Merry Christmas! We are spending a few days in La Paz, sharing Christmas with other cruisers in the marinas here, and checking out the town which will be "home base" for the next 3 months or so.
We'll be spending quite a bit of that time out of town at the nearby islands. We spent 6 days at Isla Espiritu Santo just before heading into La Paz and it was great. Lots of swimming and snorkelling despite the fact that it is winter here. Looking forward to heading back out there next week.
Hope you have all had a happy Christmas season with friends and family and best wishes for 2015.

Fresh fish for dinner!

A nearby yacht kindly snapped some pics of us as we headed down the Baja coast. We caught a mahi mahi that day so when we reached the anchorage at Bahia Asuncion we traded some nice fresh fish for some photos of HooRoo.

The fishermen and pelicans of Turtle Bay.

We spent an interesting day at Bahia de Tortugas. It is a small fishing town with dirt roads, brightly coloured buildings, an impressive baseball stadium and lots of small fishing boats.
The anchorage was busy with large and small fishing boats coming and going, cruising yachts resting up and game fishing boats calling in to get fuel. Also dozens of pelicans, some perched in groups on the small boats at anchor. That image will be a lasting memory of Turtle Bay. Some of the local boats were taking divers out to harvest a type of seaweed.
The people we met in Turtle Bay were very friendly and welcoming, and we enjoyed a stroll around town, including some time spent watching a baseball match between 2 local teams. We had lunch at a little cantina overlooking the beach and the “fish Maria style” was delicious.

We have just completed the passage from Ensenada to Bahia de Tortugas, about 280 nautical miles, so we are now at a similar latitude to Brisbane. A bit of a slow trip, averaging only 5 and a half knots, but the weather was beautiful and we wanted to conserve fuel so we have been taking it easy.
Bahia de Tortugas is one of the few good anchorages on the west coast of the Baja peninsula so it is a convenient rest stop for boats heading south to Cabo, the Sea of Cortez and the Mexico mainland Pacific coast.
As you can see in the photo we had the side windows open. That’s the first time in well over a year and they even stayed open all night, an indication of the great weather we are having.
Had the fishing lines in during daylight hours but no strikes. There are some good fishing banks coming up on the next leg so fingers crossed for some nice fresh mahi mahi.