We just spent a week exploring a few of the beautiful islands north of La Paz. After a lunch stop at Puerto Balandra and the famous mushroom rock, it was onto Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida. Over the next 5 days we anchored in Ensenada de la Raza, Caleta el Candelero, Partida Cove and Ensenada Grande. All were lovely bays with clear water and large beaches. Great places to do some snorkeling, kayaking and beach combing.
In Ensenada Grande we even went searching for Boobies. Settle down guys! These are the famous Blue Footed Boobies and they are a species of bird. Yup, your right not nearly as interesting ? Either way we did not manage to see any.
From Isla Partida we moved to Isla San Francisco. It’s a good thing we had guide books with pictures of the bay and our iPad with Navionics charts because the Garmin charts we run in our chart plotter were completely wrong. The red overlay in the picture shows the radar image of the bay we are in. The yellow in the chart is what is supposed to be the land and it does not even show the bay.
There is an awesome beach in the bay and trails that lead you to the top of the hills surrounding it. The views are amazing!
We had to do the cruisers equivalent of mowing the lawn as well. This involves jumping in the water with a scrub brush and cleaning all the sea weed growth off the waterline of the boat. Its hard work trying to hold yourself in place while the current is moving you, the wind moves the boat and every motion you make pushes you in a different direction. But its 28 degrees outside and the water is 25 degrees so its still better than mowing the lawn.
Partida Cove will likely to be one of our all time favorite anchorages. During the day we spot turtles and even a pod of dolphins came through the anchorage. When its dark, we turn on our “fish movie”. The blue underwater lights attract all kinds of sea life, everything from sea lions, rays, tons of fish and pelicans that appreciate their dinner lit up for the pickings. We walked past the fisherman’s shacks and noted the unique construction that still managed to include a satellite dish in there.
We are back in La Paz for a few days before we cross the Sea of Cortez to the Mainland where we will leave the boat in Mazatlan while we go home for Christmas.
Will update in a bit.