You may recall that at the beginning of our trip from Mazatlan across the southern Sea of Cortez we had a little difficulty involving barnacles. They had grown on our propeller into a ball of such proportions that we could barely move the boat. I dove in and had at them with a scraper just enough to get us going again, but the sun was setting and we were twenty miles offshore, so I didn't do a very thorough job, and I didn't even begin cleaning the hull.

Puerto Ballandra was our first real stop in the Sea of Cortez, and we took full advantage of the warm, turquoise waters to rest from our long trip and to clean the hull. Ballandra is only a dozen miles from La Paz, but we were in no hurry. There was plenty of white-sand beach and clear water to look at, and a famous "mushroom rock". Charter boats come out from La Paz on dinner cruises.

The cove is large and reasonably well protected, even from the evening Coromuel winds that make most anchorages around La Paz uncomfortable. These winds come up especially in the winter and spring, blowing reliably from the south through the evenings and into the mornings. Southwest of La Paz there is a low spot in the terrain that extends all the way to the Pacific, and Pacific wind finds its way through the gap into the Sea of Cortez by this route. The term Coromuel dates back at least to the mid-19th century, and is said to be named after the 17th-century English pirate Cromwell. This is almost surely a myth, as there is no evidence that Cromwell ever visited the Californias, but it is the best story going so who's to argue?