Our next day's trip was to Chacala, about 45 miles farther south, where we spent the first night at an anchorage listed in our guide books. It was not an inspiring spot so at first light we moved south to Isla Pasavera where we found home again. This beautiful little island is like a miniature Isla Isabela and so captured our hearts. We spent two wonderful days swimming, diving and exploring.
Arriving at Tenacatita to find 38 other boats, a Bocce Ball tournament in progress and even a self-proclaimed mayor, our first reaction was to run, run like hell, but we did not. Instead we dinghied around, found a few old friends, said hello over a glass of wine or two, and feeling satisfied with our visit, resigned to leave first thing in the morning for Barra de Navidad, or, as it is locally known, Barra.
As any of you who receive our email updates already know, our entrance to Barra was noteworthy to say the least. We grounded in the narrow, very shallow, and unmarked channel, only to drag anchor later in the slimy mud of the lagoon anchorage. Not one of our best days. We subsequently learned that we are not at all special as over the course of our stay we watched people with years of cruising experience repeat our mistakes.
With the first days humiliations put aside, the next several days were spent exploring the lagoon, discovering new birds (for us that is), visiting with friends and wandering about the quaint village of Barra. Near the end of our stay we checked into the beautiful marina at the Isla Navidad resort to wash down the boat and ourselves, take on fuel and fill the water tanks. We had planned to spend only a night or two but ended up staying four. Cheri, disappointed because she was missing the Olympics, discovered cable TV was available at our slip. As we did not have a TV cable on board (access to cable TV was just not something we had planned for) I made a dash into the village with the dinghy in an attempt to find a "ferreteria" (hardware store) open on Sunday morning. Successful in my quest, we had the boat wired and Cheri planted in front of the TV watching ice-skating by mid-day. I went for walks and visited while Cheri got her fix of "Los Olympicos". She was able to watch them in both English and Spanish.
