Exciting Times

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

If you live for excitement, then La Paz is the place to be.  More specifically, right here at Marina de La Paz!

This was the week of the "big" move.  On Monday, around noon, the crowd gathered, anticipating what is probably the biggest event to take place here in decades, shifting the old termite-infested Club Cruceros clubhouse.  If only someone had thought to set up a beer concession.

Founded in 1988, Club Cruceros is a non-profit organization that has a clubhouse located at Marina de La Paz, housing a book exchange, DVD library and bulletin board, daily mail and package receipt and distribution, and general assistance to cruisers.  In addition, the club tries to help out the less fortunate children in La Paz, raising money and hosting social events, primarily during the winter months.

Clubhouse in the old location

This week's excitement is a result of the fact that the marina is building a new, larger clubhouse, complete with such amenities as electricity and running water.  Meanwhile, they decided to move the old clubhouse about 50 feet and set it down in the parking lot where it will be able to continue to function until the new clubhouse is completed.  The following pictures are proof that this did indeed take place.  The building held together in one piece, contrary to what a lot of people seem to have been expecting.

Clubhouse in the parking lot

Now that that is over, we are back to our humdrum existence, enjoying our walks around La Paz, finding new and interesting places and generally staying out of trouble.  On a recent long walk to the other end of the Malecon (about 3 miles), we saw soccer being played on a portable, blow-up soccer field, a windmill that sits in a little garden along the seaside, and discovered a new "Bagel Shop".  Good coffee and bagels in Mexico; who would have believed it!

Down at the other end of the Malecon is Marina Palmira, where we spotted this interesting sailboat.  Does that mast look right to you?

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Power Trip

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

The solar upgrade is almost done.  As expected, I had to steal the nylon rail clamps off of the old panels in order to get the new ones mounted.  We will try and pick up some more of these clamps when we are next in the USA or Canada; then I can mount both sets of panels at the same time.  This is where the solid rails we had installed in San Carlos start to pay off.

These new 135 watt panels are significantly larger than the old 85 watt units.  I used to think the old ones were large and unwieldy - now they seem downright dainty.  Here are some before and after pics of the mounted panels to give an idea of the relative sizes.

Once I have both sets of panels mounted, we should have power to burn!



Some of our neighbors in the marina.  We are feeling a little insignificant.

Other than that, we have not been up to much.  We made our first run to the big grocery store (Chedraui) yesterday, about a mile away, just picking up what we could conveniently carry without resorting to a taxi.  While there, we spotted the new Mega store a little further away, so we had to browse through their offerings as well.  Tomorrow we will probably trek down to the Mega and pick up a couple of goodies that Chedraui doesn't carry - mostly Costco brand gringo junk food.

Sunset from the Malecon

Oh yeah, the failure of the day.  The power supply for this netbook computer just packed it in - I don't think I have ever heard of one of these failing before but it is totally dead none-the-less.  Fortunately we have an identical backup netbook with an identical power supply, so we are still functional for now.

Can you find Waldo?
Believe it or not, Sine Timore is in there somewhere...

Overall, life is good!

{GMST}24|9.3042|N|110|19.6152|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Adjusting to Marina Life

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

The last week has been spent adjusting to life in the marina.

We are trying to get used to things like unlimited power, fast Internet and long walks to the washrooms.  A large part of the challenge is the heat.  In some ways it is like living in the desert; the temperature in the afternoon is typically around 36 to 38 degrees, cooling off at night to less than 20.  If you want to get anything accomplished, it is best to do it in the early morning or late evening.  Note: We have no air conditioning on this boat!

Here we are in our slip at Marina de la Paz - can you spot the Canadian flag lost amongst all the big white power yachts?

In the evening the common pastime of the locals is to stroll along the Malecon, so we have done a bit of that, although, with the long days we are now getting, we often don't want to stay up that late.  Walking into town along the Malecon during the morning is OK too - good time to stop into a coffee shop for quick bite or even a full breakfast at one of the numerous restaurants.

Walking a long way down the Malecon took us to the site of one of the newest statues, just unveiled the day before we arrived in town.  This is a monument to Jacques Cousteau, the underwater pioneer.

So what have we accomplished since we arrived you may ask?

I was pleasantly surprised to find a fully-stocked warehouse of Kyocera solar panels and have acquired two new 135-watt panels.  Yesterday Sue and I took a long walk downtown, where we found a shop that supplied aluminum and had them make up some pieces of flat aluminum bar to my exact specifications (4 pieces 26-1/4" long each), suitable for mounting said panels.  Of course they would not sell me less than a full 6-meter bar, so I have lots of extra.  Now I need to try and find some rail clamps to complete the project - may have to steal them off of the old 85-watt panels.

My other project was dealing with the refrigerator.  Last summer in the sea we found that the compartment that the compressor lives in was getting very hot - we ended up pointing one of our precious cabin fans at the vent to keep some air circulating, which helped a lot.  What I have now done is mounted a couple of extra 12-volt computer fans to push and pull air into and out of this compartment, switch operated.  These are more effective and use much less power.  As a bonus, I mounted an indicator light by the salon table so we can see when the compressor is actually running, so we can keep track of just how hard it is working.  Since we replaced the compressor fan last year in Mazatlan the thing is so quiet we cannot otherwise tell when it is on.

So you see we are actually trying to get some work done, so don't give us a hard time for living in paradise!

{GMST}24|9.3042|N|110|19.6152|W|La Paz, BCS, Mexico|La Paz, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

This is site of the virtual marina - looks like it is not so "virtual" any more.
These docks were not here a year ago.

Hot time in the old town last night

La Paz, BCS, Mexico

After two nights at San Evaristo, with promises of moderate northerly winds, we got an early start (8:15 AM) for our longest passage since hitting the Baja coast - a 40-mile sail to Puerto Balandra, just 12 miles north of the city of La Paz.

The northerly winds did not materialize.  In fact, this was the calmest, lightest conditions we have seen on this entire journey this year.  We had a very light SE breeze for most of the day, never more than 2 to 3 knots, which completely died in the afternoon.  We motored the entire way until we had to cross the dreaded San Lorenzo Channel - the last few miles before our planned destination at Puerto Balandra.  The winds did pipe up to about 17 knots for a couple of miles, just in time for us to have to take the mainsail down in order to enter the anchorage.

On the plus side, we did see whales, sea lions, dolphins and lots of flying rays on this passage.

When we were closing in on the anchorage at Puerto Balandra, the winds were still increasing and the place did not look all that sheltered to us.  For that reason, we decided to continue on for another 2 miles south and soon found ourselves in a cozy little bay called Caleta Lobos, where we put the anchor down at around 4 PM.  In this bay, it was dead calm, not a ripple on the water and the temperature quickly climbed to over 30 degrees.  Coupled with a influx of bobos (very small annoying flies) coming from the nearby mangroves, we were forced to stay inside with the hatches closed until nightfall (good thing we have good screens on all of our ports).

Around 10 PM, the nightly Coromuel wind came up, and blew all night from the south.  Fortunately for us, we had excellent protection in that direction and the winds never got as high as 20 knots.  In fact, the cooling effect of the wind was a great relief from the heat.

Yesterday morning, we got a lazy start and motored the 10 miles into La Paz, where we snagged a slip at Marina de la Paz.  The temperature in the dead calm air of the marina rose to 37 degrees - factoring in the humidity made it feel like 42.  We were cooking in our own juices, wondering why on earth we came here.  A short stroll on the Malecon in the evening was all we managed for exercise

Last night, the winds came again and the temperature dropped till we needed blankets on the bed.  The weather report says that yesterday was the hottest day expected and it will get better over the next week.  So far, it is pretty nice today, still under 30 degrees in the early afternoon.  Time to do some shopping.

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{GMST}24|17.8746|N|110|19.908|W|Caleta Lobos, BCS, Mexico|Caleta Lobos, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Maybe we will buy a trawler

San Evaristo, BCS, Mexico

After a mostly restful night at Puerto Los Gatos (some light swells causing some rocking and rolling in the middle of the night), we made another uneventful passage south, to anchor just off the quiet little fishing village of San Evaristo. The morning weather forecast was for moderate north winds. What we got was extremely light (less than 4 knots all day) SE winds. We again turned Sine Timore into a motor vessel. Total distance was 28 miles which we covered in about 5 hours. If we are just going to motor everywhere we may as well be running a nice big, comfortable, trawler. Just kidding!

Highlight of the day was an encounter with a huge pod of dolphins, heading north. Do they know something we don't?

{GMST}24|54.5178|N|110|42.4146|W|San Evaristo, BCS, Mexico|San Evaristo, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Day trip to Puerto Los Gatos

Puerto Los Gatos, BCS, Mexico

We spent a pleasant night at Bahia Agua Verde. Some west winds blew for most of the night but they never exceeded 10 knots and our anchorage was very secure. In the morning it was perfectly calm. I forgot to mention yesterday that we were greeted at the entrance to Agua Verde by a breeching whale - mostly we heard and saw the huge splash as he was directly behind us at the time.

We left Agua Verde around 9 AM and motored some 18 miles down the coast to our current location in Puerto Los Gatos. Uneventful day with extremely light winds - no sailing for us. We did see one boat with their sails up and no doubt we will see them here much later today. As for us, we were anchored shortly after noon.

This is a new anchorage for us. We missed Puerto Los Gatos on the way north last year, mostly because of its exposure to the east wind and the SE swell. We were unable to snag one of the better spots in the south portion of the bay as some other boats had beat us to them, so we are experiencing some light swell - so far it is nothing to complain about. With any luck it will die off as the day progresses.

Pretty spot with strange red rock formations all around. Oh oh, some bees have just discovered us and are scouting to see if we have some fresh water for them - time to close the hatches and huddle inside and hope they give up soon. We have heard some reports from boats further north who were swarmed with the little critters. So far we have had really good luck in that regard.

{GMST}25|18.2075|N|110|56.7645|W|Puerto Los Gatos, BCS, Mexico|Puerto Los Gatos, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Fast passage to Agua Verde

Bahia Agua Verde, BCS, Mexico

Reversing the course we took coming north last year, today we traveled south some 22 miles to Bahia Agua Verde.

This was one of our quickest trips in a long time. We started out from Puerto Escondido around 9:15 AM and motor-sailed, with our double-reefed mainsail hoisted, in extremely light winds for the first two hours, maintaining a speed of around 6 knots. For the first hour, the wind was coming from the SE at around 2 to 3 knots, then as we passed Punto Candeleros, it switched and started coming from the north, still at no more than 3 or 4 knots - not enough for us to bother trying to sail in this boat.

At around 11:30 the winds shifted to the south and freshened to between 8 to 10 knots. Off went the engine and out came the Genoa. We sailed close-hauled on a SE heading at between 5.5 and 7.2 knots - really fast for this old boat. When we were less than 5 miles from Bahia Agua Verde, the winds decreased and shifted to come from the NW, allowing us to ghost right into the anchorage at around 2.5 to 3 knots on a broad reach. I thought about trying to anchor under sail alone but chickened out about a 1/2 mile out. We had the anchor down by 2:20 in the afternoon. Total time was 5 hours, exactly half of that under sail.

Bahia Agua Verde has three main anchorages, two to the south and one to the north. I originally thought we would try the north anchorage as we had not been there before and it might be better protected from the predicted NW winds, but there were 7 boats already crowded in there. In addition, there were 3 boats anchored in front of the village. Our favorite spot, a small cove where we spent our time last year, was totally vacant, so that is where we ended up. We are quite exposed to the north but the winds are very light and there does not seem to be any swell right now. As I am typing this, around 5PM, the wind has died right off and it is beautiful and calm and one other boat has come in, so we are not alone any more - maybe there will be some other late arrivals.

Tomorrow we will continue south...

{GMST}25|30.82|N|111|3.75|W|Bahia Agua Verde, BCS, Mexico|Bahia Agua Verde, BCS, Mexico{GEND}

Movin' on

Puerto Escondido, BCS, Mexico

The fleet has thinned out, the laundry is done, and it is time to get our act in gear.

You might not think laundry is such a big deal, but to people living on a boat full-time, mostly at anchor in uninhabited bays, any opportunity is not to be missed.  The problem here in Puerto Escondido is that they have moorings and anchorage for a large number of boats (I estimate there were close to 150 boats here for Loreto Fest), and they have a laundry facility with only 3 washing machines and 3 driers - you do the math!  Add to that the fact that our boat is a 10 minute ride by dinghy from the office and there is no way to know if the machines are busy until you get there.  Fortunately our timing was mostly good - no huge waits for us.

Close quarter anchoring in the Ellipse



Tripui resort is just behind the rocks on the left

Today we made one last trip down the dusty road to the Tripui Resort (only a 15 minute walk) to have some chicken enchiladas for lunch, then dropped into the Modelorama convenience store next door for a few fresh veggies and a loaf of bread.  There is nothing holding us here now.



Looking back towards the marina

After some lengthy discussions, we have decided that we will be taking the boat to Mazatlan for the summer, and next season will most likely head south, possibly beyond Mexico.  With this in mind, we have been making up a list of "needs" and "wants" for the boat, in order to make it ready for some more serious travel.  Tomorrow we will start heading relatively quickly towards La Paz, where there is a reasonably stocked marine chandlery and maybe some skilled workers, in hopes that we can find or order some parts and equipment and possibly get some work done.  High on our list of items are things like repairing our ageing Genoa sail, adding more solar panels and finding a way to make our dinghy more reliable, which are not always easily acquired or accomplished in Mexico.  We figure if we start now we may have the time to do some waiting.  We are not sure if we are better off trying to do this in La Paz or waiting until we get to Mazatlan, but La Paz is a lot closer right now so we will check it out first.

BTW, the weather here has been simply wonderful.  Almost every day is full of blue sky and sunshine with daily highs in the low 30s and nightly lows in the low 20s, accompanied by mostly light winds from one direction or another to keep it from getting too hot on the boat.  We have been here for 10 days and we have not had to start the engine even once - with these long sunny days, our solar is able to (just) keep up with our needs - we have lots of cold drinks in the fridge and ice in the freezer and get to watch our fill of DVD movies in the evenings, all courtesy of the sun - pretty sweet!

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Loreto Fest

Puerto Escondido, BCS, Mexico

Four days later and it is all over.  And with perfect timing, the new Puerto Escondido Internet antenna is up and running; we have reasonably quick Internet on the boat!

Loreto Fest has apparently been going on for some 16 years.  It started as a simple harbour cleanup when some cruisers took it upon themselves to do a public service and collect the trash that accumulates around the anchorage.  Now it has grown to a 4-day festival, including many cruiser-oriented activities (Yes, they still do the harbour cleanup).

Great Blues Band on Saturday night

There are competitions such as horseshoes, bocce ball, dinghy races, train dominoes, bridge and canasta tournaments.  There are various raffles, a silent auction, a swap meet and nightly entertainment and, believe it or not, a puppet show.  Throughout the event, there is a food court and beverage sales, featuring my favorite Modelo Negra beer on tap.  Memberships in the Hidden Port Yacht Club are aggressively sold and all of the proceeds from all of these activities go to worthwhile local charities.  All in all it is a pretty intense time for cruisers like us, who are used to nice quiet, secluded anchorages.

Speaking of anchorages, try to imagine finding your boat in the dark in this extensive mooring field, especially after a few of those previously mentioned beverages.  Like many of the other cruisers, I tried to create a unique look utilizing some spectacular LED Christmas lights in addition to our usual anchor light - we could see them from at least a boat length away.  Lucky for us that this year's Fest coincided with a full moon, making it much less of a challenge.

View from our mooring, looking towards the marina office

What presented more of a challenge for us was the rapidly deflating floor in our dinghy.  Most of the time I could not be bothered to even try and pump it up, so we more or less just plowed through the water instead of skimmed over it.  It got us there and back OK, but I wasn't entering any dinghy races.  On the plus side, after cleaning out the fuel filter and getting some new, clean, gasoline, our ailing outboard has been running like new again.  You win some and you lose some.

Easy to spot our dinghy - it is usually the one trying to sink out of sight!  At least no one ever wants to steal it.

Our plan now is to try and get some laundry done before leaving.  With all of the like-minded boats still in the harbour, that could be another challenge.  I think we will stay here a couple more days and let some of the fleet disperse a bit before we have to fight for space at anchorages to the south.

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Baja Road Trips

Puerto Escondido, BCS, Mexico

Since we were a few days early for the big Loreto Fest celebrations, we filled our time with a couple of day trips...

First was a trip into Loreto, a quaint little town with a rich history.  We shared a taxi with two other people in order to keep the costs down - $350 pesos ($27) each way for the 24 km trip.

We had visited the town before, on our way north last summer.  At that time it was pretty much off-season.  This time the town was quite a bit busier - we were not the only ones in the restaurant for a change.

We took a walk to what was the malecon (walkway along the shore), only to find that it is all under construction; should be quite cool when it is done but a bit inconvenient right now.  Still, the rest of the town is very picturesque.  We picked up a few groceries at the supermarket before returning to the harbour at Escondido.



Looking from the beach at Loreto to the ancient volcano that is Isla Coronados

Our second excursion was a drive to the San Javier Mission, on a windy mountain road that leaves the main highway about 2 miles south of Loreto and travels 37 kms inland, through some spectacular scenery.  This road is just about completely paved now which makes it a pleasant trip - I guess is used to be quite an adventure when it was just dirt (usually restricted to 4WD).  We shared a van with 7 other cruisers, a driver and a local guide.  Again, splitting the cost made it quite economical - total cost for the group was $2700 pesos ($207).

Along the way, we stopped at an interesting tree, showing off its root system (reminiscent of one of the temples we saw around Ankor Wat in Cambodia), then at some cave paintings at an oasis in the hills.  Sometimes it is hard to believe that this stuff exists in what looks so much like a desert everywhere else.

The mission and small village around it made for a spectacular site.  The beautifully restored structure of dark volcanic rock in the Moorish style sits at the bottom of a deep, fertile valley.  The second oldest Jesuit mission on the peninsula, it was founded in 1699 but not completed until 1758.  All of this was done with human and mule power, long before there were any proper roads in the area.

{GMST}25|49.2|N|111|18.6|W|Puerto Escondido, BCS, Mexico|Puerto Escondido, BCS, Mexico{GEND}