Paddling Tenacatita Bay

October-November 2004

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Tony Sheridan

Heading to the entrance of the mangrove swamps .

I walk along La Manzanilla’s hot, dusty main street that runs behind a mix of palapa restaurants, stores, a few gringo houses and vacant lots overgrown with weeds and plastic. At the end of the street, a few meters beyond the pool hall thumping with Mexican rock music, a wooden fence overlooks a muddy lagoon. The hooded eyes of a giant crocodile glower menacingly up at me. I shudder. Is this kayaking territory? With a sudden swoosh of his tail, the croc swims away to where several of his mates are basking in the sun. The fenced lagoon is a protected haven for crocodiles.

A path leads from the lagoon onto the beach. A hundred or so meters further on, a rack of yellow kayaks stand beside a hut made of palm fronds. This is Immersion Adventures.

“Is it safe to paddle around here?” I ask the proprietor, Dave Collins.

“The crocs stay in their lagoon,” he assures me. “I’ve been kayaking here for four years. It’s safe.”

We get to talking and Dave tells me he started whitewater kayaking in Wyoming when he was twenty. After a couple of seasons of competitive freestyle, he took up guiding in Yellowstone Park, then after finishing university in Mexico, he started Immersion Adventures. His passion is guiding students on week-long ecological study trips, but his bread and butter is day tours and rentals.

The next morning I rent a kayak from Dave to check out the rocky shore along the south side of the bay.

Launching off the beach between waves, I’m soon gliding over clear water, like gently undulating glass sparkling in the morning sun. I find the sit-on-top kayak stable and relatively maneuverable and soon slip into an easy paddling rhythm, serenaded by the rippling bow wave. In the distance, some porpoises breach but disappear. Two blue footed boobies standing on a rocky outcrop gaze around nonchalantly as I paddle past them towards the towering cliffs, alive with seabirds. A gentle onshore breeze ripples the still water.

Dave Collins and the authour's wife Stephanie don wetsuits to go snorkling .

I cruise into a small bay with a few beach umbrellas in front of towering palms. It’s a $400 per night gated resort with a mani- cured golf course abutting the beach. Not wanting to go where I’m not welcome, I paddle out towards the headland, where the Pacific swells turn into raging white foam as they crash onto jagged cliffs. I weave my way through a myriad of rocky islets, revelling in the drama of sea meeting land.

I want to stay longer, but the afternoon thermal breeze is building and I turn for home before the sea becomes rough. In the distance, the village of La Manzanilla lies nestled into the hills at the south end of the beach. At the north end is an RV park. In between is a five kilometer stretch of almost deserted beach backed by swaying palm trees. As I near the beach, it seems as if I’m under attack as pelicans dive out of the sky to feast on a shoal of fish beneath me.

A couple of days later I join a group of five others for a tour with Dave through the mangroves. Dave and his assistant Paco load the kayaks onto a trailer then drive us out to Tenacatita beach at the north-western tip of the bay. After launching, we paddle past a sleek hundred-foot yacht, our images dancing on her polished blue hull.

“Did you see the whales?” asks one of the crew, pointing to the horizon. We didn’t. Sometimes it pays to be higher off the water. We pass by red sandstone cliffs to a small cove where Dave guides us ashore amid white foam swirling on the rocks. He spreads out a mid-morning snack on a small beach while Paco explains that the base of coral reefs, formed when the ocean covered the isthmus that is now Central America, is the same as in the Atlantic. The coral that grew later is unique to the Pacific. We don snorkle gear to check out what we’ve learned.

After a half hour swim, we resume paddling, rounding a point into a bay that is an anchorage for about thirty cruising yachts and the entrance to the mangroves. The tide is ebbing so we have to carry our kayaks through the shallow delta to where the water deepens. Faced with a one to two knot adverse current in the twenty meter-wide waterway, we paddle hard. Gradually the mangroves close in on us and we paddle through shadowy tunnels well over six meters high, our blades grazing the myriad tentacle-like roots.

Suddenly we burst into bright sunlight and open water. We have come full circle. The mangroves have wound their way behind the hills and we are in a lagoon, with no crocs, directly behind the beach from which we left. Before Dave drives us back to La Manzanilla, we sit around a table in a beach restaurant with jugs of fresh lemonade, eating fish rolls (a local delicacy made of an assortment of seafood wrapped in a tortilla and bacon) and reminisce about our day.

IF YOU GO

The village of La Manzinilla is a forty-five minute taxi ride ($45US) north from Manzanillo International Airport (there are no buses from the airport), or a three and a half hour bus ride south from Puerto Vallarta. Accommodation in the village ranges from $500US per week (2003-04 prices) for a luxury one bedroom apartment on the beach, to just a few dollars to camp under the palm trees adjacent to the village. For more information on La Manzanilla, check www.costalegre.ca/la_manzanilla.htm

Day tours with Immersion Adventures range from $65US to $110US. Renting a single kayak costs $30US a day or $150US a week. For more information, check www.immersionadventures.com.

© Tony Sheridan is a freelance writer who lives in Victoria where he can always be near the sea, if not always paddling or sailing.