Semana Santa in Santiago Bay

Semana Santa (Holy Week) is the biggest holiday in Mexico, when everyone packs up the family and heads to the beach. It looks like a good portion of the country has come to the Manzanillo area. The beach area has gone from sparsely populated last week to completely packed this week. The hotels are full and empty lots have been turned into campgrounds. It is quite interesting to walk on the beach where thousands of umbrella's appeared along with roving vendors selling fruit, drinks, watertoys, clothing,
various trinkets. From the boat you could hear a low roar of the crowd, and music being played by mariachi's and bandstands 2 mles down the beach. The only downside was that jetski's, panga's pulling water toys with groups of screaming kids, and skiboats are also out in force. It appears that these people are not aware that it is quite annoying for them to make large wakes in the middle of the anchored boats. It makes the anchorage a bit bouncy but not too bad, all just part of experiencing Mexico.
By the Monday after Easter the beach was pretty much back to normal, the umbrella's were still up but the crowds were mostly gone.

Earlier we had some friends come down for a visit (Steve & Elsie from Seattle). We planned it so that we could meet up with Yohelah (Rob & Teresa) who were also having guests (Mike and Nita) mutual friends also from Seattle. We met up in Barra de Navidad, explored a little there and had a PSCC (Puget Sound Cruising Club) dinner in town. We had Masquerade, Yohelah, Meridien, Jake, AngelFish, Osprey*, Odessa* (*crew in Mexico, boat in Seattle). Later we headed a few miles north up to Tenacatita Bay.
We did the jungle tour and dinghy potluck (20 dinghies tied together in the middle of the bay, with food being quickly passed from boat to boat). We then headed south to Santiago with a quick stop back in Barra for dinner and a nights rest. In Santiago we joined the weekly expedition to the soccer game, and did a bus trip to Manzanillo to see the market and zocalo. By then we had run out of time and did a short sail over to Las Hadas, so that we could say goodbye the next morning. It was a busy but
very enjoyable visit. There was so much that we wanted to do, but not enough time to fit everything in. A big thanks to Steve & Elsie for bringing down our mail and some boat parts!

We plan on being down here in this area a few more weeks, then will start to move north again.