Southern Crossing

Wednesday, February 1 to Tuesday, Feb 7

Not much to say about this period except that we saw our weather window and took off for La Paz, stopping over night at Isla Isabella. Unlike the last time, we were alone in the eastern anchorage. Swimming was nice, probably the last swim for quite some time as water temps in the Sea of Cortez are still in the 60’s. I did ramble around a bit more at the broken down old research station and found a visitor book to sign. I doubt most visitors get here. My only company was a number of brown iguanas sunning themselves along the broken concrete walkways.

During the leg to La Paz we logged 357 sea miles to go about 300 as the crow flies, a very long passage for us. The weather was mild but the wind was on our nose until we rounded the peninsula north of La Paz. We reefed and beat our way up a good deal of the way toward Bahia de Los Muertos, sometimes motorsailing, managing to keep a good boat speed of over 6 knots most of the time. Even with a big gibbous moon we had great planet viewing including Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and a sight of Mercury above the rising sun.

At 4 p.m. Saturday we were 20 miles out of La Paz and Karen was really hoping to make it to a marina for the night. By happy chance a favoring current convinced us that we could make it in time for sunset at 6:10. Aided by a tailwind we raced along, averaging 8.6 knots for the last couple of hours to glide into a slip as the light died. The boat is covered with salt crystals but otherwise in great shape as are we.

Paul and Karen had a couple of days to explore La Paz with us, revisiting some culinary splendors of the town, including Bismarkcito, and walking miles along the shore. We sent them back to Whidbey with great thanks for seeing us safely back to "the Baja."