The jungle ride

We have moved further down the coast and are now in Tenacatita Bay. This is a popular anchorage and we are sharing it with between 20-30 boats. The weather here is very nice, getting into the mid 80s during the day but cooling down at night. The water temp is up to around 77 so is good for swimming. It is no wonder that some boats spend the entire winter here. There is quite a bit of activity here as there is Bocci ball and dominos on shore each afternoon, which normally ends with beers at the palapa
restaurant.

Our friends on Hooligan (Tim & Paula) took us on the "Jungle River tour". This is a dinghy trip up the river/estuary that is about 2.5 miles long up a narrow and windy waterway. It goes through a lush mangrove jungle and starts out pretty wide but soon narrows till it is barely wider than the dinghy and closes in over head so that you need to duck in some places. There is a lot of wildlife, mainly birds, but we saw a large furry mammal that we think must have been a Coati. Others have reported seeing
boas and a small crocodile. The trip ends behind Playa Tenacatita where there are many Palapa restaurants and a tienda. We went slowly up the river, got some groceries and lunch than headed back. On the way back we went through the jungle up on a plane for a much faster and very exciting ride (photos and video available soon).
We also did a day trip by dinghy over to the town of Manzanilla. We wanted to hit the tienda and see the crocodiles. At the north end of town is an estuary and right there in the brackish water were several crocodiles. Large scary looking crocodiles! There is a fence, but the fence does not actually go all the way to the beach. In fact the one croc was sitting right by the side of the road just several yards from the palapa restaurant! You definitely want to keep an eye on small children and pets
here.