Catching the tail end of Semana Santa at Tenacatita Beach

TENACATITA, Jalisco, Mexico - As the final few weeks of our Mexico season wind down, we've started a Mexico bucket list for things we want to fit in before we wing back to New York.

And CEO Laura Warner - who will leave a week before we do - has already starting getting in her last weeks of surfing.

Two surfing expeditions are on tap for her today.


Tenacatita Beach - not that crowded

Thursday we all headed out to Tenacatita to get an afternoon of snorkeling and boogie-boarding in. The Semana Santa vacationistas had thinned out appreciatively, but there were still plenty of people enjoying the beach.

And, in very un-Mexican-style, there were three lifeguards on the beach, keeping people from swimming out too deep (and maybe to avoid having them get run over a speeding panga).

The swimmers were so unused to lifeguards - or anyone else - telling them what to do, that the lifeguards had to walk out into the water up to their necks to get the swimmers' attention. Then, of course, there had to be a long discussion between the swimmers and the guards.


Lifeguard rounds up the swimmers

The boogie-boarding was good - though I managed to swallow plenty of salt water when I got rolled three or four times in the big crashers. The lifeguards didn't call me back into shallower waters, even when I went out pretty deep. But they had somewhat amused smiles on their faces when I washed up on the beach a couple of times right in front of them, boogie board on top, not underneath me.

Tomorrow and Sunday, in Arroyo Seco, the surfing pros will be here, to compete some kind of surfing contest - at least that was what was announced on the La Manzanilla message board. The action is supposed to start at 9 a.m. and we won't know until tomorrow morning (and Sunday morning) at which beach the surfing will take place.

Wind direction - and swell - will determine whether we need to head to Playa Chica or Playa Grande.

If the waves are like they are today, the surfers are in for some wild rides.



Last year, an amigo from Canada (originally from South Africa) came by the Pink Flamingo for an afternoon but stayed for several days when he found out how good the surfing was.

Below is a video of him on the beach and surfing. The music is from the classic surfing movie Endless Summer, which was filmed right in front of Ricardo's casa in South Africa, when he was a child.