Spring on the Baja
14 June 2012 | La Paz
Ellen
These are my Paper Nautilus that I found over the last month and a half. I was really excited to find them as last year I couldn't find any. It's very addictive once I found one, every time we went somewhere new I had to look for more. The biggest one is about 4 inches and my smallest one is an inch.
Well our spring trip up as far as Isla Coronados is over. We left La Paz at the beginning of May and spent a month and a half doing the trip which is about 200 miles each way. I particularly love this stretch of coast because of the anchorages being so close together. Some times you might have to go 30 or so miles but often you can go 10 miles or less between places to drop the hook (anchor).
My new favourite anchorage is Chico Candeleros. It's a one boat anchorage and you feel really sheltered in it (unless the wind is from the north), even those pesky west winds that come up at night don't seem to get in there. It has great snorkeling in and outside of the bay, easy hiking and lots of birds flying about and calling and they go from cactus to cactus.
We met lots of new friends as well as running into people and friends that we have made over the last 18 months here in Mexico. Lots of goodby dinners as people head off in different directions for the summer months. Lots of good times with great people.
We managed to get a little sailing in. It seems we motor much more than we sail and that is partly due to our own impatience to get somewhere at 5 miles an hour as opposed to 2. But when you do get a nice wind in the direction you want to go it's lovely.
We were a bit disappointed when half way through our trip the water went very green. It seems to be some kind of alge bloom and it will probably go away when the water warms up some. We still did lots of swimming but not so much snorkeling except the few areas that didn't seem to be affected as much.
Well that about sums up our trip for the spring and the great thing is when we go back out in October into pretty much the same area, there is still so much we haven't seen yet. It's a big area with lots of islands and coast still to be hiked, swam, sailed and enjoyed.
I've uploaded some new photos in a gallery called Baja 2012 chapter 2.