La Paz

We sailed into La Paz on a windy afternoon. The harbor in La Paz is a bit tricky for a couple of reasons. The first one is that after four plus miles of channel you have to cross over a sand bar to get to the main anchorage called the Mogote. The first trick turned out to be no problem. Our guide-book was a few years old, so maybe things have gotten better, but it wasn’t as tricky as the guide-book made it out to be. We quickly dinghied to shore to get back in touch with the world electronically. Soon thereafter it was down the malecon to enjoy some of the sights. La Paz has many sculptures along the waterfront. One of the most famous is this mermaid chasing the dolphin.

A less famous one, but still just as fascinating, is the Anna stuck in the knees of the fisherman.

On the second day we were blessed with a very special treat. Spotting two dolphins heading towards Stray Catz is exciting by itself, but this time they were after some fish that were hanging out under the boat. These two cetaceans spent about ten minutes chasing the fish under and around us. Anna and I were running inside and out trying to watch the dolphins chasing the fish. Inside of Stray Catz are two escape hatches for the unlikely event of a capsize. I quickly opened these to see if I could get a better picture of this Animal Planet event. Unfortunately this is the best I could come up with.

While we were in La Paz it was Denise, from Sea Fern’s birthday. Anna got to take advantage of the overpriced cookware we had bought years ago and cooked stove top, a delicious dobash cake. The cake was so good it alone almost made the cookware worth it.

We spent only a few days in La Paz getting caught up and restocking the shelves. Long enough to experience the infamous La Paz waltz. The other tricky part of La Paz harbor. This local phenomenon happens where currents through a harbor are stronger than the winds blowing a from different direction. Here it causes boats at anchor to swing all different directions. One boat might be pushed forward on its anchor by the current right behind another boat being pushed backwards by the wind.

Normally boats at anchor will all be facing the same direction depending on the direction of either the wind or the current. In La Paz however you can not count on this. The currents in the harbor are strong enough to, depending on hull shape and tonnage, send boats sideways, or even opposite direction to the wind. But to top it off, its a constant battle between the two forces, so boats continue to dance around in all different directions. If you’ve made the mistake of anchoring too close to another vessel, you may very well bump it. Even though we came close to two other boats, we didn’t have to move to avoid a collision.

The Mexican people are very resourceful. This young man had a flat tire, so he started cooking food on his engine to help pay for the repairs.

 Not really.

Our roller-furler still needs repaired, but sometimes it’s very easy to get distracted. It will have to wait, because after our re-provisioning was done, we were off to check out the islands north of La Paz for a more secluded cruising lifestyle.