Revillagigedo Islands

The Revillagigedo Islands (Spanish: Islas Revillagigedo), or Revillagigedo Archipelago are a group of four volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, known for their unique ecosystem. They have been part of Manzanillo municipality of the Mexican state of Colima since 1861, but are nevertheless under Mexican federal jurisdiction, and lie 386 km southwest of Cabo San Lucas, the southern tip of Baja California peninsula, and between 720 and 970 km west of Manzanillo.

Revillagigedo Islands on Wikipedia

U.S. frigate opens tourist pier in Manzanillo

Manzanillo - Around 7:30 am on Saturday April 10 an American frigate arrived at the port of Manzanillo. This is the first ship to dock at the new cruise ship pier.

The USS Freedom is the first of the Freedom class combat ships.  The video says that buses are waiting to take the sailors to one of Manzanillo's beaches

Pepe's Hideaway

Last week I had a pleasant experience running into Pepe and his Hideaway. Pepe has another Blog about Manzanillo and I was reading about his interest in Neem (Nim) trees. I'm looking for shade trees for my place in Melaque. Without knowing who this Blogger was I emailed him asking where to get these trees ... and I guess because we are fellow Bloggers he offered me a few. I was in the Chapala area at the time and he said I could drop by on my way to Melaque and pick them up at his place in La Punta.

I'd never been out the Santiago Peninsula further than Las Hadas ... but you can't go much further. La Punta is 'the point' and I assume that property takes up the rest of the point.

After much wandering around in La Punta I found the tennis courts and beyond the monkey house at the entrance to his drive. What a surprise to find a number of palapa buildings perched on the cliffs at the head of a rocky inlet looking north over Santiago Bay. It seems Pepe bought this property back in 1974, probably before La Punta existed or there was much else on the peninsula. Really an exotic gem hidden among some very upscale realestate.

More or less the entrance and restaurant

The pool looking over Santiago Bay

Looking west from the pool area

Looking down on palapa casitas

Another palapa below and small beach
Pepe's Hideaway

Cruise Lines cutting back on West Coast

It sounds like two ships and two cruise lines will be leaving the west coast and the Mexican Riviera next year.

Royal Caribbean to pull Mariner of the Seas from Mexican Riviera

Royal Caribbean today announced plans to redeploy the Mariner of the Seas from the Mexican Riviera to Europe, effective in early 2011.

The line says the 3,114-passenger ship, which has been sailing to the Mexican Riviera year-round out of Los Angeles since early 2009, will set sail for a new home at the port of Rome (Civitavecchia) in January.

Mariner is the largest ship ever to regularly sail out of a West Coast port, and it's arrival in Los Angeles last year was heralded as a major development for the city. It's removal is just the latest sign that the market is not living up to expectations. Another line sailing in the region, Carnival, is pulling a ship out of nearby San Diego later this month, and Norwegian Cruise Line recently announced it would end seasonal cruising out of Los Angeles in 2011.

With Mariner's withdrawal, Royal Caribbean no longer will have a presence in Southern California or the West Coast of Mexico -- destinations it has served for many years.

USA Today Article

Manzanillo and Colima Tourist developement

Colima's state governor and the head of FONATUR (the national tourist development fund) just signed papers to start development of a Mega complex in the Isla de Navidad area. To avoid the border conflict with Jalisco they conclude - "We can make a real Cancun in Manzanillo and not go through Jalisco" - which I assume means build a new highway from the airport up the beach all on the Colima side.

This plan is not only for the northern end of Colima near Playa de Cocos and Isla Navidad - but also for Playa de Oro, Santiago Bay and the southern coast of Colima. Colima currently has around 5000 tourist units and they want to compete with Cancun by building 30-40 thousand units

Map of Development Plans

Manzanillo's new cruise ship pier

The new pier is finished just off the central waterfront and the ship Radiance of the Seas is testing the new facilities.

Radiolevy — April 20, 2010 — Radiance of the Seas es el primer crucero turístico en llegar al centro de Manzanillo. Tiene capacidad para 2 mil 500 personas. Sirve para probar las instalaciones del nuevo muelle y la oferta de los servicios turísticos.

Radiolevy - April 20, 2010 - Radiance of the Seas is the first tourist cruise ship in the center of Manzanillo. It sleeps 2 thousand 500 people. They are testing the new dock facilities and tourism services.

New gas power plant in Manzanillo

On my way back to Chapala I drove thru DT Manzanillo so I could go past what I thought I saw from the highway a few weeks ago. Sure enough just south of the new gas tank terminal they are building the new gas power plant. Looks like two nuclear reactors plus lots more. They are also building breakwaters, channels, pipes running everywhere. "El Campo" seems to be the staging area for much of it and may be a boom town for a few years. The never open palapa restaurants on the beach were clean and open and may be feeding the workers

Howard from Manzanillo added this extra info below

The two large structures in your photos are the storage plants for the gas. They put the "lid" on one of them about a month ago - reputed to weigh 1,000 tons!

At about the same time the Zeta gas terminal took delivery of 10,000 tons for gas from the Ukraine. That sort of shipment is likely to become much more common.

In addition, a gas pipeline is being built from the Manzanillo terminal to Guadalajara.

The largest fish in the world in Manzanillo?

¿El pez más grande del mundo en Manzanillo?

February 20, 2010

It was discovered on the sands of Boquita Beach. It is more than 4 meters and fishermen claim to have never seen anything like it.

New Year Celebration Manzanillo

Fireworks show. Over 3 thousand rockets were launched from 30 points in the bay of Manzanillo, including boats at sea.