La Cruz de Huanacaxtle

La Cruz de Huanacaxtle is a former fishing village six kilometers up the coast from Bucerías, transformed by a 340-slip marina into Banderas Bay's working sailing and sportfishing hub — without losing the village underneath it.

Marina Riviera Nayarit — over 340 slips, vessels up to 400 feet — sits inside a sheltered cove where panga fishermen still land their catch at a working pier fish market each morning. The town itself has been expanding since the late 1990s: restaurants with live music along the waterfront, a resident population of sailors and cruisers who winter on the Bay, and a seasonal Sunday organic market that runs from November into spring. It reads as quieter and less commercial than Bucerías — fewer galleries, less foot traffic — because it grew up around a marina rather than a tourist strip.