We spent about two weeks in the Manzanillo area, all at various anchorages: Las Hadas, Santiago Bay, Ensenada Carrizal, and Cuastecomate. Including this leg of our five-week trip back and forth from Puerto Vallarta, we did not dock at a marina the entire time, and the boat performed wonderfully to make electricity and water as needed.
Las Hadas is a resort just north of the port town of Manzanillo. It’s the most Med-looking area we’ve been in so far, with many lovely buildings on cliffsides. The beautiful large hotel complex (among others) is nearly vacant due to factors including the bad American economy and seriously overblown news in the U.S. about crime down here. The good news is that this hotel, like others along the coast, is welcoming to cruisers and we were able to use their lovely pool facility and dinghy dock for a small daily fee. As the weather was warming up nicely, we spent several afternoons poolside following our morning shopping forays into town.
The anchorage at Las Hadas was very calm and protected from wind and waves. Some California friends of ours even left their boat moored there for two weeks while they traveled by bus to Zihuatenejo and the interior for sight-seeing.
