OK, so La Paz went from a 1-2 week stop to a six week stop, partially on purpose. We had been rushing north for so long and not necessarily moving at “cruiser’s pace” ever since we left Costa Rica. I was ready to slow down and take a week or two before heading up into the Sea of Cortez for our cruising season. However, once we got here and saw how secure the anchorage was, we decided to reach out to our moms to see if they wanted to visit. And we got two yeses.
So, Two weeks in town quickly became 4 since we added in a two-week, two-grandma visit. Shortly after they left, we started to move but had issues that delayed us.
Running
First off, I want to say that this place has been awesome for running. The heat here is higher than it has been anywhere we have cruised, but the humidity is super low, so for running it is hands down the best weather we’ve had. The nights and mornings are typically breezy and cool, often I need a blanket, so running in the AM has been the most comfortable I’ve been since we started cruising. The few times I have run mid day, it is also pretty comfortable, because even though it is 100 degrees, my sweat actually evaporates and works to cool me off. In addition, the town has a long, flat malecón so I don’t have to contend with traffic, and often get to see dogs out for their walks while I run.
There are also some cool trails at the east end of town that I went to a couple of times that are hilly, single-track trails with huge cacti all over and views over the city. It was a fine compliment to the everyday jogs on the malecón.
Our last week in La Paz, I joined up with the local running club that meets twice a week just to see what it would be like to run with the locals, and to work on my Spanish.
Grandma Fest AKA Grandma Bonanza
The highlight of our time here was the double visit. My mom and Grete’s mom both came at the same time to visit for two weeks. We rented a 3-bedroom casa in the resort across the water from downtown for two weeks and just spent a ton of time together at the pools, and in the air conditioning.
Before they arrived, we had a massive field day, cleaning the boat top to bottom so my mom wouldn’t lose her mind when she came to see the boat. Grete’s mom has seen our boat before but we knew my mom would want to come out to see the Hoss in person.
When the grandmas arrived, we went over to the casa and enjoyed ‘resort living’ for two weeks. The resort had a private beach with pretty sunsets and tranquil mornings that were great for walking or running.
The beach was also a great spot for Muddah Goose (the perennial hoarder) to gather up random junk, hahaha - the focus of this trip was fish bones.
We spent a lot of time just relaxing and visiting. Some favorite activities were: Trying to perfect a margarita recipe,
Puzzling (obviously),
Pool fun in the little pool right by the casa as well as the huge pool with a swim-up bar,
We also went into town a handful of times for ice cream, dinners out, and just enjoying the malecón.
The resort also had a golf course, my cheap-ass didn’t want to spend $150 to be a duffer for a few hours though. But we did hit up the 19th hole to eat a couple of times. The food was pretty good and the views were great.
On a calm morning, the kids and I took my mom (Nana) out to see the Hoss in person. The kids loved showing off their spaces and it was a beautiful, relaxing trip all around.
Every good thing has to come to end though, and it was time for all of us to get back to our “regular” lives. There was a lot of crying, mostly from my mom and Fira, but we all shed a few tears. I dropped them off at the airport and then the Hoss crew loaded everything up into the rental car to shuttle ourselves back to the boat.
A quick commentary at the drive. Firstly, the dirt/sand 10 miles along the peninsula out to Paraiso del Mar are a snapshot of the Baja 500. It is covered with massive dips and bumps that change on each trip, as well as deep sections of sand that send the car peeling out sideways constantly. So it isn’t the best drive. No big deal, we live on a rocky, rolly boat with no AC in 100 degree heat so it takes a lot to ruffle our feather. The cats, however… First off, they both have severe anxiety whenever they go into their carriers, so the entire time they are in there, there is a lot of guttural meowing.
The way to the casa went well enough, and they loved the AC and massive square footage of the casa. The way home was not good at all.
About two miles into the ten-mile dirt road the car started stinking badly of cat crap. So I stopped the car and sure enough, Neptuna had taken a dump in her carrier and was laying in it since she couldn’t get away. We had no way to do much about it, so I had to grab the poop out with my bare hand and throw it out. I rinsed my hand with a bottle of water and we got moving again.
About two miles later, Tuna started horking and ultimately threw up all over the inside of her carrier. So, I stopped again, and again had to bare-hand her waste out of the carrier as good as I could and rinse off with another bottle of water.
Then, about two miles later, another smell started to rise up and Fira started shouting that she could feel pee running all over her lap. We didn’t have room for all of stuff, so this entire time Fira had Tuna in her carrier on her lap. So I stopped the car a third time. Grete had to get out to help this time since I had to hold the cat and carrier. She used a torn up cardboard box to try to soak up the cat pee from Fira’s seat and we used more water to try to rinse things out. It was basically a nightmare drive.
That was the last issue for the drive though, and we got back to the Hoss to let the cats out. I suppose two weeks in AC softened us all up a bit, but mostly it did so to the cats. They were both panting and having a rough time for the next several hours from the stress and heat.
Within a day or so we loaded up on food and were finally ready to start heading further north into the Sea of Cortez.
So Much Dragging
Right before we were leaving to head north, the boat next to us in the anchorage was moving very strangely. No big deal, except that they were doing it less than a boat’s-length away. I dinghied over to suggest that he check under his boat since it looked like his anchor rode, which was all rope, was wrapped around his keel. It was. A guy on another boat came over and helped spin the boat so that the rope came untangled. He moved his boat a couple hundred yards away so that he wouldn’t be a risk to us. The next morning, his anchor had dragged and he was again pretty close to us. I went ashore to run errands and by the time I came back, he had dragged his anchor over a quarter mile through the rest of the anchorage and across the channel. This is dragging on a level we haven’t see before. It wasn’t windy or anything, just a guy who didn’t give a crap, living on a boat that is not prepared for anchoring.
All’s well that ends well though, and we finally moved on to nearby Balandra Bay. The bay was pretty, with multiple pristine beaches that can only be reached by boat so there aren’t many people there. It is pretty close to town though, so there are quite a few boaters.
We went snorkeling. It wasn’t great, despite the fact that the water is very clear. We did finally get to see an octopus, the first one we’ve seen since we pulled one out with our anchor almost two years ago. Later on, back at the boat we saw a few sea lions swim past as well, a first for us.
We met a few locals, and their friend who is a minor league baseball scout - I should have shown him my skills :). They gave Grete a beer or two and invited us to the beach to share their fresh-made ceviche. It was a great afternoon/evening.
That night though, things changed. At 1AM the wind picked up quite a bit. It’s pretty common here since this one stretch of the Baja Peninsula doesn’t really have mountains, so at night the Pacific winds can funnel through and blow pretty good. Nothing that strong, but 25+ knots were going that night. It made for a less-than-perfect night of sleep.
At 4am, I awoke to the sound of chain going through a windlass. People joke about the sound of a cat puking being the best wake-up alarm, but I think all cruisers can agree that the sound of anchors pulling up are far more effective. I peeked out the hatch at the bow of our boat (the foot of our bed) and saw a boat bearing down on us. The boat was sideways and less than a boat length away. I woke Grete up by saying “we’re just about to get hit”, the third time I’ve had to say that on our sailing journey.
I turning on our sailing instruments and went topside to start the engine and take the wheel. The boat ended up missing us, by a few inches. Their dinghy and SUP board that were in the water tied to the back of the boat effectively worked as fenders, squeaking off of our bow and preventing a collision.
Over the next 20 minutes, I did my best to keep our bow pointed into the 25 knots of wind because when they finally got their anchor pulled up they had snagged our anchor chain so were were attached to each other. The kept trying to drop the anchor and pull it back up, but obviously that didn’t do anything. After a bit, they had dragged us both all the way into the middle of the bay in triple the depth that we had been anchored in. This is because the finally snagged not just on our chain, but had pulled up our anchor with their anchor.
I kept my bow as close to their bow as I could since we were tethered together while they struggled to resolve the issue. The trouble is, by that point we were out into deep water with waves about 3 feet high and howling winds. The guy on the bow was trying to hang over the edge to pull our 73 pound anchor off while slamming up and down violently. After several minutes of this, another guy ran up to the bow and grabbed that guy around the waist and dangled him over the edge into the water. About a minute later he got our anchor free and somehow didn’t lose any arms. I cannot imagine he didn’t sustain some injury during the affair but he got it done.
So, we drove back to the anchorage and re-set for the remainder of the night. When we awoke shortly after sunset, that boat was long gone, the boater’s walk of shame.
Sea Life
After the horrific night of sleep and almost our third time being dragged into, we bumped up north to Isla Espiritu Santo for some better snorkeling. The snorkeling was really cool but, being an idiot, I forgot my camera. We saw Bump-head Parrot-fish gobbling up sea urchins, and also breaking them open while other schools of fish gobbled up the soft insides. We saw tons of varieties of other fish, and sea turtles as well. It was great snorkeling. Like everything here, the coral is nothing to see, but the fish life is insane.
Pulling into a cool snorkeling spot like this always strikes me a bit funny. Tourist boats pull in and the people eat lunch and go for a snorkel before moving on with their tour. Cruisers pull in and start the water maker, get school going, and do some basic boat maintenance and cleaning.
After our snorkeling stop, we moved a couple more miles for a well-protected overnight stop since it was supposed to be just as windy and we were a bit on edge after the previous night. It was pretty but we only stayed the one night and didn’t go ashore. We plan to stop back on our next trip north. But why “next trip north”?
Coolant Pump
If you have followed along on our journey since Costa Rica, the phrase coolant pump probably rings a bell. The factory original failed catastrophically in the north end of our time in Costa Rica and we had a harrowing adventure getting to an anchorage for the repair, which thanks to my mess-up went from 2-3 weeks all the way up to 5. I replaced the pump with an aftermarket pump that failed almost immediately as we approached Honduras. We limped our way to Chiapas at the southern end of Mexico, where the company sent us a replacement for the defective pump.
After 3+ weeks of waiting in Chiapas the replacement arrived and was defective on installation. Rather than wait longer, we decided to press on and limit ourselves to really slow speeds until we could do something better.
Well, when we got to our overnight stop, I could smell coolant. I checked the engine bay and there was about two cups of coolant in there. Not good at all. So we decided since we were only thirty miles from La Paz that we would backtrack to town in case I needed more parts or anything to complete the replacement.
The replacement pump is the factory original that I had a guy here in La Paz rebuild right after we arrived six weeks ago. I decided that this was a good time to change coolant types since I haven’t been able to find compatible coolant in a long time. So I spent a few days flushing our coolant system and then replaced the pump with the rebuilt one. I am, in all likelihood, the world’s foremost expert on replacing the coolant pump on a Volvo Penta TMD22 at this point, having done so three times in the last five months.
The replacement went fine. I pressure tested the system, and unlike with the defective pumps, the pressure test passed. So I put the engine back together and it started right up with no issues. It will be a while before I will have complete trust in it though. Just in case, I brought one of the defects to the guy in town so that he could rebuilt it as a ready-spare.
Other Stuff
On our way back to La Paz, we saw a strange looking wave about a mile or so long up ahead. As we got closer, we realized it was a few hundred dolphins sweeping into the bay gobbling up fish. We saw dolphins before we got to the Sea of Cortez from time to time, but the sheer quantity of them up here is staggering.
While we were back in town for another week or two, we took advantage of it to go ashore some more for ice cream and food. This town has some amazing restaurants, not just for trash like me, but for legit foodies. Dry-aged fish, succulent Châteaubriand, and Asian fusion, in addition to the tacos, tamales and nachos staples. I took each kid out on a dinner date and Grete and I ate out twice as well.
On one date, we strolled up to the cathedral square to relax for a bit. There was a service in progress so we stayed outside but it was pretty both before and after the sun set.
But enough of my long-winded ramblings for now, northward for our next adventures!
