LaPaz-Escondido

We really enjoyed the city of La Paz. The waterfront is a huge protected anchorage that would hold hundreds of boats. We felt very welcome and paid only a $6 port fee to anchor in this wonderful spot. We chose to anchor near to Marina La Paz which welcomed cruisers at their dinghy dock, charging $1.30 per day to land, dump garbage, fill up with water and have the help of the office staff to help with almost any aspect of living and boating in the vicinity. The city itself is very pedestrian and bicycle-friendly with a waterfront malecon running the entire length of the city. The land side of the street was planted with shady trees to protect from the sun and there were pedestrian-only street with sidewalk cafes to meet all sorts of interesting locals and visitors. Our favorite was the Callejon cafe just off the malecon.

We covered the local islands of Espiritu Santu and Partida on another page and we regretted not being able to spend more time there.

The next part of our journey North was to the anchorage of Puerto Los Gatos and then on to Agua Verde where we had some problems with our anchor dragging in the southern anchorage. John snorkeled to look at the anchor and found it barely dug into a thin layer of sand and pebbles over rock. We were surrounded with many other anchored boats which seemed quite secure so john checked out a couple of other anchors and found them well buried. Apparently the slightly shallower center area of the anchorage has only a shallow covering of sand with a much thicker layer around the edges of the anchorage.

There is a small village at Aqua Verde with a school, a store and a magnificent Tortilleria. The store sells pretty much everything you will need to feed you. There is no beer though. This is only sold at a special store which only sells to visitors. Apparently the local ladies got together and arranges a ban on beer sales to their menfolk! The tortilla lady makes tortillas fresh to order and they are WELL worth the 30-minute or so wait it takes to make a dozen tortillas. You don’t need anything to accompany them. Just hot, delicious melt-in-your-mouth plain tortillas. These are the tienda and tortilleria!

Our next stop was the almost legendary Puerto Escondido. Mentioned in Steinbeck’s log and almost every other book about the Sea of Cortez. An almost totally encircled bay about a mile long and a half mile wide. Once alive with fish and a reputed breeding ground for many varieties of fish, it is an extremely popular anchorage with cruisers and long-term sailor residents. The Mexican tourist office is developing a significant boating facility here with a new marine, fuel dock and almost-completed facilities such as showers, laundry and recreation facilities. To date they haven’t provided any pumpout facilities, so the pollution of the bay may have contributed to the apparent decline in fish population. Nevertheless, it was a fascinating place with rocky walls, shallow sand flats and mangrove groves abounding.

The natural harbor gives safe haven from any rough seas, even though the two are separated by only a few metres in places. The spectacular mountains on the peninsula are thousands of feet high with the twin peaks, ’Dos Gorillas' (two gorillas), providing a landmark to head for when entering the bay. It is very dry and gets very hot in the summer with the hills heating up during the day and radiating their heat into the enclosed bay. Even the desert plans here seem to struggle to survive.

Underwater life abounds. The apparently healthiest corals we have seen in all shapes and sizes and lots of fish. The one in the center picture is a bullseye puffer - one of those incredibly poisonous fish that is relished as a tasty treat in Japan. We haven’t mentioned many people in our narrative, but we have been privileged to meet many wonderful and helpful people on our travels down here. Fred, pictured snorkelling with us here is an ace Scrabble player who retired from a life of radio broadcasting to travel in Baja California.

Just around the corner from Puerto Escondido is the wonderful bay of Juncalito with its community of Americans living an idyllic live in their beach community. We were greeted over the radio as we sailed into Juncalito and invited to visit some of the people there. They love the Summer cruising visitors who decorate their bay with boats when the southerly summer winds are blowing. They live in structures called palapas which are basically palm covered roofs supported on pillars. Most have mobile homes permanenty installed within their palapas but most of their living is done open to the elements.

Juncalito bay seemed absolutely full of life. The spectacular forest of seaweed was just beginning to die off for the summer. The water gets too hot for it to survive but it returns every winter. The school of fish are mullet (we think!) and the seagulls and vulture are on the seashore scavenging dead fish and squid that seem to wash up from time to time. I think the pictures speak for themselves. It wasn’t hard to point the camera and find something to take a picture of.

The weather gets a little interesting as Summer progresses. The Pacific high settles down and created a very stable pressure system over the Sea of Cortez. There isn’t much of a pressure gradient so the pressure related winds are quite light. However, the intense heat of the sun creates quite strong sea breezes during the day which often suck up significants amounts of moisture whih rise into the colder air and form clouds which can often result in thunderstorms, particularly over on the mainland side of the Sea. The situation reverses at night to form the offshore land breezes and sometimes quite spectacular lightning storms. The mountains lose heat quickly at night, cooling the air quite quickly so that it becomes denser and rushes down the mountain slopes and across the water. The extremes of this condition are known as elephantes which can pack winds as high as 60 knots. Another, very poorly understood condition is the chubasco which is an inexplicable storm which seems to come out of nowhere and lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours. We have experienced a few chubascos packing winds in excess of 30 knots. Other boaters have reported 50 knots, gusting 70 but many view these numbers with considerable skepticism.

The ever-changing scenery is just spectacular and we had to include a picture of the way some of our cruising friends spend their time down here. The tiny boat pictured here is called Couch Potato and is a pontoon-type boat commonly used on lakes. Her crew, Peter and Yvonne pull the boat on a trailer behind their huge pick-up truck and launch it wherever they feel the inclination. It is a fast boat and gets across to the islands very quickly. Their shallow draught means they can tuck into very sheltered coves close to the beach and stay very comfortable. It seems like a very convenient and inexpensive way to explore Baja and the Sea of Cortez.