It’s been a while and we are still in La Paz, Mexico enjoying the sunshine. We have settled into our beautiful Marina called Marina Costa Baja and getting to know a few people. Within walking distance is a sandy beach where we can paddleboard around the coastline and return to our favorite beach club for food and drink. The Indigo hotel is also nearby along with about 5 other restaurants offering Spanish, Mexican, Pizza, and Sushi. By now we have sampled them all many times and enjoy the convenience.
A few days before Christmas we sailed to an island called Ensenada de la Partida and anchored for 3 nights. We relished the clear nights and star gazing along with sun filled days to paddleboard and dingy around the bay. We met a few other cruisers and enjoyed hearing their cruising stories. As much as we like our marina, it’s exciting to venture somewhere new. Most places we anchor only have 3 or 4 other boats, so it’s very peaceful.
Christmas was spent with Tracy’s brother Rod, sister-in-law Adriana, and many of her family members. They graciously included us in their Christmas Eve and New Years festivities where we celebrated with about 15 others, eating, drinking and playing games. I enjoyed a Mexican Ponche, that is typically enjoyed at Christmas. It’s a punch served warm and made with apples, pears, oranges and guavas and spiced with cinnamon, cloves, tamarind and hibiscus. In Mexico, they typically celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, and we were happy to participate in all the festivities, ending the night around 3:00 AM! New Years Eve was similar with lots of family, food and drink. Antonio (Adriana’s father) played his accordion while his daughters and granddaughters sang along in Spanish. The rest of us were back up musicians playing the tambourine, goat hooves stringed together, and bongo drums. Another fun night had by all!
On Friday, January 3rd, we left the dock again and headed to Bahia de los Muertos (Bay of the Dead), for a couple of days to help celebrate Tracy’s brother Rod’s birthday. We were planning to meet them there as they would come by car. However, before you know it we had 4 other crew members who decided they would rather sail with us than drive over. The remaining family members were not expected until Saturday but showed up a day early to surprise the Birthday boy! There were 10 of us on the boat for dinner with everyone contributing spaghetti, salad, red wine and dessert. I’m happy to say we pulled off the surprise and had fun celebrating Tracy’s brother’s birthday!
On a side note, we found some interesting information on the Bay’s name. Bahia de los Muertos is known to be a site for numerous shipwrecks in the area which resulted in many lost lives, possibly from pirates and burying their dead in the bay. Some sources mention the use of ‘dead man anchors’ in the bay that further contributed to the name. For better marketing, Mexico is changing the name to Bahia de los Suenos, (Bay of Dreams).
We did some day sailing to Playa Balandra which is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world! You are not allowed to stay overnight to help protect the area. So instead, we anchored for an afternoon and paddleboarded along the shore viewing the colorful fish while hoping to spot a sea turtle. It’s great to paddleboard from the boat but it is a bit tricky getting back on the boat from the paddle board. We have both fallen in the water attempting to get back on, fortunately at different times. The challenge is that the boat, water and board are all moving in different directions, and it’s difficult to stay balanced. Luckily, we were not hurt and after the surprise of falling, enjoyed a refreshing swim in the ocean. We’re glad we have time to master this maneuver.
Of course during a trip like this, there is always work that needs to be done on the boat. We decided to have Quid Sea hauled out to have her bottom painted before the big crossing to French Polynesia. The good news is we rented an Airbnb for a week while Quid Sea was in the boat yard. It was a bit of a treat to be on land with all the amenities. The location was downtown La Paz within walking distance to everything!
The haul out was an experience. In the US, the boat yard employee brings your boat into the yard and let’s the lift raise the boat with no one on board. To our surprise, this particular boat yard in La Paz had Tracy pilot the boat into the boatyard and we both stayed on the boat while they attached it to the lift. They do this by putting strong belts underneath while the lift raises the boat. But there were questions as to whether the belts were positioned properly. Because of the uncertainty, a young man without any diving equipment quickly dove into the water and guided the belts to the right locations. In the meantime we had to stay on the boat while they lifted Quid Sea out of the water and onto the ‘hard’. It was quite exciting and only a little scary.
During the course of our stay in La Paz, we enjoyed quite a bit of walking and hiking. Tracy’s brother told us about a good hiking trail with an overlook of Balandra Bay where we hiked several times by ourselves and with friends. The pictures below are from our hikes.
Our first visitors arrived in La Paz late January. It was great to spend time with our friends Chris & Dan, showing them La Paz and catching up on life back home. We enjoyed exploring downtown La Paz and checking out new restaurants as well experiencing a couple of great hikes! We hope they will join us again along our journey.
We will end here and our next story will include more visitors and our crossing to Puerto Vallarta.
SV Quid Sea - Sailing with Tracy and Cindy 
Great photos and stories. Can hardly wait for the next chapter.
Love, mom
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Hi,
It was great to see pictures of the next step of your journey! The pictures of Balandra Bay can’t possibly due it justice. Hope all goes well with the paint job of the hull. Tracy, when we met for lunch at Skamania Lodge, I was telling you about a friend from high school and his minister father who built a farrow cement sail boat in their back yard. We were occasionally put to work helping out with the various finishing of the interior woodwork, berths, and shelving, etc…. It took a few years but once in the water family and friends had many memorable sailing adventures on Lake Michigan. The 2 pictures were from a trip we took to Door County in 1986. ……until your next post, happy sailing!
Mike & Lisa Michiels
Let us know you rec’d this
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Hi Mike and Lisa,
Great to hear from you and glad you enjoying the blog. We’ve never done this before (both the trip and the blog), and hopefully it will only get better with practice. Thanks for sharing the boat building story again, but we didn’t get any photos. We would love to see them, maybe send separately?
Cindy and Tracy
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Enjoyed your travel log and photo thus far!
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