Noche Buena in Bahia de Navidad

Anchored in Melaque

We are anchored is the charming tourist/fishing village of Melaque in the Bahia de Navidad.  We left Banderas Bay  Dec. 22  sailing down the coast around the famed Cabo Corrientes with 25+ knot winds all the way! We had the best sail of the whole trip with full genoa and reefed main. Both of us held watch until 9:00pm, then took turns "catnapping" throughout the night. We passed two cargo tankers during the night. Thank goodness for the AIS ship locator on our chart plotter. We would never have seen these giants until 6 miles ...that's usually the light distance on the horizon...but, these ships are traveling pretty fast and it's good to have early warning that they are in your waters. We both got a little short tempered over the course of the evening and were exhausted by the time we pulled into Bahia de Navidad at 11:00am....time for anchor down!

There are a lot of "Baha'ers" here for Christmas...so we send a "hello" out on the radio...Shindig hails back and we meet Nancy & Rob for margaritas and shrimp dinner at recommended open air palapa, Senor Froy's.

Colorful umbrellas line the beach

What a charming beach scene! This is a Mexican beach resort with a few Americans and Canadians thrown in. Colorful umbrellas line the beach in front of every palapa restaurant,  families swimming in the water, vendors selling their wares and fishing pangas towing people on"banana boat" rides and music make this a cheerful place! There's a great little town just back off the beach front.  The next day we meet up with Autumn Wind ( Brian & Elizabeth) and Aphrodite ( Barry, Peggy & Jenn) and spend a shared lunch of garlic shrimp then explore the busy town...

Almost got a picture of John...

Neat shops line the cobbled streets

Barry entertains the kids with his juggling

Ooohh...uno, dos, tres balls...

Smile! Jenn, Barry, Peggy, Elizabeth, Brian,  John's arm

Shrimp, shrimp and more shrimp...yumm!

We stop a passing fisherman who sells us a fresh lobster for 100 pesos (that's about $8.00) ! This will be our Christmas Eve dinner with organic green beans and rice..

Lobster for Christmas Eve dinner!

We discover that this day Dec 24 is the Mexican holiday, Noche Buena, which is more important to the locals than our Christmas Day, Dec 25.  The shops close early to celebrate with families, play along the beach and just relax...we watch the fireworks late into the night!