Knockin' Around La Paz
10 January 2025
Alison Gabel

Knockin' Around La Paz
We're here, in a lovely seaside town in the Sea of Cortez, with perfect weather, just doing things. Nothing Earthshatteringly important, nothing very interesting, just things - laundry, servicing the winches, cleaning spots off the deck, catching up on stuff you catch up on, hanging with friends, getting some exercise, eating too much. Back home, Earthshattering things are happening - friends are losing their homes in the fiercest fires we've ever witnessed in Southern California. Entire neighborhoods have been rendered to ash, barely anything left. You've all seen the footage. Some of you reading this lost your home. Almost everyone knows someone touched by these tragedies. It's hard to write my lighthearted blurb while my heart is simmering in deep shock and sadness, wishing I were home, helping friends sift through what's left, offering some morsel of comfort.
"We need your stories of adventures, Aliwhoosh. They'll uplift us during a tough time." said my friend Craig, who I've known since first grade, who just lost his longtime home in Alta Dena. I can't be home helping Craig & Kathi sift through the ashes of their lives, but I can keep writing and hope the distraction, even for just a few minutes, might help. So, lacking a more suitable segue, a recap of the last month, dedicated, with love, to Craig and Kathi:
Last time I sail-blurbed, we were in Bahia Los Frailes, sailing in the company of Louise and Andy and their pups on s/v Eos. Los Frailes provided a nice respite from a very lumpy 10+ hour passage from Cabo San Lucas, and we all rested and put things back on the shelves and relished the quiet, although it wasn't that quiet because the wind was blasting down the canyon, offshore, stretching our boats to the limit of their anchor chains. But we were safe and Louise made banana bread and we enjoyed the break. We did get ashore the next day for a walk, giving the rambunctious dogs more space to jump and chase and swim, and giving the humans a bit of a walk. I mentioned in a recent blog that Louise and I had "princess feet." Walking barefoot on a rocky beach used to be fun, but this time, not so much! When I was a kid, our family invested in some land in the Fiji Islands. Our first year there I was 14. We were pretty tough kids, we ran around barefoot all the time, but the Fijians! They had these marvelous feet - wide, tough as leather, strong. They never wore shoes, and they walked miles and miles down the rocky roads to get to the next village, to buy food, to go fishing. "Fiji feet" we called them forever more - those feet that can go adventuring without complaint. Living in polite society, getting a pedicure every month and wearing shoes all the time has done nothing for my Fiji Feet!
Allan and I dug all the scuba stuff out for one more test of the gear and had a satisfying dive to about 30 feet over the sandy bottom. It was too rough to dinghy around the corner to Cabo Pulmo and dive on the protected coral reef, so we settled for sand and rocks, a few colorful fish, and the knowledge that the gear was in good shape.
After two days we left Frailes in the dark of night, hoping to dodge the worst of the wind and waves coming down from the north. The forecast for the next week was just grim enough for a northbound passage that we decided to grab this chance rather than stay in Frailes for another week. Not that that would have been bad! But we all had eyes on getting to La Paz for various, not-very-important reasons. The passage was fine, we motored along in mostly good conditions and dropped anchor in one of my favorite places along this part of the coast, Bahia de los Muertos, or Ensenada Muertos.
We were here almost 3 years prior with a few other boats after a particularly energetic crossing from Isla Isabela, and the restaurant on the beach was where we all gathered after naps, to tell our particular sea tales over cold margaritas. I have good memories of that bonding time, and looked forward to a few more meals in this sweet beachside restaurant, called 1535.
We spent another 2 days in Muertos, enjoying food in 1535 while the sweet, floppy-bodied teenage kitties charmed us (I love a good, relaxed, floppy-bodied kitty - trusting, calm, easy.) We were entertained by a wing foil clinic that comes down from La Ventana to train people in the calmer, flatter bay. For hours in the afternoon, every day, the colorful wingers would circle our boat, tacking, jibing, falling, shakily getting the hang of the sport while the attentive instructor jet ski'd nearby to assist (and, protect our boat!)
So Muertos did not disappoint, but it was time to move on to the Big City, a short day trip around the corner, gliding between Isla Cerralvo, which is now Isla Jaques Cousteau, and the peninsula. We arrived in the afternoon and were able to get right into the slip we had reserved in Marina de la Paz, grateful they had a space for us after months of being told every marina was full.
We've been settled ever since, wedged between a huge luxury fishing boat and a massive luxury motor yacht. The latter, although it blocks our entire view of the beautiful bay, provides welcome shelter from the daily winds and choppy seas, so we're happy. She's a beautiful boat, anyhow, and we have a good sliver of view off our stern to the eastern hills and the sunrise.
We've spent our time, as I mentioned, doing mundane regular things, peppered with a wonderful Christmas meal with old and new friends here in La Paz, a quiet Zulu New Year celebrated at 5pm with a bunch of cruisers at Club Cruceros, and our 4-day sojourn to La Ventana. La Paz has matured even since our last visit 3 years ago, with great eateries and bike lanes (with lights!) and excellent shopping, even an organic produce guy who comes a few times a week to the local market. We've really enjoyed our time in this town.
What we haven't told you yet is that after Allan decided to put kite boarding on hold in La Ventana, we took a wing foiling lesson together, and loved it. Of course, we only had a few hours on the beach, with just the kite, and have yet to move to the next step of getting on the water with the scary foil board or whatever they call it - a small, lightweight board with a "mast" that sticks down into the water and some fins that jut out at the bottom, the thing the board rides up on when you get good enough to foil. We've been warned that the learning curve is steep, so we'll sign up for that 3-day clinic that sailed around our boats in Muertos, maybe in the spring when we pass back through. In the meantime, we bought a pretty lime-green used wing in La Ventana so we can practice our wing handling skills on the beach. Of course, there's some logic missing there, and we know it, because if it's windy enough to fly the wing on the beach, it's too windy to land the dinghy, so there's that ... catch 22's everywhere you turn, but we'll figure it out. We're determined to try, because this sport was made for us: first of all, there's a "wing." And when you're on the board moving slowly at the beginning, you're "taxiing." When the board starts to lift out of the water, you "take off." And, when you slow back down and settle, guess what? You "land"! See? As two pilots, we have to. And, despite other dangers and discomforts, there's no body dragging in this sport.
And finally, the Big Bucket List Adventure is nigh! We leave on Sunday morning, sailing with actual wind in our favor instead of against it, back to Ensenada Muertos, where we'll stay for a few days, pet the kitties, eat some good food, and jump in the water with our friends John and Lisa who offered to drive over from La Ventana and help us clean the bottom of the boat. Then we'll move on to Los Frailes for a night, and then back to Cabo San Lucas, where we'll get the final diesel top-off, gas top-off, and produce top-off before heading south with our friends on s/v Amphitrite. Where are we going? Stay tuned!
And don't forget:
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