Round trip

We left Puerto Escondido making our way back to La Paz. We were out of Negro Modelo, the local dark beer, plus we wanted to catch up with our friend Owen (from Edmonds) who is in La Paz putting together the boat he and his wife, Carrie, have just bought there. It’s a well-cruised, fully loaded Tayana 37. They’re planning to sail her to points south with their two children, Tamsen and Griffin aboard. Home-schooling, here we come!

The first night we stopped at Bahia San Marte. It is a long ride in around the reefs to get to this particular anchorage; they can be well-hidden but we could see waves breaking way out as we carefully rounded the point. When we got inside we ran into Sarah Jean, the only other boat in the anchorage, who we’d met earlier when we were sitting out weather in San Evaristo. Next morning we continued south. About mid-morning we heard a call on the VHF radio for Jeorgia. It was our friends from Edmonds on Saben. They’d headed into a marina in La Paz when we left to start going up the Sea and were now on their way north.

They were 10 miles south of Los Gatos going north and we were 5 miles south of Los Gatos going south- kind of like ships passing in the night! Here’s Saben powering north into the wind under the cliffs of Las Gigantes Sierra.

  And here’s Chris sailing south. Going downwind is so much nicer!

We stopped at Punta Salinas on Isla San Jose to check out the rusty stuff. It has an abandoned salt pond, which looked like it was once a pretty extensive operation. Rusty stuff- cool  A pile of abandoned salt 

The ponds where the salt was created

Salt crystalsRusty stuff with Jeorgia anchored in the background 

Chris enjoying the long, empty beach below the rusty stuff

We headed over to Isla San Francisco. This place has a semi-circular bay that fits into any tourist picture book. It is, as they say, picture perfect… We ran into Christian on Altair. Altair is a small Ericson 28 that we first saw in San Diego. He’s out of Bellingham and is headed to Costa Rica on a single-handed, low-budget sail. He came over for dinner on our boat and told stories of his spear hunting adventures in the Sea. Shooting fish with a spear gun is his current focus in life.

Altair

  Local fisherman folding their net on the beach at Isla San Francisco.

Hasta luego- Paul