Friday Dec 3 we headed off after one last run to Pan de Les (“the bread guy”) for the famous cruising grounds north of La Paz – called just The Islands, though a lot of the good anchorages are actually on the Baja mainland. First stop on Isla Espiritu Santo was Bahia San Gabriel, only 18 miles from La Paz. We had a great dinner with fish bought at the Mercado Bravo – a mild fish, and Tino actually liked it! It was a bit of a celebration, two months out and finally going off on another adventure after getting a bit too comfortable in La Paz.
We met a very interesting guy called Christian, who has been single-handing his Ericson 27 Altair since leaving Washington in May. Christian built a lot of stuff on his boat (bowsprit and roller furler, solar panel mounts, assorted woodwork) and though the result looks a bit funky it all hangs together and he is a great adventurer. This includes spearfishing, and he was prepared to teach the boys this art, but it got a bit cold so they just ended up watching him from above or on the dinghy, which felt a bit safer to us parents. Still enough activity to tire them out well…
Next day was very special – after paying for our day pass for the National Park (only time we had to pay in 8 days) we had a great walk along the huge beach, with lunch back on Neener. We then headed off to explore and discovered a huge colony of white-collared swifts and pelicans in the mangroves along the shore.
We were sometimes only 15 feet away as we puttered along in the dink, they seemed completely at ease with us and we took tons of photos.
Then on the way back to the boat the sky exploded into a riot of color, the most amazing sunset of the trip so far. Thank goodness for digis, as they say in the old country.
Sunday we headed off to the end of the connected Isla Partida to a spot called Los Islotas, home to a very friendly sea lion colony. With a fairly stiff North wind we were nervous about anchoring there, but the islands provided wave and wind protection so we went for it. Took a couple of tries to get the anchor in a good spot in the deep water (and it almost got stuck the first time), but we finally settled and Jan and the boys went off in the dinghy where we could attach to a mooring buoy.
The females are the playful ones, they act just like yearling doggies, even their expressions as they swim past twisting and turning to keep one in sight, and they have a lot of different calls and sounds which we had never noticed before on the Bay.
The boys were a bit nervous (especially when they spotted a bull, which can actually get territorial over their harem) but still got pretty close to them – and Jan was honored with a “love nip” on the shoulder just as he was heading back. More dozens of photos, a couple of which seemed worthy here. Patti also got within about 10 feet (on the next round), and really appreciated their playfulness.
We finally tore ourselves away and headed back to Isla Partida with a promise to hook up with Loose Pointer, a big monohull that got to Islotes before us and had another teenage boy on board. We finally had a nice sail under genoa, but near the end we first lost Tino’s swim shirt which was not secured, and then broke the reefing line as the strong wind made for such a tight furl that we didn’t see that we were at the end. Never go to second gear on a furling line!
Pot
luck dinner on Loose Pointer, with the crew of a biggish cat “Jane-O”, which houses another teenage boy. This was great after all the missed opportunities to connect on the HaHa itself – we hung out with 14-yr-old Adam from L.P. and 17-yr-old Jacob from Jane-O for three days, trading off hosting potlucks in the evenings and getting the boys together during the day. Both the other boats had X-Box and such, we had none so both sets of kids got a break from routine – when I told L.P. that the boys would have to figure out how to talk without a game when we hosted I could hear their laughter without the VHF;-)
Monday was fish day, as we started off by trading two (old) t-shirts and a gallon of water to some panganeros for two medium-sized fish, probably Red Snapper. Apparently we were a bit generous, as the fisherman gave us a beautiful red Nautilus when we ran into him at the fish camp later in the day. Then on the way back from exploring Pat from Gitana called us over to give us a gorgeous Sierra, as he had more food than he could eat. Jan got a lot of practice gutting and filleting;-) The other “boy boats” had gone on to the next anchorage (El Cardoncito) so we followed them, and invited them all to Neener for… fish dinner!
Tuesday we all were planning on heading north, but the wind and especially waves were too big so we tucked in to Ensenada Grande anchorage instead, just 4 miles up. Dessert on Jane-O, feelings of envy for their huge cockpit and dining area, but down below galley and berths a bit cramped. So our boat, we think we’ll keep her ;-)
Wednesday we did a morning of home-schooling (Adam and Jacob are doing a lot more…) and then took off for another adventure – a long hike/scramble up to a cross on the top of a hill, past an oyster patch with some specimens apparently millions of years old, a waterfall… great stuff, especially as we brought the older boys and yet P&J managed to pretty much keep up!
Thursday left for San Evaristo into diminishing seas and wind, as we were “running out of stuff the boys like to eat” and that is the next provisioning spot. Loose Pointer and Jane-O headed off for Isla San Francisco the next day. At Evaristo we found Christian again, who offered to go spearfishing the next day with the boys. By now we were more comfortable with the concept, and the boys had graduated to operators of the dink, zooming off by themselves at last, to their great joy. We checked out the Tienda in the village, which has the laughable sign “Mini-Super” outside, meaning mini supermarket. Well, they had eggs and juice boxes and bananas, but no papaya or bread or tortillas even, so we took what we could get…
Friday Christian indeed took the boys for a “baby sail” and then spearfishing – Tino hit a small fish but didn’t kill it, Christian later got a nice fish which he brought over to cook for dinner. Boys ate that one. Jan worked out a fix for the reefing line (whipped the two ends of the cored rope together, and jury-rigged wider openings for blocks on stanchions for them to pass through – so far it’s held!)
Saturday we headed south again, had to get back to La Paz for real provisioning prior to the passage to Mazatlan. Isla San Francisco was on the way so we decided to surprise our old friends by stopping in, and indeed there they were when we pulled in. So the boys got a bit more X-box time, and we had more great conversations and shared a beer with Loose Pointer.
Sunday back to La Paz, this time we headed for “Costa Baja Marina and Resort”, and what a lush place this was. Nice docks of course, but the pool was an “infinity pool” where the edge appears to go to the horizon, the showers are exquisite, the restaurants awesome… pampering and luxury for two days, after 8 days at anchor. And the first night was Jan’s mother’s birthday, she would have been 88 this year so we raised a glass of gin (martini and G&T) in her honor at the very good Azur restaurant, then wandered back through the almost deserted resort hotel.
Monday Patti and Tino went food shopping while Jan put in some hours at work and Valencio wrote out a story on La Paz zombies that he’s been working on. Then a lovely dinner on board with Vivien and Joel from Lady Jane (sans parrot). This is the life…
Now it’s Tuesday, and we’re headed off towards Muertos/Frailes, then Mazatlan. Morning last-minute shopping and more PG&E work, then left around 1, only to return 90 minutes later when we discovered Patti’s cellphone had been left on the exercise bicycle in the pool-side gym. Fortunately Marina could contact Security who had already found it, so we turned around and Patti picked it up, very appreciative of the staff all round. (Every security guard seemed to know about the phone, and there are a lot of them at this place…) Then of course Jan finds the card keys in his shorts now that we’re 10 miles up at Caleta Lobos. Something keeps pulling us back to La Paz, but we’ll escape its warm embrace somehow.
La Paz is nestled around a corner in a large estuary, so to cross over to Mazatlan or get back to Cabo folks generally go in a couple of hops, to El Muerto or Los Frailes and then on to the next destination. We chose El Muerto, hoping for better wifi and a slightly shorter trip. 
In recent years the Mexican Navy has evolved into a very professional force that combines the capabilities and responsibilities of the US Coast Guard and the US Navy (but with more emphasis on the former). Anyway it was a minor thrill to encounter them and have a human interaction behind the automatic weapons. All our friends who keep asking if we’ve encountered any pirates, take note: lots more smiling navy personnel than pirates anywhere (though a few cruisers do sport pirate flags ;-)
After that our passage back to Muertos was uneventful, except we used more fuel than expected due to adverse current and discovered that Jan had left his card keys in his pocket when he checked out – and this was after we had already returned to pick up Patti’s cellphone, which she left by the pool. We met another boat and they agreed to bring our cards back on their way into town, after we described the showers and pool.
Ensenada de Los Muertos (Bay of the Dead) is being re-branded by developers as Bahia… Suenos (Dreams), which is a neat switch – there are some pretty high end structures there, including this amazing amalgam of all the architectural styles that the globe-trotting owners feel a kinship to. After checking out this and other dwellings on the promontory we headed to the other end of the beach to the condo/resort, where we could all relax, get a good coffee at the deserted restaurant, and marvel at the dreams of the developers. This may be a very different place in a decade or two, cruisers will avoid it like the Cabo plague.
But in the meantime there was a band to check out – very tight actually, they made for a wonderful evening that we shared with other cruisers and a lot of kite surfers staying nearby in RVs. Then at 1 AM we had another batch of excitement, but less pleasurable – a large motorboat dragged their anchor in the 15-knot winds and fouled one of the sailboats, managing to both wrap their anchor chain 
around the keel and scrape the side of the hull. There were some tense words exchanged but both captains did their best to remain civil and sort things out, and they eventually did. Both boats were hauled back in La Paz, and the sailboat Odessa fortunately had only minor damage; the motor boat’s anchor had been bent into a strange shape and had to be replaced. This is a picture of the motor vessel “the morning after”, for visual interest.
After all this the crossing itself was pretty mellow – we sailed and motor-sailed most of the way with the big genoa doing the work to move the boat and keep the rolling down (see waves at sunset). Patti and Valencio whiled away their hours on watch by singing “all the Christmas songs that Patti knew”, which is apparently more than Valencio was hoping for. The only stress was when a large vessel overtook us (Jan and Tino on watch) and refused to respond to VHF calls. But we had plenty of warning and their closest approach was over a mile – thank goodness for Radar!!!
out.