Into La Paz
My time for the first leg of the trip was getting short, still several days
until I had to be in Los Cabos to pick up my Lady, but I didn’t want to take
a chance of getting weather bound and missing the appointment, so I was about
ready to head for La Paz. In the evening I checked up on the tides and realized
that the next usable slackwater in daylight would be late afternoon tomorrow.
La Paz is reputed to have a very strong tidal current in the entrance channel,
which is very narrow and bounded by steep sand banks. No kidding. My night
at Estero Balandra was very peaceful and I slept straight through with only
one trip on deck to check the anchor for auld lang syne. In the morning, awaking
to an unusual 70% cloud cover, I lazed around straightening up and finally got
to the beach for a long uphill walk by 9:00. Hiked up out of the beach area
to the ridge of Punta Diablo and found a pretty usable 4 wheel drive road on
top, leading pretty obviously toward Playa Tecolote, though definitely over
hill and dale. I walked over the hills and down among the RV’s and the several
restaurants along the beach. It was too early to eat again, so walked the
length of their beach, visited with folks from Alberta, British Columbia, Seattle,
Chicago and so forth, all intent on holding their beach chairs down firmly in
the nonexistent wind and the passing piece of warm morning sun. The obvious
popularity of solar panels was interesting, most units having pretty significant
arrays, much larger than mine. Finally back over the hills to Balandra and
back aboard, I ate a leisurely lunch out of boat’s stores and dressed her for
sea, got the anchor and drifted out of the anchorage on a very light breeze
from West or Northwest. Out in the open the wind picked up a little, but it
was just ghosting til past Caleta Lobos. My choice of anchorages last night
turned out to have been good. . .Lobos didn’t look half as pretty as Balandra
and there were nine shrimpers lying at anchor there. Their generators would
have made the night pretty noisy I fear.
At about 2:00 the wind came back with
a shout from the North. I poled the working jib out on one side, put a preventer
on the main on the other and roared along the coast toward Pichilinque and La
Paz. A beautiful ketch with clipper bows was sailing up behind me, slowly gaining
as we ran down toward Punta Prieta, easily seen with its slightly smoky power
plant and enormous petroleum tanks. I steered with one hand and re-read the
instructions for the entrance to La Paz with the other. About a mile from Punta
Prieta, after over an hour running at from 5.7 to 6.2 on the gps, I hove to
and pulled down the first reef just as a courtesy. The following wind didn’t
demand it but if maneuvering in close quarters were required I would be glad
of less sail in this much wind. The ketch passed me while I was hove to, but
took a deep roll in his jib at the same time. Perhaps I was on the right track.
It was obvious that to make the first turn into the entrance channel we would
have to lie at least close reaching, maybe a little higher. The sailing instructions
say to stay close inshore at that point, just outside the tanker mooring buoys.
I left them perhaps 500 feet up wind, which was too much. Finally spotting
the first little round flat topped buoy ahead I realized we’d be pinching tight
to squeeze through without tacking. Hard on the wind the boat really settled
to her work and the gullies around Punta Prieta reshaped and sharpened the wind.
In the end we scraped within a few feet of the buoy and made the sharp right
turn into the 3-mile long channel the length of town to the marinas, which brought
the wind again dead astern. I didn’t have room or hands enough to rig the pole
on the jib again but ran most of the way wing and wing anyway. The boat roared
through the water at a tremendous rate, but at times it seemed we were barely
gaining on the anchored buoys. I was at least 2 hours early on my tide and
though the boat was running faster than earlier in the day we were over 2 hours
creeping along the shoreline the three miles in to the marina. My little handheld
VHF was fine for the short range hail and the marina came back in nearly unaccented
English (I’d been practicing imaginary Spanish radio etiquette for days, just
in case). By the time we came to the municipal pier and called the Marina for
instructions a very good chop had made up and the boats in the anchorage from
the pier to the marina were definitely doing the La Paz waltz, some facing up
wind, others tide rode, but all the smaller boats rolling and pitching violently.
I felt no urge to anchor with them at all and looked forward to a berth in the
marina for the boat while I made the trip back for the truck and trailer.
Close by the marina entrance I hove to and checked my drift in the tide. Even
with what was probably a 1 knot drift through the water downwind to the South,
the North running current swept me fairly briskly back toward the entrance.
I had to fill and jibe around quickly to avoid fouling a red buoy I hadn’t left
enough room for, but then hove to again and got the sails muzzled and the motor
going. Steering in the current and wind with the little motor’s tiller as well
as the boat’s (perched precariously over the transom with one hand on each tiller)
I made an easy approach, though I nearly over ran the float until Mary on the
end of the fuel pier shouted and waved me back to a side tie on the panga dock
to wait for wind and tide to lie down. Several people came to take my lines
and in no time we were secured alongside and I was accepting invitations “for
a beer as soon as you get a minute.” It’s a friendly place for sure, and its
reputation as the nicest marina in Mexico is certainly earned. Everything is
clean and bright, there’s lots of paper in the toilets and the showers are hot
and hard. The clientele is almost entirely retired or cruising couples from
all over the states and Canada and their “Club Cruceros de La Paz” makes life
pleasant with Spanish classes, barbecues and lots of visiting.