After an overnight passage from Bahía Los Frailes, we arrived in La Paz on Wednesday morning (December 4th) and anchored just off the downtown area. There are a about a hundred boats anchored on either side of the channel that passes the city and dead-ends in Ensenada de La Paz and many more fill the five marinas. Falcon VII will take several more days to get here as Jim and Tricia plan to stop at other anchorages on the way. Al and Lindy on Enchanté are exploring Isla Espiritu Santo but we expect to see them back in La Paz next week so we arrived not knowing anyone in La Paz...or so we thought.

After getting some sleep and then preparing the dinghy and outboard, we went to the dinghy dock in Marina de La Paz in the afternoon to find ourselves parked next to the dinghy for Roughneck. We had met the owner, Cameron, in Coos Bay and as we walked around town we randomly ran into him sitting outside at an internet café. The next day, a dinghy came by to visit us in the anchorage and it was Jim and Donna from SV Noroue (pronounced Norway), our mooring neighbor in Morro Bay. Soon after that we heard that Peter on Juguete, whom we last saw at Santa Cruz Island, had just arrived in La Paz. It should not be surprising that people that we have met on our trip south from Olympia are here but it is amazing how quickly we have met them when we have not even been specifically looking for them.

More details on the city and our check-in activities will follow later but, based on Al and Lindy's recommendation, we are using an agent to help us complete our applications for the Temporary Resident cards (the reason we had to rush down here from Ensenada). Salvador is very helpful and friendly and we are satisfied that the application process is proceeding well. We will need to stay in La Paz for at least a week to be available to give fingerprints but then we will be able to go and visit some of the many anchorages and islands at this end of the Sea of Cortez before returning to meet Martha who arrives on December 22nd.

We have a few more administrative things to sort out during the next few days (e.g., renewing our boat insurance, getting a local telephone and data-plan) but then we think that we can really relax and start a more leisurely exploration of La Paz and its surroundings. The weather is absolutely perfect with steady breezes, glorious sunshine, and comfortably warm temperatures so we are very happy to be here after almost four months of traveling south.