West Coast Mexico Marinas

[firstm8]

My partner and I attended a seminar at West Marine recently with a guest speaker from a Mexico Marina located in Nuevo Vallarta. He was talking about his marina and his history of sailing the Mexican Coastline. He pointed out only 1 or 2 "safe" marinas to stay at and said that the police will board your boat, you will lose your anchors due to storms, etc.

We are not planning for our Mexico trip until sometime next year. While we are refitting the boat, upgrading instruments, and learning all we can about sailing we are also doing our research on where to go and where not to go. We have 0 time constraints as we are self employed but plan on sailing Mexico for quite some time.

My question is, does anyone have any Marina recommendations for Mexico? We are located in the San Francisco Bay Area but have plans to end up in the Puerto Vallarta area or Manzanillo area. I have checked on 2 marinas located in the Puerto Vallarta area and 1 is $2640 USD per month for a 60' slip (we have a 58' Force 50) and the other is slip ownership. I was also informed that you have to rent slips from the Harbor Master and not the owners otherwise the authorities can confiscate your boat, fine you and/or put you in jail.

Obviously, we are over planning so we can be prepared as possible. Any help is greatly appreciated.