Wednesday, November 25, 2009
We are leaving La Paz today after spending a wonderful week here and heading to Mazatlan. When we arrived in La Paz last Tuesday, we were unable to stay in Marina De La Paz because it was booked with Baja Ha Ha boats. Instead we came to a lesser known, brand new Marina called the CostaBaja just outside of La Paz. It turned out to be a serendipitous alternative to the hustle and bustle of the downtown Marina.
View from the top of the mast.The new Marina is beautiful, clean, and secure. Cruisers here can take advantage of hotel amenities such as pool, workout center, pure potable dock water made from a desalination plant, lovely Marina restaurants and other facilities. Each berth has its own pump out. The wide concrete docks were made in Davis, California. A free marina shuttle bus leaves almost every hour for the downtown area. In a short period, we have met several wonderful fellow cruisers that now consider this their home or are in transit as we are.
When we leave, we will make our way south to Frailles, which was our first stop heading north when we left Cabo San Lucas. From there we will jump off to cross the Sea of Cortez and the Mexican mainland on Saturday, arriving in Mazatlan on Sunday, November 29, We should have a waxing moon for our night passage. We plan to stay at Marina Mazatlan where we will meet up with Colfax friends and veteran cruisers, Dave and Marcia Meyer on Juniata.
Here is a brief recap of our week:
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 – Checked into Marina and enjoyed being on terra firma. We especially appreciated the Cruiser’s air-conditioned lounge with high speed Internet. Clark and Nina made homebound arrangements online. We’ll wash the boat Manana.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 – Secured our temporary import permit for the boat. Went into town of La Paz to look around. Strolled up and down the malacon enjoying the views and bronze sculptures.
Met up with friends. Ordered custom lycra full-body swim suits from local seamstress, did some grocery shopping, purchased a new anchor light at local marine shop, and purchased some fish and bird identification cards and books. Guess we’ll wash the boat Manana.
Thursday, November 19, 2009 – Spent the morning in the Cruiser’s lounge catching up on email, doing a few chores, then heading off to La Paz for the Baja Ha Ha Welcome to La Paz party sponsored by the three marinas, office of Tourism and city of La Paz. It was a great party with free food and drinks for first 25 Baja Ha Ha couples to sign in (we were in the first 25). We had Margaritas, abalone, smoked marlin, and shrimp tacos. We were treated to several groups of Mexican folk dancers, Mariachi band, and dance band. It was a wonderful welcome and great fun!
Still haven’t washed the boat – manana!
Friday, November 20, 2009 – Well we were going to wash the boat today, but decided not to miss the fiesta celebrating Mexico’s independence from a dictatorship. Went into town and had a great time watching the parade of children and young people that went on for nearly 3 hours. Maybe we’ll get the boat washed tomorrow. Photos of festival below:
These boys had the right idea for enjoying a good perch in the shade to watch the parade.
Saturday, November 21, 2009 - We bade adios to Clark and Nina, our friends and crew. We enjoyed having them on aboard.
After we said our goodbyes, we finally tore into the boat for a long overdue cleanup. I worked the inside. Russ took care of the outside with a borrowed pressure washer. I took six loads of sheets, towels, and clothes up to the laundry mat at 9:00 a.m. and turned them over to a couple of very capable ladies who had the clothes washed, dried, folded and pressed by 1:00 p.m. for less than $40.00. By 7:00, we were cleaned up inside and out. We met up with some other folks from the Marina and went out to dinner at one of the Marina’s restaurants.
Sunday, November 22, 2009 – Now that the boat was cleaned up, we worked on some long overdue projects. Russ climbed the mast to install new anchor light. I worked on net screens for portholes. We invited neighbors over for wine on the lido deck when the sun went down.
Monday, November 23, 2009 – Russ and I got up early and took the shuttle bus into town to pick up our full body swimsuits and to do some major re-provisioning. After a full morning of shopping at the super mercado called CCC, we hired a taxi to bring us back to the marina where we spent the early part of the afternoon washing and repacking food for the refrigerator and freezer. And then…yes! I took my first SIESTA! One of our neighbors invited us over for Monday Night Football and a tailgate party on his sailboat. There were four couples, and Boomer the host. We had a fine evening.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 – Today was our last full day at the Marina. Russ did some waxing and polishing of the boat. I continued the net screen project completing the screens with Russ’s help in the master stateroom. We pumped out the head, filled up the water tanks, and went to the Marina office to get a new crew list, absent Clark and Nina, for our exit on Wednesday.
We are leaving today after a very busy week. We have enjoyed La Paz as a city and its very lovely citizens and fellow cruisers who have been warm and friendly. Some of our observations:
1. Even though there are many streets. There are very few street signs. We navigated by counting blocks and looking for landmarks.
2. Taxi drivers and bus drivers view stop signs as suggestions. This is the birthplace of the rolling stop. Pedestrians have to be very careful.
3. Sidewalks are a patchwork of designs and disasters. Every building and merchant seems to be responsible for the creation, construction and maintenance of their little piece of walk with no standardization of elevation, texture, steps, half steps, no steps, ramps, or drop offs. Great pride is taken in keeping the sidewalks clean. Everywhere employees are sweeping, sweeping, sweeping.
4. We observed many babies, and very few baby strollers….probably because the sidewalks would be too hazardous. Babies and toddlers are carried by their parents. We also noticed tricycles in the baby stores that have attached umbrellas to keep the sun off the children.
5. All school children wear uniforms. They are very neat and tidy. Free education only goes up to the sixth grade. After that, parents must pay to send their children to school. The local cruising club raises funds for scholarships for families so that their children can continue their education.
6. Grocery stores and pharmacies are well stocked. La Paz has a Sears, Price Club, and Wal-Mart. Home Depot is opening a store here next week. Many stores seem to be doing well. There are also many vacant stores and restaurants.
7. The sea around La Paz is peaceful – blue green water, no waves. The malacon (beach promenade) is beautiful and the people are rightfully proud of their city.
8. The independence festival marked the beginning of the Christmas season. On Monday, Christmas music was in every store along with all the trappings of the season including pine boughs and trees, which are very foreign in the desert. The La Paz community caters to the many American cruisers here and we found lots of Thanksgiving grocery items in the store including pumpkin pie mix, dressing, cranberries, turkeys, etc.
9. Very few people have dogs or at least take them out on leashes. The only dogs we saw were with Americans or strays in the streets.
The next blog post will most likely be from Mazatlan. In the meantime, we will be thinking of all of you eating turkey and celebrating Thanksgiving. We are certainly thankful for being able to live our dream. Health and Happiness to you.
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