Smiling in the City of Peace

We arrived in the city of peace, La Paz, on Sunday 2/22 late afternoon, greeted at the Marina Palmira dock by longtime friends from two different boats! How fun is that. Great to get hugs from friends and hot showers after a week in transit.

crossing with John on SV Rosalita

After a safe passage across the sea on 2/15, our generator stopping working – that’s our source for making water. W

e thought it best to get that fixed since we kind of like fresh water…and decided to “bee line” to Puerto Escondido or on to La Paz as needed, in search of an electrician. Of course, the term bee line is relative: we traversed those 200 miles of beautiful Baja coast at 5 nm per hour.

Seals basking in the sun, wing tips up

our anchorage at Bahia Concepcion

Ironically, we hand steered with the autopilot off on our journey south from Bahia Concepcion - from Puerto Escondido to La Paz! Of course, we could do it and it’s not hard, just darn funny after so many weeks getting Otto fixed. Otto worked just fine – other systems failed. The battery charger wouldn't charge the batteries and neither would the solar panels, limiting access to any electrical power. So off went everything electrical from Otto to the computer that runs our backup chartplotter, Open CPN. Even with Mike installing our backup alternator, we couldn’t get power.

Punta Pulpito

Hiking at Puerto Escondido in the Gigante Mtns

Water pouring down the rocks along the hiking trail

Happy captain at the helm, heading S from Punta Pulpito

sunset over Isla Danzante

Love the whale sightings - when they'r not too close!

Sunrise out of  Bahia Candeleros

En route, as we stopped at magical anchorages in the evening, on came our headlamps and we sat in the dark, doing all we could to conserve our minimal available battery power. Thankful for so many solar lights! Good thing we have fun, saw whales, dolphins, birds and tons of jumping rays to entertain us. Incredible scenery, stars galore, crescent moon and colorful sunsets/sunrises. We are having a great time, not complaining, just choosing to share a few of our experiences through the blog. It's what we do and learn from it all, glad to be here.

Welcoming committee  at La Paz Harbor: pelican, cormorant, boobie

During those 8 days, we sailed under power and made good progress each day, although the winds blew from the SE so rather on the nose, in the direction we were heading. Sails were up doing their best to capture the breeze.

Dining with great friends at Rancho Viejo

We’ve been in La Paz since Sunday and successfully had some electrical work done! We plan to leave La Paz on Saturday 2/28 and will do without the luxury of making water – making the decision to wait on ordering the part to fix the generator. We have to save some work for later, right?

And so after visiting with several friends, enjoying long walks and glad for our experiences, we’ll sail away from the city of peace toward new anchorages and wildlife viewing.

Toppled boats at the entrance to La Paz Harbor, results of Hurrican Odile

Egret on the lookout for lunch