We began our sailing adventures in 2005 on the Baja California
Peninsula in La Paz, Mexico, where we had left our boat for
several weeks over the holidays and New Years while we flew home
to visit friends and relatives in Seattle, returning to La Paz
in early January.
After several days of boat projects and provisioning, we
departed La Paz on Tuesday the 11th, spending the evening in
nearby Balandera Bay, a pretty little cove near La Paz which we
had been wanting to visit for some time. This is where the
famous "Mushroom Rock" - a prominent, precariously balanced
natural sea stack - used to be. Years ago, the wave action and
hurricane winds finally won out and it fell over and even though
there have been many attempts since to both cement it back up
and even replace it with a fiberglass replica, there is nothing
there now.
The weather on our first day out was completely calm, still and
hot. The entire Bahia La Paz was glassy smooth, perfect
conditions for RJ to test out his new wakeboard he received from
Santa. But that evening in Balandera, the diurnal breeze picked
up considerably from the SW and finding ourselves on an
uncomfortable lee shore, we were forced to move to better
protection across the cove during the night - something we loath
doing here since among other things, the electronic charts of
the area lack detail and are off in some places by several miles
(see the photo on the next page) making them all but useless for
close-in midnight navigation.
But all turned out well and we spent the following several days
in the better protection of Bahia De Los Meurtos and then Bahia
Los Frailes (see
Cabo San Lucas to La
Paz for details and photos of these great
spots) working our way back south down the Baja Peninsula before
making the 220 mile crossing of the Sea of Cortez from Los
Frailes to Isla Isabella, dodging the fishing boats and their
miles of unlighted long-lines along the way.
Isla Isabella (known as the "Galapagos of the Sea of Cortez") is
simply a magical spot with many thousands and even tens of
thousands of nesting sea birds along with land iguanas of every
size. Long before you spot the low-lying island rising from the
haze, you call tell where it lies by the huge swarms of birds
circling above it. The birds have no natural predators on the
island, so they are completely unafraid of people, allowing us
to get
extremely close. We took many photos (hundreds actually, of
which only a few are posted here) of nesting
Frigate Birds with
chicks, nesting
Sulas
(Brown, Blue and Red Footed Boobies) as well as Herman's
Gulls, Brown Pelicans and even the occasional Tropic Bird. We
also saw many whales, dolphins and leaping Manta rays on our
crossing and even had a few suicidal squid and flying fish hitch
a ride along the way!
As always, click on the images to see a
larger view.