La Paz and the Islands

Where to start to tell you about all the great things we have seen and done. Right now we are on a 14 plus day trip on the Sea of Cortez out of La Paz. La Paz is small city about 1/3 of the way up the inside of that long Baja peninsula that extends down from San Diego.
La Paz is a pretty town with the main street being a long walk way along the ocean called the Malecon. People walk there all the time. There are also those who jog. They have a small area that has exercise machines setup for anyone who walks by to use. They are all human propelled, no electricity required .When the tide is high and the wind is blowing you can get plenty wet from the waves. The side opposite from the ocean is lined with small shops and lots of restaurants. The bigger stores and the more hustle and bustle of the town happens a few blocks inland from the Malecon. Most of the streets are one way which makes it great for bicycles as the streets are wide and you don’t feel crowded.
There are two major Mercados in town which are covered buildings with lots of little shops inside, mostly places that sell fruits and vegetables and stalls that sell fish or meat. They also have “ the organic market’ every Tuesday and Saturday which has nice vegetables and lots of good baked goods. Nearby is a street vendor who sells pork tacos. Oh they are good. You have to be sure not to go too late as he just works until he sells out usually between noon and 2 . About a week ago Alex , a friend of ours from Full Glass and I met in town. I was looking for items to fulfill a Christmas wish list from a poor child in a very small village about 1.5 hours from here. (The rotary club collects Christmas wish letters from these kids who have to stay at a boarding school during the week as the live too far away, so they only go home on the weekends. They also have very limited resources. ) We had lots of fun going in various stores and trying to explain what I needed. Even getting Christmas paper was a challenge as they just sell it in individual sheets, no big rolls. Of course though, will we were shopping I got hungry ( this was before the pork tacos) and so we stopped at a busy looking street vendor who sold fish tacos with all sorts of condiments to go with them, mmmm good.
So as I started to tell you about our latest trip. We left La Paz in the company of Julie and John on Mya who hail from Long Beach, CA. We went to Lobos, small cove just south of La Paz.

mountains behind Lobos

It was beautiful with clear blue water that turned that lovely ocean green color as the water became more shallow. After a night there went to Isla Espiritu Santo. There are lots of anchorages and we chose La Raza.

Myla in La Raza cove

Myla in Raza cove

La Raza Cove from the land

The snorkeling and kayaking were great. There were several Baja Ha Ha boats there with us, Myla ( Julie and John), Anakena (Bill and Debbie), “C’est Si Bon ( Perry and Patty) and Volare (Jason and Vicki). We all went on a hike together (except C’est Si Bon as they had already done a four hour kayak trip.!)
Next stop was Partida and met with all of the above except Volare who had to leave and added Ahelani ( Steve and Patricia).

Pardita Cove party

Pardita cove party

Candeleros Bay from shore

 Our Kayaks at Candeleros

After that we all had different plans and went off on our own ways. We stopped again in La Raza and had the whole cove to ourselves ( that made clothing optional!!!). The next day we went back up to Los Canderlaros and then off up the coast to Isla San Francisco.

Isla San Francisco

The ridge at Isla San Francisco

We were able to hike there too and Hartley took some pictures of the bay. We met up with Bill and Debbie again and enjoyed great cocktails at sunset.
We then headed up the coast. We keep looking for whales but haven’t seen any yet. We did see quite a few dolphins, no tricks though, they seemed very relaxed. I finally saw some flying bat rays, cool. The sunset in San Telmo was incredible .

Sunset at Punta Telmo

Sunset at Punta Telmo

Fire in the sky at Punta Telmo

To top it off the water had bioluminescent dinoflagellates and after sunset , the water sparkled as the fish swam around .
So we haven’t seen any real civilization for over a week now. I was in the mood for some food other than what we cook ourselves, so we went in search of a restaurant. We stopped in Agua Verde and looked ashore. The guide book said it had two little stores but no restaurants and that seemed true. We only could see about 5 small houses from the boat. We decided to keep going. Along the way we saw a boat that we knew, Kiwi III captained by Patty who was sailing with her friend Bob. We both decided to go into Candeleros Bay ( a different one from above). Pretty little bay with a great big new resort just off the beach.

CandelerosBay

Perfect for the restaurant food I wanted. Patty was having some trouble with her engine so she sailed into the bay and did a beautiful job anchoring under sail. I then swam over to their boat to see if she needed any help with anything and just to say hi. I could of just called on the radio but it was hot and nice swim seemed in order. We exchanged pictures that we had taken of each other as we sailed by and Patty had her engine problem figured out. Hartley and I stayed on board to see the sunset and then kayaked over (dress and all) to the resort where we had a lovely dinner. It was relatively expensive by Mexican standards, 85 pesos for a margarita, 105 for a glass of red wine and 59 pesos for a beer! In La Paz we can get beer for 30 and under and often at happy hour you can get a beer for 15 pesos. (There are about 16 pesos to the dollar).

Sunset at Marina Palmira in La Paz