Long and Lumpy

Lanham did a lot of rigging adjustments in the crashing seas.
I did a lot of teeth gnashing while he was on deck, but took this picture to
show how he always wears his safety harness.

We took a bit of a beating on this long, slow crossing to La Paz. Directly into the wind the entire way, meant motoring… RmmmmmRmmmmmRmmmmm… for about 265 miles and 60 hours. The wind rarely went above 20 kts, but the wind waves were steep, close together, and coming from all directions. We were in a mix-master with the bow rising up and slamming down about every third wave. While we worried about the possibility of something breaking, we managed to eat simple meals, sleep a few hours here and there, keep our log and monitor the systems. The DeLorme  In-reach has proven to be a nice way to keep in contact with family while doing multiple day crossings. We turn it on about every 12 hours to send a tag showing our position on a map (along with latitude/longitude) and can send a brief message saying “all’s well.” It’s nice to know we are being followed!

Is it late night or early morning?? Either way
it's dark outside.

Sun goes down

water turns black

Sun comes up

and the panga fishermen are out for their morning catch

We got to our East Cape destination – Bahia de Los Muertos about 9:30PM. This was an anchorage we had been to with our delivery skipper on our previous trip to La Paz, so we had a visual memory of it being large, calm and easy. It was. There were 7 other boats already there. We found our spot and put ourselves to bed – sleeping like corpses in the Bay of the Dead. Morning sunrise was beautiful. We bathed in the much cooler (69 degree) water and marveled at the new kind of beauty – the desert mountains – that we remember loving from the north.

 We are glad we came north when we did. Definitely ahead of the crowd – most cruisers are still heading south and those that are planning to sail in the Sea of Cortez are not coming up until March or April when it warms up. We are getting to experience a little Mexican winter. Long pants and fleeces feel good, but the sun still comes out everyday – only 6 inches of rain here a year, and most all of it in the summer.

We still had 60 miles to go up and into La Paz. We did 40 the first day and stayed a night on the south end of Espiritu Santo – at Playa Bonanza. It’s a gorgeous 4-mile white sand beach which we walked, had to ourselves, and plan to go back to soon! 

Photos of the incredible Playa Bonanza:

The Pacific swell is much lessened now that we have entered the sea, and the tricky surf landings are a thing of the past. We are loving the dry mountainous landscape. The colors are vibrant, the saguaro cacti are statuesque, the beach-combing is great, and there are still dolphins, but now turtles and seals as well.

Sky line of the City of Peace

We just pulled into La Paz and after checking with friends by radio, decided to dock at Marina Palmira. It is not in the center of town, but has room, a good weekly rate, and free shuttle service into el centro. Lanham has a list a mile long of things to work on while Melinda takes a quick trip to Seattle. We’ve already changed the oil and transmission fluids since arriving, so he can concentrate on getting some reinforcement welding done on the radar arch (the mega-structure is beginning to blow in the breeze) and taking on the reworking of the solar-panels. We’ve already had a couple dock residents welcome us to the neighborhood, so he’ll have all the second opinions he can use. Today we are heading into downtown La Paz and maybe can get these recent entries posted.

Didn't get anything posted 'til now. Seattle was great fun and progress has been made on many fronts!
More coming soon. We are loving La Paz! have made good friends on the dock and are experiencing Carnival! Almost ready to head out to the islands again.