Wednesday, February 13, 2013

La Paz ...so far

1/28 Heading to La Paz. We left Muertos at 3:30AM with SSW wind on our stern. Full moon. We had a great sail up the Cerralvo channel. Changed to west wind. Beam reach. We hit 6.5 and 7 kts. for a few hours. We got to the Lorenzo channel and it was gorgeous out. We had such a great sail and made it there a few hours ahead of schedule! Once we got inside the calm bay we set the auto-tiller. Changed our clothes, freshened up, dropped the sails, and cleaned the cockpit. Our original plan was to head to Lobos and anchor there for a night with ‘Sweet Dreams’. We were worried because they had not left with us that morning and could not reach them on the radio. Later we found out they decided to stay in Muertos a few more days. They woke up early and didn’t like the strong wind, even though it was all on the stern. With that, we decided to skip Lobos and head straight to La Paz and get a slip in a marina. This way we could have our outboard serviced a lot easier. Sexy yamaha 8hp going strong down Baja needed some professional attention. Heading towards La Paz, we radioed a few marinas and got a slip reservation. We were close to the marina and turned towards it. ERRRR stuck… La Paz is known for its drifting shoals… well we didn’t plan for this. We only charted to Lobos.. We were grounded, first time ever. About 5 foot of water, sandy bottom. I threw it in reverse while claire scuttled the tiller back and forth. We turned right off it and kept on our way. We hit 2 more shoals, 3 total! Ugh. We were surrounded by them! Finally we saw a power boat zooming fast with no worries, and noticed his wake breaking over the shoals. This helped us find our path back up to the channel entrance. They have a dredged channel up the side of the bay, marked with buoys. Sounds nice. But it’s mexico. The entrance to the channel was blocked by an anchored cargo freighter, buoys were drifted from the past windy blows. If we had planned and charted accordingly we definitely wouldn’t have hit shoals, but the obstacles were no help. We finally pulled into Palmira Marina and settled in. The marina office informed us that we were missing a document that no one else had told us about since being in mexico. A temporary boat import permit. It lasts 10 years. 1/29 we woke up early and headed to Pichilingue to get our temporary boat import permit. We took the bus there. Waited in line. They wanted our originals of every paperwork (which we keep in our safe)!!! We only carry copies. Had to hitchhike back to the marina, get the originals, hitchhike back to the office. Took care of business and had a scenic bus ride home. 1/30 claire did some of her laundry. Sea Otter jimmy came to take our Yamaha. He sailed down 25 years ago from California, when he was 25. Heading to town to get groceries. 2/4 After a week in the slip it was time to move out to the Magote anchorage. It’s a mix between a channel, the sound, and mangroves. The current is nasty strong, in and out, depending on the tide. The current dominates the wind strength, usually. Its quite tricking to anchor. Normally the bow faces into the wind and tugs on the anchor line. This is different. The current tugs on the boat while the wind and wind waves shift her around. Here our anchor line comes off the boat more like a check-mark, while we swing 180degrees a few times a day. 2/10 Carnaval is going on! We have been working on the boat and enjoying downtown La Paz. There was a swap meet this morning between most of the boaters in the area. Every swap meet I’ve heard of starts at sunrise...not in mexico. We were a few hours early. Our dinghy was filled up with everything we did not need on the boat. Took that to shore and wheeled it over in our sweet fold up cart. Claire even baked fresh biscotti the night before and portioned it into baggies to sell! Laid out a canvas and let the selling begin! We were selling stuff before we could even lay it down. I told claire “we are going to the swap meet with a pile of junk and 23 pesos (about $1.90) and as long as we come home with a smaller pile and a little bit of cash, we had a good day.” well damn. We came home with hardly anything and 1594.5 pesos (about $130!). Pretty damn good for 4 hours of hustling junk. Well this is it for La Paz. We are still here waiting for some packages before we continue north up the sea of cortez.


x at the bottom right is muertos. from there is cerralvo channel which lasts all the way up that island. strong current. at the top of the photo you can see a glimpse of land, between there is lorenzo channel, still strong current. once inside there is the bay full of shoals. all those x's are my waypoints for possible anchorages incase of fatigue or foul weather. why do we zigzag and waste time? you can not sail straight into the wind...patience. pretty good though right?

sunrise

night sailing with a fullmoon!

reading up

ferry to the mainland

balandra and lobos. where we intended to go first.



007

this tanker was blocking the channel entrance, which is to the right of the photo. this is us backtracking. we came in on the left side of this photo.


shoal with birds



mothers, yes we hitchhike


scenic bus ride

mangroves


the last surf i will see as we continue north...

claires breakfast. amazing scramble.

damn.

no more hair.

bay scallops

molé

locals love us. free drinks and music!



5 pesos a bag! you do the math.



we found milkshakes and burgers

cape hatteras in la paz?!

some kind of plant growing cotton

cathedral












morning dolphins


frigates


tomato pepperoni salad

chicken stock!

roasted chicken, stuffing, mashed taters, and fresh gravy


tortilla soup. better than any grandma in la paz could make.

we made paper maché masks for carnaval


poor thing

claires johnny cakes with maple sweet taters

this anchorage is like a parking lot. we dont like it. we want beautiful back.




bacon rapped hotdogs

we made chicken curry

swap meet!

laura your sunglasses!


claire gave our shitty bell new life


dinghy wake riding




johnny and christina...



for our mothers with their dremels


oh god



fresh churros











"I WANT MOTHS. LET ME OUT"



7 comments:

  1. Wow! Quite an entry! The Carnival was most likely the celebrating before lent which began Feb 13. As soon as you mentioned hitch hiking all these fears popped into my head that were drilled into me growing up. SCARY! Love the chuckle pictures; oo7, burgers, moths, animal crackers :)
    So Claire has become the crafty lady--those masks are awesome! Can't wait to join in the fun!

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  2. Buenos Dias!!!
    I'm glad to see that you got rid of some "Junk" and made $$$.The food of course had to be tasty(even claire's)sorry to read about the groundings.The paperwork ordeal??The other Porto Capitan's didn't need them!Nice crafty work!! Miss you guys..I'm sending your Mom so be safe and have fun and exciting adventures..
    Love Dad

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  3. I love it, you guys are complete nomads now.

    -Wood

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  4. Susan and Vinnie =) =)February 14, 2013 at 12:53 PM

    ok....we're done mourning your hair now. =( It looks GREAT, of course. These must be the BEST pictures yet...which is saying alot since all your posts are riveting. Bless little Pina! Hang in there, baby!

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  5. Susan and Vinnie =) =)February 14, 2013 at 1:12 PM

    haha!! Looking back through the pictures and just noticed the Hattaras lighthouse! Love it! =)

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  6. Totally had a dream last night in which I yelled at you to post pics of your hair. Wake up and new entry with hair pics. Second time I've dreamed something and then you wrote/emailed it. Creepy, brah. Really creepy.

    I love all the sunrise/sunset pics! Your hair looks good- so does Claire's, did she dye it darker? Looks darker in some of the pics. The Carnival masks = the shit. Nice work! Love all the pics of the festivities and parade, looks like a really fun time to be in La Paz. Pina cracks me up, she's a trooper. Nice kid outfit. Are you saying I should have one so you can dress it all colorful??

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  7. Susan and Vinnie =) =)February 14, 2013 at 6:17 PM

    ...one more thing....The Glamour Girl shot convinces us that baby Pina isn't missing any meals. Loving that belly!

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