San Carlos to La Paz

Tonight is our third night out. Day one was Monday, January 7. We had hoped to leave by about 5 and got up early and pulled the dinghy up and got all the sails ready. But it was too gusty to go through the mooring field in the dark. Didn’t want to start out our trip bashing someone’s gazillion dollar boat. So we waited. Had breakfast and then left at first light. We left with mixed feelings, but the one feeling that crowded everything else out was frozation.

I couldn’t believe how cold it was. Anyways, we put the sails up right away and set out at 208 degrees for Bahia Concepcion. We knew we wouldn’t arrive until dark so if the wind took us a bit south, we didn’t care. About 2 hours out we lost wind and had to motor. We decided to try to get the auto-pilot working while we were motoring, so we did a few circles. Meanwhile we got surrounded by humpback whales and dolphins. It was amazing! We had a huuuuge humpback whale about 100 feet off our port side. And the dolphins were playing with us! They would jump right next to the boat. It was really a spectacular sight. Sorry I was too enthralled to pick up the camera.

Well, the autopilot still takes us in big circles, so for now we just have us. So Monday night we just kept sailing – we were south of Bahia Concepcion and decided it would be good to just keep going. It took me a little while to trust the instruments. It was pitch black (of course we decided to night sail on a new moon) and you can imagine just driving the boat straight into the darkness at 5 knots! A bit scary. But the night sky was absolutely beautiful. Well, we just steered by compass heading and had the radar on so we wouldn’t bump into anything. It was really cold! I had on my sweats under my pants and three layers under my slicker and wore some big old gloves Burt had for Alaska! I was determined to keep going because we are going south. We took turns at the helm – well my turns were quite a bit shorter than Burt’s. Burt took pity on me (you know – the weaker vessel and all) and only asked for relief when he was desperate. Finally we just decided to shut off the motor and let ourselves drift. The stars were so bright, that it seemed like you could just reach out and touch them. We figured the radar would let us know if we got too close to anything. It was pretty quiet. All we could hear was the ocean waves. So we slept. What a great 2 hours of sleep that was! We only drifted about 1.2 miles off course and we were both ready to keep going. We would just take turns sitting down in the cockpit holding the wheel and watching the heading. It was really weird because you don’t really look where you’re going. How can that be good? Anyways, when it wasn’t my turn I got to go down in the cabin and get all cozy with blankets and pillows.

Day two was a bit of a blur to me because I slept a lot. This wretched cold I brought with me from San Carlos was getting to me. Burt got pretty tired so we looked for a nice place to stop late afternoon. We pulled into Bahia Salinas on Isla Carmen at about 4:09 pm. Nice place! I think I actually have a photo. We just enjoyed not going anywhere, opened some wine and enjoyed the sunset. We took a nice ice cold shower (these solar showers really do need solar to get warm) and went to bed really early. Had a rude awakening sometime in the middle of the night. Burt set the GPS to alarm us if we drifted too much. It was pretty windy and we didn’t want to wake up somewhere else. I couldn’t believe how deeply he was sleeping. I had to wake him up to check the status of our driftage. (I just stayed in bed…. but I was ready to help if he really needed me) Anyways, no problem so we went back to sleep. We didn’t get up until some time after nine. So we decided to head for Agua Verde only 26 nautical miles south of Isla Carmen. We had originally intended to stay for a whole day at Isla Carmen to rest up, but it was kinda cold and windy and we had gone to bed really early and got up kinda late. I mean really how much can a person sleep?

We ran into another huge pod of dolphins and this time I did get out the camera. But they are so fast. I think I got a lot of pictures of water. Oh well, I tried. So we got to Agua Verde and were anchored around 5:00 pm. We did all the necessary things – Burt climbed up the mast to replace the jib halyard – it had given us trouble today. Made dinner, took icy showers and now I decided I’d better get some writing done.

Day three we motorsailed most of the day. It was now getting warmer and much more pleasant sitting up top. We spent the whole day looking at the same rocks and the same island. This was Canal de San Jose. Burt said he’s going to write a book titled “The World at 5 Knots”. The rocks of the cliffs on the baja reminded us of Page. Anyways, we stayed in a Cove with a little village called Evaristo. Not bad. There were other boats in there. Just before we pulled in Burt hailed a big cruiser that had been in the same canal with us most of the day to see if he had an updated weather report. He did. It was a research vessel heading for the same cover we were. I told Burt he should have asked if Dirk Pitt was on board!!!

Well we got out of the bay in Evaristo at about 7:00 and headed for La Paz. Now comes something new. We hadn’t done the red right return thing yet with Madwenowe and she’s kinda slow to turn. The channel that is in La Paz can be a bit tricky. There was a sailboat in front of us that hit the beach pretty hard. He missed the first red marker. We almost did the exact same thing!!! But saw it just in time. Anyways, we followed through the channel, not very deep, we got a bit worried when the depth was only 10 feet. We even bumped the bottom trying to find anchorage. In most places, you anchor with enough room for your boat and anchor line & chain so that you don’t bump into a boat downwind of you. But in La Paz you need a lot more room because the wind and strong currents make the boats go every which way. They call it the La Paz waltz. So after several tries we managed to anchor and stayed put. We called the Corn’s on whatever time I have left on my phone to have them call the kids and the kids to call my Mom and Dad so nobody would be worried. Then we just settled down for the night. What a change! As soon as night fell, the whole waterfront came to life! Very bright! Very beautiful. So here we are in La Paz. Going to look for the brothers and sisters so we can catch a meeting tomorrow.

Well we got ahold of Debbie and Dan Tiscareno and they took us to the meetings and out to dinner. They were so loving and hospitable. Beau and Holly Montgomery treated us to lunch offered to take us grocery shopping. Debbie and I and others did some canvassing on Tuesday. We had a really nice time in La Paz . I’m sorry I forgot the camera every time I went somewhere in La Paz. I’ll try to do better.