La Paz (Nov. 18-29, 2011)

This entry is way overdue, please be patient with us as we are trying to catch –up our blog writing so that our life and blog are more in sync. As always we value your comments so feel free to leave them!



Rocks at mouth of Bahia Balandra

 

Bahia Balanbra




Mexican Navy Patroling Coast near La Paz



Our next stop after Muertos was La Paz. We hadn’t made a reservation at any marinas in the area so we scanned the shoreline for a cell phone tower to call ahead for a reservation.  Not far away we saw a small bay (Bahia Balandra) with a cell phone tower up in the hills behind it. We dropped anchor and called Marina De La Paz to find out if they had space for us. The marina told us they could squeeze us in on their outer dock next to two very large motor yachts. We motored into the marina and passed the space we were assigned and had to make a tight U-turn in the crowded fairway. As we turned into the dock our friends Aaron and Nichole from S/V Bella Star were there to catch our dock lines. They heard us talking to the marina on the VHF radio and hurried over to help us dock. We were surprised and delighted to see them since the last time we crossed their wake was in San Francisco. After we were tied-up securely to the dock we chatted with Aaron and Nichole briefly and arranged to meet later for dinner or drinks. A quick scan of masts in the marina revealed many “Baja Ha-Ha 2011” pennants; our fleet was well represented in La Paz. Among them were the sailboats: Diamond Girl, Pearl, Pure Vita and many others. We were planning to stay here for a while so we’d have time to visit everyone before leaving to explore the coast north to Loreto.

Marina De La Paz is the hub of cruiser society in La Paz and the greater Sea of Cortez, partly because of its proximity to the well-known cruiser’s club “Club Cruserous”. Club Cruserous is a place where cruisers meet every morning for coffee and gossip after the morning VHF net.  It’s located close to the marina office and restaurant.

Dinghy dock at La Paz Marina

Marina Office

Sooner or later most cruising sailors in the Sea of Cortez visit La Paz, and many make it their home. The reason is simple La Paz has just about everything a cruising sailor needs. There are a least 5 marinas in La Paz complete with boat yards and travel lifts. There are supermarkets, hardware stores, marine chandleries, automotive supply stores, machine shops, government offices, hotels, and restaurants. Skilled fabricators can be found that can build of fix just about anything out of fiberglass, stainless steel or wood. Divers, diesel mechanics and boat management companies are readily available making it easy to leave your boat in La Paz for a week or a year. In fact, we will leave our boat here when we fly back home for Christmas.

Every morning in La Paz we started our day by listening to the Cruisers Net on VHF radio. The Cruisers Net is run by Club Cruseros, it reports weather, news and club activities and gives cruisers a chance to ask for assistance and let friends know of their cruising plans. After the net, Club Cruseros sponsors a coffee hour at their clubhouse, where you can meet other cruisers, get help, exchange books or borrow videos. The community of cruisers in La Paz is something we haven’t seen anywhere else and it is a great resource for cruisers. As soon as we arrived in La Paz we signed up for the Thanks Giving Turkey Dinner organized by Club Cruseros. Even though we were far from home we didn’t want to miss turkey dinner with all the trimmings!

After the Cruisers Net and breakfast we busied ourselves by working on the boat, sightseeing, and provisioning for the next voyage. One morning on the cruisers net I asked for help finding a technician that could repair our Auto Pilot and was given the name of “Victor the electrician” and his number. He could fix anything they said. I was desperate and so I called Victor who showed up promptly the next morning. He said he could fix it and pulled the drive unit out of the boat and disappeared. Six hours and $180 later he returned with the repaired AutoPilot. He installed it and it actually worked! Later I discovered that it still leaked so the only progress we made was to lighten our purse by $180. We decided to give up on the autopilot and concentrate on cleaning up the teak on deck. So we hired a guy to sand off the remaining varnish from our exterior teak and apply a coat of teak oil. This work went better than the AutoPilot repair and now our bright work looks better than it did before we left Seattle.  

While I was busy with boat repairs, Alex met the cook on the large motor yacht (m/v Tully) that shared our dock. The cook asked Alex if he’d like to earn a few pesos cleaning the galley on Tully. Alex agreed and showed up the next day for work. He earned a few hundred pesos ($20 USD) working the whole day and really enjoyed it. Later, he was invited to play poker with the crew. Alex cleaned up at the table as well as he cleaned the galley and left the game a few hundred pesos ahead. He was invited back for a second and third game. After losing 100 pesos in the second game he was the big winner in the third game coming back with 500 pesos. It didn't take Alex long on the internet to discover that Tully and the other mega yacht docked next to it (m/v OSTAR) were both owned by the richest man in the world, who owns the Mexican cell phone company (TelCel) and many other businesses.     

m/v Tully

After completing all our chores we were ready to stretch our legs and explore La Paz. We visited the old Spanish Mission and Museum, then the Catholic Cathedral and old town square and the downtown shopping area crowded with colorful shops, markets, restaurants and bars.




Funny butcher

Produce Market

Colorful Pinatas For Sale

Cultural Center and Museum

Catholic Cathedral

Shop Selling Beautiful Hand Painted Sinks and Toilets

One evening we had dinner with friends Larry and Nelda at a restaurant-bar called the Shack. The owner had just remodeled and invited us to write any graffiti we care to on the walls, so if course we scribbled our boat name and home port on the wall right below  “Baja’s Best Burger”.    

Fine dining at the Shack with Larry and Nelda

Cindy was excited to try a new recipe for Chicken Verde Chili that she got from Trisha on S/V Interbang.  The recipe was an instant success with the crew and we were all very happy that Cindy cooked up a large pot it for us. That recipe as we like to say is a “re-do”!