La Paz – We understand why cruisers arrive here and find it hard to leave! – January 14 to January 30, 2011

Tomorrow morning (Sunday 1/30) we set sail for La Cruz/Puerto Vallarta on the mainland (about 390 nm and a 3 day sail). 8-15 knots of N/NW winds forecasted.

We can hardly believe we’ve been away from the Bay Area for 6 weeks. I’ve started to update the blog several times since arriving to La Paz – but there has been so much to do here and so many interesting people to meet, that it’s taken until today to post the update!

When we arrived, we were greeted with a dock party. Today, we were sent off with the Beach Party / Bocce Ball Tournament at Restaurante La Costa where we made new friends and enjoyed time with "old" ones (Thanks Carole and Janie for the pictures of Tom and me in the heat of competition!).

Many have come to La Paz and decided not to leave. So we decided to "begone" before we decided to stay, too. But we'll be back in a month.

Next anchorage is likely Banderas Bay.
Fair winds,
Suzanne and Tom

Friends and Fun in La Paz

We have enjoyed meeting so many great people. On the first evening in the harbor, we were greeted by Pat and Carole McIntosh (Sacramento, CA). They knew John and Dorothy and like other cruisers were interested in the new Begone'ers! We have enjoyed many gatherings with them and truly appreciated their willingness to show us so much of La Paz.


Ciao Molino is a restaurant just across from Marina de La Paz. And Wednesday evenings is the Jam session. Tom brought his fiddle. I brought my autoharp and camera. What a surprise to find another autoharpist there. Tom was quite a hit! People heard about him and come over to Begone to find out if the stories are true!


We were very happy that our trip to La Paz lined up with our friends Pat and Melanie and Tom. They were here for 2 weeks and we enjoyed great food and laughs and they gave us great insight into life in La Paz.





To improve our Spanish speaking skills, several of us have gone to a fabulous language school here named "Se Habla". Here, we are learning to cook Baja California fish from a fellow student who teaches culinary courses at Santa Rosa College. It was not just interesting to improve cooking skills...it was delicious!

Snap shots of La Paz, Baja, Mexico

Pangas, Palapas, Beaches all within this major commerce and government city on the Baja.  The downtown is right on the waterfront with the Malecon (boardwalk) that runs for 4 miles along the beach for all to enjoy.




Mercado Bravo is one of the central markets where local chefs will go for fish, meat and produce. I found myself visiting several times a week just because I love the walk and the activities.



Sunday, is the family day. La Paz residents work 6 days a week. But Sunday is the day to just enjoy. This is the main street downtown closed for a low rider display (with appropriate music playing in the background -- real loud and real scratchy!)

Welcomed to La Paz! 1/14/11

We arrived in La Paz on Friday evening (1/14) @ 1630 (4:30 PM) with no marina reservations (note: below is the story about “the free ride” from San Carlos to La Paz). Our first choice was Marina de La Paz – centrally located to downtown, great docks, and great services (showers with enough hot water, laundry, Wi-Fi and their own desalination plant to provide potable water for harbor guests).

Getting a slip at Marina de La Paz was a long shot but, hey, ya gotta at least ask. So, as we neared the channel entrance I called the harbor office on the cell phone. We couldn’t believe it, there was one last slip available! And even better, we arrived just in time to join the cruiser dock party just 2 boats down from us! Could life get better than this???

Oh, note the big yacht in the background “Tully”. It’s owned by Carlos Slim, the wealthiest person in the world. Great neighbors here! The brochure could never have promised this!

Isla Carmen to Isla Espiritu Santo – 1/12 – 1/15/11

Leaving Isla Carmen on January 12th, the last weather prediction we heard called for 15-25 knots of wind between us and La Paz. No worries. We couldn’t get a clear signal in the AM but what I heard sounded the same as the day before so let's go. And hey, 15-25 knots is like a Free Ride to La Paz - we don't need no stinking motor (sorry List Marine)!

The last weather prediction we heard called for 15-25 knots of wind between us and La Paz. No worries. We couldn’t get a clear signal in the AM but what I heard sounded the same as the day before so no worries. And hey, 15-25 knots is like a Free Ride to La Paz!

We weighed anchor at noon and set sail on a port tack in a nice 15 knots of northerly breeze. We plotted our route thinking we could maybe sail out on port tack ½ way, jibe, and sail back through the channel between Isla San Francisco and Isla Espiritu Santo just after the sun broke. The wind would build to 25 knots in the afternoon and shut down to 15 (or less) at night. GREAT PLAN – I love this brochure!


The sail to Espiritu Santo was just 100 miles and an easy 20 hours. But why was the wind building? 1st reef, 2nd reef, 3rd reef in the main. Furl in the jib, wind goes down to 15 knots, put out more jib. Wind builds. 25 knots. 30 knots. 35 knots. The suns not quite down and we’re averaging 30 knots of wind and the sea is building. OK, no worries, the sun sets the wind drops. Yes, indeed, no worries. So, the sun sets and the breeze pipes up to 35 knots with gusts to 40. We have the autopilot steering (hadn’t set up the windvane yet). The waves are easily 10-12 feet. And some sets are coming up over 15 feet. HEY – this wasn’t in the brochure.

The entire night was spent watching Begone flash her tail at these seas and wind. Bothe Tom and I saw the knotmeter read 7.7. What an amazing boat. And we did just fine. There’s nothing like learning early on that your boat can handle what you thought she could.

The breeze settled down to 20 knots by 0600 as we headed for the most southwest bay on Esipiritu Santo – Bahia San Gabriel – and entered after sunrise. We dropped our hook, issued the official “cheated death again” salute and welcomed the calm morning with a proper ration of Bourbon and a long, deep sleep. And when we awoke, we were (yet again) the only boat in the bay.

The next day, Friday, we set our for a little, calm, sunny 5 hour sail to La Paz.

Isla Carmen - Punte Colorada - 1/12 - 1/14/11

The next morning (Monday), the light breeze had clocked and was predicted to build from the North / Northwest. We decided to leave our little Bahia Cobre paradise for another anchorage just 10 km south - Punte Colorada, which is protected from N/NW wind. Again, it was just us for 2 nights and we were quite comfortable despite some pretty stiff N/NW winds. Good choice of anchorages, indeed.



You know, we never made it off Begone onto Isla Carman. The air was cool, the breeze was 15-25 knots and the water too cold for swimming. Our time was spent reading, eating/drinking, minor repairs and just enjoying Being! Just a note here - you may know that I can just “Be” with the best of them. Tom’s tendency, however, is more of the “ ‘Begone’ – cause I need to get something done” type. On our second day at anchor at Punte Colorada, as I was considering preparing the dinghy to go explore the island, we were taking about when to leave for La Paz, Tom asked, “You want to look at these rocks for one more day?”
We left our secluded Isla Carmen anchorage the next day (Wednesday, 1/12/11) @ 1215 hours for Isla Espiritu Santo.

Free Ride to La Paz - January 8-14, 2011

San Carlos to Isla Carmen – 1/8 thru 1/12/11

We motored out of the San Carlos Marina on Saturday morning (1/8) and were met with a nice 20 knots of westerly wind. We turned onto a south course of 180 degrees toward Isla Carmen setting sail with a double reefed main, full jib and settled onto a beautiful beam reach. Under sunny skies, we were averaging 6.5 knots (Tom’s high speed was 7.4 – mine was only 7.3). Just what the brochure promised! OK, let’s forget the bumpy, rolly seas that felt like trying to float across a Jacuzzi tub. I’ll remember it as a beautiful maiden voyage and thank goodness that we both have “iron stomachs”.

By dusk, the wind clocked around to the north, settled down, and by 0200 the wind quieted to 5-10 knots so we became a motorsailer for the rest of the way (~10 hrs) to Isla Carmen.

As morning broke, we listened to Don Anderson’s weather forecast on the Single Sideband (SSB) radio and learned Isla Carmen was right on a dividing line between a light North breeze and a light South breeze. At that time, our wind was from the south so we chose to anchor at Bahia Cobre (Copper Bay) on the East side of the island. It’s well protect from the South and West - and actually any light wind is not much of a concern given Begone’s 45 pound CQR anchor. Bahia Cobre was a lovely little anchorage that we had all to ourselves. Another promise kept from that brochure!

Navigation -- New school meets old school on Begone.

Navigation – Navigation in Mexico has its own challenges.  What you see on your GPS/Chartplotter can be off by miles.  Yikes.  So having a couple good looks at your route can be important. 

For example, on the way to La Paz, Begone’s JRC radar/chartplotter and I had not quite yet made friends.  But I charted a good course between Isla Monserrate and Isla Catalina.  Tom looked at the course and wanted to be sure we were seeing what we thought we were seeing so charted our course on his paper charts. 

“Uh, Suzanne.  You may want to take a look at this.”  Sure enough, my nice  little course could have taken us right across this nasty rock awash (barely noticeable on the chart plotter).  But thankfully, Tom and his “old school” paper chart navigation noticed the potential problem, and kept us out of trouble. 

As imperfect as the old paper charts may be in Mexico, using a combination of GPS/Chartplotter, paper charts, great cruising guides, GoogleEarth, sometimes radar, AND watchful eyes is how we’re approaching this navigation thing.

Begone - leaving San Carlos

Tomorrow (Saturday) morning we're ready to set sail. The plan is to head south to a little warmer latitude. As much fun as we’re having here in San Carlos, we’re forced to sleep under blankets and daytime temp is only topping out at around 60 degrees (apologies for whining to those of you in Alaska, Indiana, California…)

So many choices of where to go first – but we decided to head for Isla Carmen (26˚00’ N / 111˚.10’ W) on the Baja side of the Sea of Cortez. It’s about 110nm from here so it could be a quick 20 hours underway if we average 5 nm/hr (OK, we really don’t know how fast Begone will take us – we’ll let you know!)

Isla Carmen seems a fine place to anchor for several days, launch the dinghy and explore the island. We have taken it under advisement that we should wear bright clothes on shore. Something about long horned sheep and a new hunting lodge that recently opened.

Email and cell phone coverage may not be available until we’re in La Paz. That will likely be in a week or so. Best to you all.
Fair winds,
Suzanne & Tom

Practicing the art of Cruising...

San Carlos has been a great place to practice cruising as well as work on Begone Each morning we check in on the “San Carlos Net” for cruisers, vacationers and residents.
At 0800 on VHF radio Channel 72, the net controller starts with emergencies all then guides the group of ~20 people through check-in by harbor, a weather update, exchange of local knowledge on everything from recommendations for a local doctor to info on where to have your car tires balanced. Local activities are announced and items like kayaks and stainless tubing are swapped for “coconuts”.

It's a great way to start a day and to get to know your neighbors.

Speaking of neighbors...








Last evening we enjoyed dinner onboard Begone with Sausalito friends – Jenny & Randy on Mystic. I first met Randy and Jenny about a year ago on the brigantine Kaisei. And many know Jenny from the Lighthouse Cafe in Sausalito. They have been crusing on Mystic since February and what a pleasure to share dinner, stories and a little wine with a couple of fun, adventuresome people.

And this evening we absorbed as much Baja crusing knowledge as we could from Jeff & Janie on Adagio. This is their 3rd season in Mexico on their beautiful Passport 40 (what? get away from Oregon in the winter?). The Fish Taco dinner @ JJ’s with them was just a perfect send off.

Note – we think everyone coming to San Carlos should have fish / shrimp tacos at JJ’s – “Why not??!!!” “Who cares?!!!” as he always says.

San Carlos Marina - A very good place to be

In previous years, we hear that an open slip in the San Carlos Marina have been impossible to score, so we feel fortunate to be in B-12 in this beautiful harbor. But the even limited availability probably goes to confirm what we’ve heard about the reduction in cruisers in Mexico this year.

Why is this? Is there a shortage of adventuresome spirits? Is it the economy? I don’t know but I’m sure reports of the violence here in Mexico don’t help. It was a heads-up for us when we heard the Assistant Police Chief of the town of Empalme had been killed on Monday – especially given that we had just attended the big flea market in that town on Sunday and is only about 25 miles away from us - on the other side of Guaymas.

But our first hand experience has been so positive and we continue to meet great people here who have been friendly, helpful and enjoying life. We are certainly loving San Carlos!

Splashing Begone - 03 January 2011

Last Monday (Jan. 3), Begone was up in the work yard at Marina Seca (Dry Marina). At 0730 crew of 4 with walkie-talkies and a big ‘ole Caterpillar tractor pushing a 50’ hydraulic trailer pulled up to Begone, carefully lifted her on to the trailer and (this was the amazing part), drove her down the lane and made a right turn onto the busiest road in San Carlos taking her to the launch ramp about ½ mile away. Quite a sight to see!

Pickin' @ the Adlai on Christmas Night

A'relio (owner and master chef) and Tom and Suzanne enjoying a little "Love come Home" in the courtyard at the Departamentos "Adlai" hotel -- one of the most popular cruiser hotels in San Carlos.
Tom and Danny (fellow guest @ the Adlai) exchange a little bluegrass fiddle for violin lessons. While Danny picked up the bluegrass bow action, he was a bit unsuccessful at teaching Tom to play Pachelbel's Cannon. Quite a talented 13 year old! John and Dorothy Kiesling and I just took in the show!