Santiago is a huge bay completely fronted by a beautiful sand beach. There are lots of palapa restaurants as well as the small town of Santiago.
Together with our friends from Tashee, we ventured to shore where we enjoyed a nice lunch, cold beer and great conversation.
The next morning we said goodbye to Kevin and Amalia from Tashee and welcomed other friends from “Jo”, Jay and Kelly with their faithful dog Sam. Never ceases to amaze us the extent of our cruising community!
It was decided that we would try a different restaurant down the beach for dinner. But since the waves had built during the day, we were a little hesitant to try going to shore in Tiny Dancer. Jo’s crew offered to pick us up in their larger dinghy. We had a delightful dinner and good live music. Going back to the boats in the dark was challenging due to the high surf. We all leaped into their dingy as we waded out and pushed off. Whew….that was exhilarating!
On Saturday, February 9 we decided to cross the bay and anchor outside Santiago. They were having their weekly market day and we could use some fresh produce. Again, huge waves, so we rode with Jay, Kelly and Sam in their dinghy. We made it safely to shore and pulled the dinghy high up on the sand so that the changing tide would not wash it away.
We enjoyed the market and lunch. But when we returned, we saw that the surf was not only higher, but had surfable breakers! We watched, timed and went for it. We were all soaked and wide eyed, but thanks to Jay’s amazing dinghy driving, we made it safely back.
This was not a safe anchorage anymore, so we upped anchor and motored the 4 miles to Las Hadas across the bay from Manzanillo. Wow….this was a beautiful resort area that resembled the hillsides of Greece. This is also where the movie “10” was filmed. Being a resort area we were greeted by jet skis, power boats and every other form of water device.
We were met by our friends on Tashee and they picked us up by dinghy to join them at a beautiful restaurant on the shore. Getting back to Slow Dancer was again a challenge because of the swells. We made it, but were quite soaked in the process.
In the morning we said good bye to Tashee and Las Hadas and headed toward Caleta de Campos. This would be an overnighter. We were happy to be joined by two “buddy boats”, Jo and Ay Caramba.
This anchorage was beautiful, but the swells created a very rolly night. We were happy to pull up our anchor and leave the next day on another night time passage. This proved to be a challenging area. Large seas and lots of shipping traffic from Lazaro Cardenas kept us on our toes.
We arrived at Isla Grande…off Ixtapa at day break. After two days at the island we motored into Zihuatanejo.
 Beach at Santiago |
 Enjoying lunch with our friends from Jo |
 Evening at Santiago |
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 Leaving Las Hadas |
 Isla Grande |