We'll we finally made it to La Paz!!! It took us four months and three days to do it, but we are now at Marina Costa Baja (24 13.006N 110 17.966W) just North of La Paz all tied in.

We launched the dingy while we were in Los Muertos and headed in to the local restaurant for a nice lunch. It had been the Giggling Marlin Restaurant(quite famous along the coast) but was now under a different name. The Marlin had sold out and left. Once back at Zephyr, we stowed Puff on deck and got everything ready for setting off for La Paz. I looked into the problems we had with the bilge pump running continually and found that an old bottle of wine had slid from somewhere forward in the bilge and pushed a hose up so that it held the switch up making the pump run all the time. Now the switch is fixed and I got a nice bottle of red wine out of the job. It's been there so long that there is no label on it so I guess we will have a mystery wine some night with dinner.

We left Los Muertos last night at 2200 after the wind had calmed down some. Two other boats had already left and radioed back that they were making good progress up the channel. Now the reason we had to leave at such a late hour was not just the wind, but also the tide. It was still a flood tide till 0855 this morning so we wanted to take advantage of it to help us ride it in instead of fighting it the next day. Plus, it's a trip of 54 miles and that takes a while at about 5 knots.

Off we went at a good clip with the winds pushing us along for a while and once we rounded the corner and headed up the channel between Isla Cerralvo and Baja, the wind hit us in the face all over again. No where near as bad as it had been the previous day, but it slowed us down for a while. With the incoming tide, we were still making good time so we slowed Zephyr down to just over 4 knots so that we would make it to Canal San Lorenzo which separates the Baja from Isla Spiritu Santo. There, the tide can run up to 3 knots through a sort of narrow channel with reefs and shoals on both sides so you try to hit it at a flood tide if at all possible. Well, as I said, our tide reversed at 0855 and we had to be through there by then or pay the piper with a current hitting us smack on the nose.

Luck was with us and we got there just about 0700(having slowed down a good bit). We coasted through the channel just fine and made our way toward La Paz. I radioed ahead and tried to get a slip at Marina de La Paz but they only had one left and it was on an outside finger of a pier and would be quite rolly. We opted to try for Marina Costa Baja about 4 miles North of La Paz, right at the main entrance to the channel that finally leads to La Paz. La Paz a VERY well protected anchorage but suffers from tidal flow where your boat will be facing one way for several hours and then will reverse as the tide changes. It's called the La Paz Waltz. If you are at anchor, you better be anchored well or you will drag as your boat changes direction over and over. Never a good thing when there are so many boats around as there are in La Paz.

Tomorrow, I get to go up the mast as we found that the wind instrument at the top has broken loose and is flopping around. Luckily, it hasn't broken any of the wind cups. So up I go to find out what has happened.

Meanwhile, we have settled in by taking a short walk around the marina/resort. It is quite a place with lots of things to do and see. After a short nap to try and catch up on the sleep we lost last night, we took the 1620 shuttle(the marina runs a shuttle to town every hour) into town and walked the streets and had a great dinner at one of the local restaurants. I tried a steak, Mexican style. It ended up being steak fajitas. Who knew that is what Mexican style meant. We walked down to Marina de La Paz, where we had intended to stay. It is right in the middle of town and noisy as all get out. Lots of boats coming and going and exposed to all sorts of wind that we don't have up at Marina Costa Baja. We're glad we chose to stay where we are. It's a bit of a trip to town but that's all right.

So over the next few days, we have several tasks to get done before we set off again. One of the first tomorrow is to wash Zephyr down and get all the salt off her hull and deck as well as all the equipment on deck. It can clog every block if left to time.

I'll be posting more pictures over the next day or so of the slog up from Cabo San Lucas. Stay tuned for more