La Paz

24 09.3 N 110 19.7 W

We have been in Marina De La Paz for a few days now and will leave tomorrow (Wednesday 18th Nov) to sail out to some of the nearby islands with prospects of some great snorkeling.

The sail round to here from Cabo was generally quite pleasant with some sailing and some motor-sailing in light North Westerly winds. We anchored at Bahia Los Frailes the first night and Bahia de Los Muertos the second night. Both these anchorages were quite crowded with Baja HaHa boats but were were still pleasant  with crystal clear waters and lots of fish swimming around the boat.

The third night we anchored just outside of La Paz in Bahia Balandra. We arrived early enough to row across to a nearby reef and and go for a snorkel. We were surprised at the abundant and variety of fish on such a small reef.

The next morning we bashed the short distance into headwinds and then into the narrow channel leading into La Paz harbor. Fortunately we tuned into the VHF cruisers net on the way in and heard that one of the channel marker buoys had dragged loose in the strong current and grounded on a sandbank about half a mile upstream along the channel !
We were lucky to be able to score a marina berth for a few nights which enabled us to wash off the accumulated salt and refill our water tanks. The Baja water is quite hard and a little salty but otherwise seems ok, though we tend to use our water maker water for drinking and cooking.

The VHF radio cruiser' net at 0800 in the mornings here has a wealth of information and help for visiting cruisers. It is run by the Club Cruseros which has a small clubhouse with a very well stocked book swap. Well it was until Lee got in there !

I was able to find a machine shop which was able to machine some aluminium tube to make a sleeve to repair the broken whisker pole - so we will be able to sail downwind again !

We were also able to trade our broken 2.5hp Mercury 2 stroke outboard for a 5hp 4 stroke Tohatsu so that will be nice to enable us to get ashore more easily and safely after all that building up the biceps with all the rowing !!

La Paz is certainly a nice small city - plenty of shops but with a more relaxed atmosphere than both Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas.

It was great to catch up with Rose and Jani on SV Lovely Lady whilst here. We made friends with them during our time in Seattle at the Des Moines marina.

La Paz is certainly a crossroads for cruising sailors and a very pleasant place - I see see why some cruisers get here and stay.

After some time in the nearby islands we will head off across the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) to the Mexican mainland making landfall at Mazatlan most likely. Is about 200 miles across the gulf so will take us a couple of days to get across with hopefully some following winds.