La Paz At Last!!

Well, we did it.  After after covering over 2400 nautical miles, we arrived in La Paz, Mexico on January 16th.  For those of you who like statistics, here are the following:

- number of hours underway (not including stops in San Fran and San Diego) = 400 hours
- number of hours strictly under sail = 225 hours
- number of hours under motor = 175 hours
- total distance traveled between Blaine, WA to La Paz = 2457 nautical miles (~4668 km)
- total distance traveled since we left Vancouver in June 2014 = 3703 nautical miles (~7036 km)
- average speed = 4.5 knots (9 km/hr)
- number of potlucks attended  = > 30
- number of Cruisers we've met under 50 years of age = almost all (surprisingly... we feel old)
- money spent before Mexico = TOO MUCH
- money spent in Mexico till now = > Just Right (aka almost none)

Frailes, from the top of the headland

Bahia Los Frailes

Needless to say, we are pretty happy to be here. We waited for 13 days in Bahia Los Frailes for the Northers to die down, then had a lovely, calm passage (the Sea was like a lake) up to the islands just north of La Paz.  We spent 6 days in the islands before finally venturing into La Paz on Friday.

Good As Gold bringing much needed provisions!

We finally met up with Malcolm and Dina on s/v Good as Gold in the islands and spent a few days hanging out with them.  As we hadn't provisioned the boat in quite some time, they kindly fed us meat and junk food (both of which have been scarce in our diets of late).  Both were very much appreciated!

The Malecon in La Paz

We are currently anchored just outside one of the big marinas in La Paz. We provisioned on Saturday and were finally able to get rid of all our garbage (which we've been carrying around for the last 6 weeks since we left Ensenada).  Yesterday we ended up having to stay on board most of the day to ensure our boat didn't collide with one of the other boats in the anchorage.  It is pretty close quarters here, and so things get a bit dicey when there is strong current against wind, which is what happened yesterday. We had a few tense moments, until the tide and current finally switched to the 'better' direction.

Crews of Kialoa and Sea Rover

Luckily we were in time to attend the 50th birthday party for fellow 'Umbrella Dumper' Tanya on s/v Kialoa.  We also got to catch up with the other 'Dumpers' who have made their way north, including Namaste, Kanilela, Luna and Astraea.  Thanks Tanya and Scott, for the great time!

Our laundry back from the lavandaria

We are being extravagant today and are having our laundry done by professionals.  Not that we have much choice in the matter as it is almost impossible to do your own laundry here.  So, although a bit expensive, (though not much more than going to a regular laundromat) this is a nice treat compared to hand washing, which is what we've been doing for the last few months.  There are a few things that I don't like about the Cruising Lifestyle and hand laundry is one of them (the others are vacuuming, which is done on your hands and knees, and never being able to have a long, hot shower [even though we have a watermaker, Gary is a scrooge when it comes to running the engine to actually produce HOT water]). The best thing about getting your laundry done professionally is that they fold everything for you and put it into these crazy vacuum sealed (or at least it seems that way) packages.  Trust me, it seemed like we went in with a lot more laundry than we got out!  But, it is all there and it smells wonderful...mmmm.

We've had just about all the civilization we can handle in the last 3 days, and so we plan to leave La Paz tomorrow and head back up to the islands about 20 nautical miles north. We'll tour around the islands for the next two weeks, then will be back in town to re-provision and take care of some paperwork back home.

As we haven't been able to post pictures of any of the places we've been in the last month, we've included a few of the highlights of our trip down the Mexican coast.  Enjoy!

Catching a lobster pot on the way to Abreojos (1 hour after catching a turtle on our fishing line... overall not a good passage)

Putting 'Pearl' (our dingy) to bed (she gets lifted out of the water on a halyard)

Freakishly large moth (the size of a hummingbird); they freak the hell out of me... yuck

On the beach at Abreojos (after our first successful real surf landing in the dingy)

Bahia Santa Maria (Sea Rover is one of the tiny dots - bottom right)

Our landing beach at Bahia Santa Maria (only accessible at low tide)

On the beach at Bahia Santa Maria

Pre-Christmas Dinner [Dec 23] (we traded a fisherman C-cell batteries for 2 lobster).  In addition to the lobster we had tuna steaks (thanks Kialoa) and lemon pepper pasta.  Not too shabby.

Passage to Cabo San Lucas on Christmas Day - the wind (which was against us) finally abated and we had a calm motor for the last few hours

Water damage to our salon done by an asshole jetskiier in Cabo who thought it would be "funny" to spray water into our boat.  Merry Christmas.

Worse Christmas Ever - port side water damage by jetski - we spent the night washing the salt out of everything...

Did we mention that Frailes was windy??

Pooped puppy on the beach at Frailes

Stuck in Frailes?  Eat pancakes with chocolate sauce and bacon to take away your troubles.

Frigate bird colony at Bahia San Gabriel on Isla Espiritu Santo

Bahia San Gabriel on Isla Espiritu Santo - again, Sea Rover is one of the tiny dots

A night heron catching a ride on our dingy in La Paz