splendid isolation

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.