Our plan, heading into Guaymas Harbor, was to anchor near the Marina Singlar, adjacent to the malecon and downtown Guaymas.  The bay here is surprisingly shallow: from nearly the moment you turn in to the outside harbor, miles from the inner harbor, it’s around 40′ deep. As you approach Guaymas it shallows out even more: most of the anchorage and area around Singlar is 8 to 12 feet.  Since we’re followers and not leaders and there were no other boats anchored (and it was windy) we decided to splurge and stay at Singlar.  The Singlar in Guaymas has about 20 slips in total and they directed us to an inside slip…on the VHF they were very concerned about our draft (6 feet) The slips on the North side of the marina (where they directed us) are short: maybe 30′ overall.  We pulled into and tied off on a 30′ slip in 6′2″of water, according to our depth sounder.  Once we tied off, their dock crew realized it would never work having a  boat sticking out by 20′ so they moved us around to the South side, where the slips are about 50′ overall.  Time your arrival and departure with the tides here.  At low tide (and it wasn’t an extreme tide at all) we were sitting on the bottom. Our neighbor, who drafted 7 feet, estimated he was 2′ in the mud.

The depth of the anchorage itself is mostly around 10 feet.  Preferred anchorage, once you find Singlar, is slightly SW of Singlar, near the malecon and jetty.  Water is dirty and growth is extreme here.  I’ve  never seen shit grow so fast! I don’t have any advice as to what you should do with your dinghy: Singlar does not have a dinghy dock, and their only dock gate is locked, both going in and coming out.  There didn’t appear to be a good place to leave your dinghy, other than possibly the fuel dock (a friend of ours tied off on the fuel dock for 7 days rather than risk taking his 60 wooden boat into one of their slips…he said not a single boat bought fuel during that time)

Guaymas is a far better place to spend time than San Carlos.  It’s a real city, with shops, groceries, restaurants, etc.  It’s even got a great new movie theater complex.  Bus rides cost 5 pesos, except to San Carlos, which is 12.  The only downside to Guaymas is that it’s a gigantic shrimp fishing and processing city.  About half the time it smells TERRIBLE.

Singlar told me I did not need to check in with the Port Captain, who is located near the marina in the shrimp boat part of town.