We
arrived at Paraiso on March 5th in the afternoon. Paraiso means
Paradise in English, which makes perfect sense when you see this place. It’s the most beautiful beach with the
whitest softest sand found tucked away in a private little cove. The water is a
turquoise crystalline blue that you can see through. The edges of the cove are steep cliffs. It’s a tricky cove to get into because
it’s narrow and the cliff’s surrounding the entry are being beaten by waves.
But once you are in close enough to anchor it’s a peaceful sanctuary of
beauty.
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| SV Rebecca |
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| Cyndi greeting us with a warm welcome! |
Our
friends Cyndi and Marcus on SV Rebecca anchored between the beach and us. We
were the only boats anchored out here.
When we got in and anchored we all jumped in the water immediately and I
took Harley to the beach on the SUP board. There was a surprising current and
swell as I approached the beach and we got rolled. I was not happy about that!
After I got my wits about me after our tumble, I gathered the board and the
paddle and brought it higher up the beach and just sat there until I could get
over being mad. Harley did her
thing and we returned back to the boat on the SUP.
One
thing I did not mention about this quiet secluded beach is that the beach is
also part of a resort called Playas Paraiso, which was setting up for some sort
of party or wedding reception. We saw this as we first entered the cove and
thought “how lovely…a wedding…we will get to hear some music”. Well, we heard music all right and it
played until 4:30 a.m. The music started earlier in the night as soothing and
enjoyable. By midnight on it was loud house music. You know…the kind that you
just hear…boom boom boom boom boom boom… and nothing else. You feel it in your
chest. Needless to say, we did not
get too much sleep that night.
As
soon as the sun came up and we took one more swim, we pulled up our anchor and
left.
We
headed towards Chamela and decided to stop there for the night (to catch up on
some rest) before our overnight sail to La Cruz the next day. Not much going on in Chamela except
that it was a rolly night. Our boat got pitched sideways in the swell so it was
an uncomfortable night sleeping.
We
got up bright and early and left with SV Rebecca on our overnight journey to La
Cruz.
We
actually had a nice sail most of the day and were able to put up all of our
sails for a while anyway. We motored during the night.
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| SV Rebecca - a 37' Tayana |
We
had some issues with our tiller pilot (automatic steering), so we had to hand
steer and follow our friends closely, which is not so fun at night. It’s hard
to really judge your distance in the dark. One minute we seemed right in line behind them, the next we
were right on top of them. At other times they got way ahead of us and we could
not see their running lights or make them out from the lights along shore.
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| Sunset on watch |
We
made it around Cabo Corrientes about 1:30 in the morning (the point that is
crucial to time just right otherwise you get high winds and waves) and into Banderas
Bay. It was very rolly so we had to go slow.
We
arrived and anchored at 6:20a.m. in the dark, at the anchorage in La Cruz.
There were a lot of boats anchored there (we heard later that was because of the
Banderas Bay Regatta that was happening over the next few days). It was tough
finding a spot in the dark, so we anchored as far away as possible from the
other boats planning to re-anchor in the morning closer to the Marina when it
was light out.
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| The anchorage at La Cruz |
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