Las Hadas (Manzanillo Bay)

[GPS (Las Hadas) N 19 06 04 W 104 20 42]
Las Hadas resort with its Moorish-influenced Spanish villas on the east slope of Punta Santiago, was inspired by a famous Moorish fairytale called “The Fairies” (Las Hadas). The resort is probably most famous for being the location of the film “10”. At the base of the hotel is the marina, the oldest pleasure marina on the Mexican Pacific coast, with all Med-mooring tie-ups (i.e. stern to the one long dock that goes around the perimeter of the marina basin). We were anchored just outside the marina and just off the Las Hadas beach. The cove is pretty well protected and very calm – except for the wakes from the jet skiers and ski-pangas that circle (and cut through) the anchorage.

Tuesday, we went into the marina to do laundry and scope it out. The marina looked a bit worn – and the bathrooms and showers were not inviting enough to use – but it was a nice place to be able to tie up the dinghy when we went ashore. We finished our laundry – each washer or dryer load was 60 pesos ($5)! Rather expensive – but it is a resort. We are running pretty low on fuel, and found that the fuel dock at the marina was out of diesel. So we decided to take our two jerry jugs to a Pemex station. Closest one was a ½ mile hike up the hill to the bus stop and then a bus ride over to the main highway. The sky looked a little threatening. As we were riding the bus back, the wind picked up. As the bus made its way out the west side of Punta Santiago (overlooking Bahia Santiago on the other side of the point), we could see whitecaps. We got our jugs off the bus, down the hill to the dinghy, and back out to the boat. Just as we finished getting onto the boat, it started pouring – and rained off and on the rest of the day and on through the night. People in the anchorage said they actually had gusts up to 30 knots just before the rain. And a boat that was underway coming around from Bahia Santiago, said they got hit with 35-40 knots. We were just glad that we weren’t there – and that our boat’s anchor held! (Have we said how pleased we are with the Manson Supreme anchor that we have as our primary?)

Thursday, Doug took a bus trip into Manzanillo – around the other side of the bay. It’s much larger than Zihuatanejo – and much more industrial – with numerous container cranes along the water just before getting to downtown.



There were generally about 10-12 boats in the anchorage at Las Hadas – and we met most of the other people there. Avalon (Phil & Katie) from the HaHa and LaPaz were there. And Gary & Cindy aboard Distant Shores taught us a new game – “Pegs and Jokers” – kind of like Sorry but with playing cards. One afternoon Cathy had 4 other women over to Galatea for a game of Mexican Train (dominos), while the men all gathered on Optical Illusion for beer and chatting. On Friday evening, a group of 11 of us went ashore to a restaurant for dinner together.

The water was very clear, so we would often take a swim off the boat – sometimes swimming over to another boat. One afternoon we cleaned our bottom by free-diving. One morning, we heard a bunch of splashing around the boat. When we went up to look, we saw some gulls around and a couple pelicans diving into the water – but not enough for all the splashing. Then we heard some thumping on the hull of the boat. We went to the deck and watched over the edge. There were probably 10-12 what looked like tuna – about 2 feet long on average, swimming around the boat. They would herd together a small school of these needle-nose fish and then go for them – splashing all around. The gulls were flying all around for the orts. The needle-nose fish would swim around the boat or under to the other side, and then the larger fish would find them and start herding them again. This went on for about an hour. We got some video – but Doug mistakenly erased them - sorry….