May 29, 2020-Sometime After Midnight

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Wings in Boca de Tomatlan

Sometime after midnight the wind came down the mountain and breathed softly on the bay where Wings lay anchored.

The boat turned to face the breeze and swung into deeper water.

That set off the alarm.

I woke and rolled off the starboard settee where I had been sleeping, fully clothed, ready for just such a moment and climbed the ladder to the cockpit to see what the commotion was all about. This was the fifth time that night that one of the alarms woke me. Usually they had been the shallow water alarm, less than 60 feet, meaning we could be getting closer to shore. This time as I climbed up the ladder I noticed the depth: 97.5 feet. Good, we’re in safe water.

Then I smelled the dirt in the air and I knew the downflow from the mountain had reached us and I could relax. For the rest of the night that downflow would keep our bow pointed into the valley and our stern out to sea and over deep water. It would also align our length with the sweep of the swells, and reduce the rolling. We’d sleep better.

I undressed and got into my bunk.

But I left the alarms activated, just in case.

All of this because we’re anchored on the edge of a deep underwater canyon, in a place called Boca de Tomatlan (the mouth of the Tomatlan River). The anchor is placed on the only spot in the Boca where we could place it, in 70’ of water right near the shore on the west side, a spot about 25ft square. The rest of the Boca had depths of 100-200ft or, if shallower, were within inches of the rocky shoreline. Even the 70’ spot was close to the shore. We could only put out 2:1 scope on our anchor chain because we were within about 100 ft of the rocks and with more chain the boat could possibly swing into the shore and touch.

But we’d been looking at Boca de Tomatlan from the road above as we passed by for years and always thought it looked enticing so this year we decided to give anchoring here a try.

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Boca de Tomatlan


Now, since we made it through the night without having to bail out and leave, possibly we can stay for a few more days.

Boca de Tomatlan really is lovely and it reminds me so much of the small villages at the end of so many roads on Vancouver Island or on the Canadian mainland. The terrain is similar, high hills and a small village at the foot of them with a wharf around which most of the action centers. You see, for commerce or travel out along the south shore of Banderas Bay, Boca de Tomatlan is the end of the road. From here on you have to take a boat. So all day pangas come and go with people and goods. Oh, and yes, there is more to the village. There is a bus stop up on the highway, and some palapa restaurants on the beach and some stores, and perhaps more to be discovered.

We’ll put the dingy together today and go ashore, and report more after that.

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Judy at the town wharf

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Boca Lagoon

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Judy in the companionway

Click here for more photos.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Boca de Tomatlan


Anchoring in BocaTomatlan (the details)

There is one big challenge to anchoring in Boca Tomatlan: it is impossibly deep here.

For years I was interested on this beautiful and quaint inlet but all the information I could find told me, “No Way, too deep!”
But this year I got some Navionics charts which showed a lot more detail including soundings for the whole bay. But I saw some areas along the west shore where the contour lines indicated a high spot or two in the bottom. As we arrived and cruised the shoreline the lowest number we saw was seventy feet? Could we manage that? Well yes, we had plenty of chain, but with only 120’ from the rocky shore to the spot we wouldn’t be able to use normal 3-1 or 5-1 scope. But if 2-1 would hold maybe it would be OK.

It took a few tries to find that 70’ spot again, it’s not very big, but eventually we got right over it, backing down slightly, and lowered the anchor. We put out 150’ and pulled on it, but not much. With 2:1 scope it wouldn’t hold very much, but it seemed to stop us. We pulled a little more. No movement.

OK, we’ll try this, we thought.

To solve worries about swinging into the shoreline or dragging we set three alarms on our instrument system:
1. We set a shallow water alarm for 65’ to alert us if we swing towards the shore.
2. We also set a deep water alarm, for 100’ to alert us if we drag of into the middle of the bay or out of it.
3. Finally we set an anchor watch for 300’, meaning that if we moved 300’ in any direction that alarm would go off. This third alarm was rather useless since 300’ was quite a long ways to go before sounding an alarm, but that’s the best our Lowrance can do.

Now we’ve been here for 5 days. We’ve had a few (several) alarms which woke us during the night, mostly because swinging towards the shore, but we’ve never gotten too close or dragged. I have changed the settings to reduce false alarms. I still set the alarm but it only goes off occasionally.

Where is the spot?

So here is where we found the 70’ patch to anchor in:
Lon 20 30.805
Lat 105 19.069

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Boca de Tomatlan Chart

Blasting out of La Cruz

There was a strong thermal which had resulted in over 22 knots of true wind on the day we left La Cruz to come over to this side of Banderas Bay.

As soon as we got out of the marina and hoisted the mainsail we were subjected to that breeze. I decided to put off setting a jib. We didn’t need it.

Judy was on the helm and I gave her a rough heading to follow and left her to it and went below to do a more careful navigation, finish the log book entries (for fueling, water top up, and departure), and to tidy up since the fenders, lines, and other dockside detritus were still scattered around. This is actually a typical approach for us, and admittedly it is due to my impatience to get going. I rarely want to hang around at the dock or inside the marina until everything is shipshape and put away. “Never a moment to lose, let’s get going”.

Because of that we always have these tidying up details to complete at the beginning of a passage or trip. Judy would rather steer than go below when the boat is jumping around so she steers and I go below.

So, while I was below decks Judy was blowing through the crowded anchorage at high speed on a close reach and dealing with all that wind and some good sized waves and a handful on the tiller at times. She is good but I am sure it was a little tense for her. Wings is a powerful boat and in 22 knots it does power up pretty quickly. I stuck my head up when she called and helped grind in the main and I noticed we showed a boat speed of over 7kts, not bad for just a mainsail.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“Yeah, just get your stuff finished please” she answered.

I did finish up, and while doing so I heard quite a few good sized waves slap on deck as Wings sliced the tops off of the waves kicked up by the wind and the long fetch.

When I went on deck to relieve her I took the windvane blade and set it. From then on the sailing was easier.

Judy was ready for a nap.