Our nerves and weak tummies were grateful for our arrival into Puerto Los Cabos Marina. The large swells and high winds were overwhelming us and others…..as the marina was trying to squeeze in as many boats as they could.
The sun would be going down with just a small amount of twilight to motor into the marina. Dan had just woke up from a short nap after getting a bit seasick. I was glad his nap made him feel better. We really weren’t sure exactly where our moorage location was and the waves, wind and current were still fighting us and keeping us on our “A” game as we were heading in. We were lucky in that we had a nice Mexican dock guy waiting to help and direct us once inside. Fighting the waves had reduced but the current and wind were still hitting us hard. We finally made it in safely and felt very lucky to have a place to get out of the elements.
The next morning I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and braved the opening of my galley cupboards. During the rough seas the day before I could hear the dishes, glasses, bowls, etc. moving and sliding as we were taking hits to the port and starboard sides of our boat. We weren’t rigged for sea, which I normally stuff towels into the cupboards to keep it all from moving and sliding and breaking. I had broken one glass already by just opening one of the doors too fast and it fell out. I could only imagine the mess of glass and such. i was fearing disaster, and carefully opened up the cupboards. I was shocked. Totally and amazingly shocked at what I saw…… Nothing was broken. Plates had slid across and on top of glasses and all my glasses were tipped over or laying down on top of something but nothing more was broken. What a blessing!
Dan was working on our AC Power outage. While we were getting hit with waves in Cabo our inverter snapped and went out. At the time we really weren’t sure what happened except with one hard hit to our Port side it snapped and all our AC power went out. Dan did his investigation while trying to get it going again. His theory is that while the inverter was under load, the wave hit us and vibrated the batteries/case which blew the main DC fuse and shut down our AC power. We are looking at more secure battery and cable tie downs for this issue. Back in business with new fuses installed, and more spares.
We spent a few days at Puerto Los Cabos and found an easy and nice cantina at the head of the dock that we enjoyed afternoon margaritas and nachos, with a great view of course. We just took it easy for a couple of days and planned our jump to Marina de La Paz. We hadn’t decided if we wanted to do it in 1 long day or 2 short days and anchor someplace halfway. We were a bit shy of anchoring after what just had happened to us. So we decided to make the jump in one day and travel a bit faster to get in through the La Paz Harbor channel at sunset.
We had a beautiful run but knew getting through the unknown channel would be the hard part. Finding the mouth where the first buoy was the hardest part as the sun was setting and object looked different with shadows, clouds and dusk impacting our view. But we made it with Dans careful motoring and I was pointing out each buoy with a large spot light.
The “Baja Ha-Ha’er” had a one last event in La Paz the next day, with food, dancing and celebrations. We were really glad we went as we met some nice folks Janet and John from Tango and Jan and Dave from Severance sailboats.
We invited them all over for dinner and a view of what our motoryacht looks like.
Dan and I spent Thanksgiving day mostly apart from each other. I had my final day of my open water scuba diving certification with “Cortez Expeditions”. Two days and 4 dives later I’m a certified scuba diver. I was so exhausted but we went to the cafe in the marina for a Thanksgiving Turkey dinner. I didn’t eat much and quickly went to bed and slept for 12+ hours…. But we are so thankful that on this Thanksgiving day we are in paradise and I was conquering just one more of my fears. Dan and I missed our wonderful family during the holiday but are excited to be home for Christmas time.
John and Janet from the Tango sailboat invited us for celebration champagne on their vessel a few nights later for my successful scuba certification. They have a beautiful boat and we got to know them better. A few nights later we got together with our friends from Portland, Deborah and Bob. They live 50% of the time in thier La Paz home.
We went to an amazing restaurant and Dan ordered one of their most expensive appetizers, 20 month aged pork sliced very thin.
Our friends Ken and Cheryl joined us for our last couple days in La Paz. We asked them to help us with the trip to to Mazatlan & Puerto Vallarta. We planned some fun activities in La Paz which included snorkeling with the whale sharks. It is an amazing & unforgettable experience. I would highly recommend it, if you haven’t done it.
Whale Sharks are the largest fish in the world. They come to La Paz in winter/spring to feed in the rich waters. They move slowly through the water, filtering thousands of gallons of water, gleaning nutrients from the rich waters of the sea of cortez.

We also did a bit of grocery shopping before heading out. Which I quickly get reminded of how different it is here in Mexico. One way you can purchase your meat here is on on open table, unwrapped, help yourself. They were frozen and on ice, but I choose not to get any.
The next morning we were up before the sun and preparing to leave just as the daylight broke. Our plan was 34 hours to Mazatlán, stay a few days in El CID Marina, then a 32 hour run to Puerto Vallarta at Paradise Village resort and Marina, as our final destination for this leg of our trip.
Adios La Paz, we hope to see you again someday!
Next is our adventures in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta with Tigers, iguanas, & crocodiles OH MY!!!!!