The next morning we pulled anchor and headed on our way to San Blas. We arrived about an hour before sunset and pulled into the shallow channel with caution since it was shallow enough to run aground in certain areas and it was not well marked or mapped. We anchored and headed into town, but found that the city center wasn’t immediately obvious looking at Google Maps. We wandered a few eerie and empty cobblestone streets before being approached by a man on a bicycle saying “You look lost.” in a perfectly American accent. He had been an ex-pat in San Blas for the last 45 years and offered to give us directions into town and checked in on us along the way to make sure we followed his directions. He told us where to find the best churros in town, so we headed in that direction. After making a few turns, the streets became more lit up and populated. We eventually found the churro guy on the corner and ordered a pack of eight churros. He poured the churro batter into a vat of oil and took the large funnel cake out and broke it into individual pieces and rolled them in a cinnamon-sugar mixture. At a grand total of 27 pesos (just over a dollar) he threw in a couple of extras making it an even ten churros and we set off back to the boat. These were indeed the best churros we had ever tasted, as promised by our friend on the bicycle, and we turned around to order another 60 pesos worth.
Our time in San Blas was cut short because Eitan had a flight to catch in Puerto Vallarta and we could only afford one evening in the small town. The next morning we woke up to a thick fog layer that had rolled in and surrounded the boat. We could hardly see the neighboring boat in the anchorage, let alone the panga boats zipping by us in the channel. Eitan navigated us out of the channel with only the radar and sonar tracks from the previous day. Luckily, he had also installed a foghorn on board which he fired off every few seconds, surely waking up the neighboring town.
Once out of the channel, we navigated off the radar for the first hour until the fog burned off. It was a quiet and calm morning as Eitan coordinated travel plans below deck, Connor put out the fishing lines, and Abbey and I stood watch in the cockpit. Abbey turned to me saying she thinks there might be whales nearby hearing the familiar blowhole sounds. Suddenly, a whale was coming up for air directly in our path. I yelled for Eitan partially because he had been adamant about another chance to swim with whales and partially because we were about to hit one. He mistook my calls for panic that we were about to hit something (which we were) and I almost gave him a heart attack. He was quick to remind me the appropriate action would have been to put the boat into neutral and steer away from the whales. In hindsight, this was a no-brainer and I was embarrassed by my reaction. Luckily, the whales were also keen to avoid us and none were harmed. We had several other whale sightings but given the murky water quality and cold water temperatures, we decided against swimming with them until conditions improved.
We arrived in Chacala around lunchtime and headed in to explore the cute little town. Chacala reminds me of the many small beach towns that dot the coasts in Latin American countries. You can walk the town in under 30 minutes and all roads are dirt or cobblestone at best. Sprinkled with colorful restaurants and storefronts and filled with local tourists coming in for the day. Connor, Abbey, and I found a restaurant with tables in the sand and waited for Eitan as he was finishing up an interview for a potential boat delivery. He later joined us for dinner, drinks, and sunset. The next day we finished the final stretch into the marina at La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.
