Coco Club Melaque Barra de Navidad

... got some variable winds and proceeded to sail in at around a knot or two. Who says you can't anchor under sail, that's exactly what we did back outside Las Hadas. Thank god I speak spanish fairly well because having to talk to a mechanic in spanish is much harder than just shooting the breeze with people. Turns out our intake valves are shot. I hope that's all thats wrong with the motor ...

I love Barra de Navidad, it reminded me a lot of home. After a short trip from Tenacatita we arrived in Barra, we passed the jetty entrance and headed toward the lagoon where we would anchor for the next several days. The locals were collecting shellfish from Pangas all over the lagoon entrance and had divers in the water with an ...

... into a huge lagoon at the end. There were tons of fish in the river, we didn't see much wildlife except what we thought might be lemurs, and lots of freshwater crabs. Went for a longboard sesh, first one of the trip, waves sucked, small and closed out. It was a little eerie paddling over from the boat to the break knowing theres crocs upriver.

... estate secluded under the cover of a myriad of coconut palms. There is a guest quarters, a heli-pad, and apparently armed guards. The guidebooks we had stated that anchoring is "tolerated," and going ashore is forbidden. The word LOBO (wolf) was spelled out in large white rocks on the front lawn. We could see people stirring around on the property, sunbathing, making some drinks at the bar. Someone literally owns paradise, I wonder who and how they got it.

We packed up "La Familia" (we started calling my truck this which is Spanish for The Family half way through the trip due to the fact we had my mom and my dad riding for two weeks with us) for the three hour drive to Barra De Navidad or Christmas Bar. We stopped in the Mismaloya area of Puerto Vallarta for lunch and head the best fish we had our entire trip. We got into Barra De Navidad on the weekend of the end of the holiday week and it was ...

... were tow guys playing traditional music that was very good. One on guitar and one on the bongos. A shot of good Tequila and we were ready for the walk home. Every day at least once we stop for Michuacan ice cream. This is generally made fresh in shops. They have scores of flavors and even have some that ate very spicy! They are always fresh cream and fruit, frozen on a stick and ...

... to Spend the Winter Months --------------------------------------- ------------------------------- Melaque No. 10 of 23 Destinations (this is not a ranking) --------------------------------------- -------------------------------- In case you noticed: but Barra de Navidad was no. 10? - no I did not list Melaque as a separate destination as I rightly or wrongly viewed it as an adjunct to Barra de Navidad ...

... be nicer than strolling the entire 4.5 kilometres of beach along Navidad Bay to Melaque? Sounds like a wonderful morning exercise. However, the answer lies in: have you ever tried walking along a steeply inclined sandy beach? It is no pleasure as it is anything but comfortable. The good news is that at some point beyond the town of Barra de Navidad the beach gets wider and flatter. I say that because after having taken the short bus ride to ...

... channel that separates the town from Isla Navidad. The dominating view on Isla Navidad is the Hotel Grand Bay - Wyndham Luxury Resort that has a "Monaco" style about it. The easiest way to get to the hotel is to take a water taxi. If my description of Barra de Navidad's stunning location is not inspiring then take a good look at the aerial photo to get the picture. There is no doubt that the ...

... the full name of which actually is San Patricio de Melaque, a name that no one uses. During the last hour of our six-hour trip I struck up a conversation with a gentleman from Montreal, Quebec who identified himself as a Moroccan Jew. My original reaction was to place the comment into the category of an oxymoron - a Moroccan Jew? I couldn't have been more wrong for the following website declares that Jews have been living in ...