of chain down.

Noise at anchor: No, just the swells against the shore and the wind. There was incoming swell here, but because of the wind we were held side on to the smaller swells, we were able to handle it for one night.

Provisioning: Nope.

Cellular reception at anchor: Nope, but possibly by now?

Wifi in the anchorage: Nope.

Water Clarity: Nope.

Protection: Protection from the north if you can tuck in enough. None from the south or west.

Bugs: None.

Beach: Yes, but the swells are pretty massive to get there.

Would We Go Back: Yes, if we had to.

I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to break up a two day sail by heading into a marginal anchorage and find that it fits your needs for the night….you can eat, sleep and head out easily in the morning. Which is just what we did.

We were cruising on a larger, heavier sailboat with our kids and Great Dane, into waters we had never been to before, so we made no apologies for this diversion from our original plan.

We are still the same people….traveling slow with our kids as we continue to chart our way forward in life. We’d LOVE to have you FOLLOW our site and keep reading, maybe drop us some Likes every now and again.