Tag Archives: a family afloat

La Paz

This post was delayed due to lack of Internet, YAY!

A few weeks back, May 11-15:

We had a fantastic sail off the hook in Puerto Ballandra and a downwind run under jib alone in to La Paz on the Morning of the 11th. We anchored just west of Marina de La Paz. First thing we did, of course, walked the Malicon to find the ice cream shop.

Over the next few days we walked around town a lot. We discovered that the bus and taxi system here is nowhere near like it is on the mainland. The streets were busy with people in their privately owned cars, and the buses were few and far between. The benefit to that was getting some mileage under our feet. We also discovered that food was about twice as expensive as it was in Barra de Navidad. Thankfully our first dinner out was “Dia de los Madres”. (Mother’s day), so we didn’t feel as bad for spending the money on a special occasion. But over the next few days, we found ourselves wanting to leave before we spent more money. Even reprovisioning at the Chidraui (a govt subsidized store) was more expensive than any other town we’ve been to.

We stayed through till Monday, knowing that we had a few cruising friends coming in and wanting to celebrate my Birthday on the 15th with other cruising boats. So we made the best of our time, as always. We walked the town, did the historical sites walk and played with other kid boats. Overall, we were not too impressed with La Paz as a town, but the company of cruisers was nice. And it was sure nice to celebrate my birthday with awesome people and have a good potluck. I even had a surprise breakfast delivered via dinghy by SV Spanish Stroll for my birthday!

We highly recommend the Museo de Ballena (whale museum). It is very well presented and the staff is very knowledgeable. They even changed some of the screens to English for us. Worth every peso!

Here are some picture:

ship shape # 7

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Hi all my ship shapers,
We’ve been keeping up with our ship shape but not with posting about it. Urg. We’ve been in the Sea Of Cortez enjoying lots of free diving, snorkeling, fishing, and hiking. We have also enjoyed the lack of Internet.

Here’s a few pictures from our satphone (low quality) with a few exercises to do on the boat underway.

Exercise #1 pull ups from the back stay. Not only does this strengthen arms and shoulders, but also gives your hands a good workout.

Exercise #2 chin ups from the Rat lines

Exercise #3 Toes-to-nose using whatever place (back stay for Christian, the dodger for Taj, I like to use the Companion way)

Toes to nose and chin ups

Backstay pull-ups

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SLO to Santa Barbara

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Our sail from Port San Luis to Santa Barbara was epic. With mostly a beam reach and then down wind sail, we were able to “fly the kite” as well as sail “wing on wing”. The seas were pretty flat and the winds were perfect. From Point Arguello through to the Santa Barbara Channel off Point Conception we had winds of 25 and gusting up to high 20’s. Perfect for a comfortable down wind sail around “the point”. We were originally going to leave from Morro Bay three days prior, but due to a southerly wind direction, we waited. I think we nailed it.

Once rounding Point Conception, we heading for COJO (an anchorage just west of Gaviota). Normally a protected anchorage, the wind had seemed to find it’s way wrapping in at such force, we chose to continue to the next safe anchorage. We sailed another 20 miles to Goleta Beach.

Upon waking at Goleta, the sun was shining and the water was clear. What we noticed with adequate lighting was that we managed to we’ve our way through the lobster traps that had just been placed the night before. Apparently lobster season just started. The anchorage looked like a mine field! It’s amazing that we didn’t snag any coming in the night before. After a few hours of breakfast, coffee and some boatschooling, a jump in the ocean was needed. Warm water (high 60’s) at last!

We were going to head out the the Channel Islands from that point, but with wind report was calling for 20-25 kt gusts. Although that’s not too bad for out at Santa Cruz Island, we chose to go to Santa Barbara first and hopefully hit good island weather afterward.

Santa Barbara was only 8 miles from Goleta. We arrived by early afternoon with time to anchor and go to shore to visit a few friends. Christian’s Dad and my cousin, Joe, who both made the sail with us from Morro Bay, were safely brought back to shore 🙂 .

Our time in Santa Barbara was too quick! Too many things to do and too many people to try to visit. Unfortunately, we didn’t fit it all in, but it we enjoyed it none the less. It was so hot and beautiful, it finally felt like we were heading south!

On Saturday, we heard the weather on Santa Cruz Island should be fair. We found ourselves having a hard the wanting to leave Santa Barbara. We felt like there were more thing to do and people to see. We realized that these feelings will probably come up often. It’s simply part of cruising. So, we left the next day. Here’s a shout out to the people we didn’t get to visit, “Hi, sorry we didn’t meet up. Come visit us somewhere along the way!”.

We had a lovely sail out to Pelican Bay on the North side of Santa Cruz Island. Details await for the next post.