La Ventana lies about 15km from Lo Muertos as the vulture flies, if your not into wind or kitesurfing, then you probably have never of it. If you are, then you probably have. Anyhow, for either of those sports, it offers a fantastic location. Warm water, good wind and a long L shaped beach with a cross/ on shore wind, giving an easy start and the safety of a downwind shore. This, in combination with all the kite and windsurf school infrastructure you would wish for, make this a place to be.

Laura and Jason.

Looking across to Isla Cerravlo.

@Baja Joe’s

Kites

More Kites

Last morning at La Ventana

“The Bay of the Dead” is a useful staging post either on the way north to La Paz or on the way south back to Cabo San Lucas or as a jumping off point into the Sea of Cortez heading toward the mainland ports of Mazatlan or Puerto Vallerta. Our intent is stop for a couple of nights on our way to Isla Isabella on the way to PV and to pop over to La Ventana – more on that later.

Despite the name, Los Muertos is beautiful anchorage, well protected from the prevailing NW winds with soft white sands, with the choice of a restaurant (“1535”) at one end and the El Cardon resort at the other. Also sharing the bay is a bevy of local fisherman who drive their trucks down to launch their pangas early in the morning.

Aphrodite in Los Muertos.

View toward El Cardon Resort.

Panga fisherman’s trucks on Los Muertos beach.

El Cardoncito is a small anchorage on Isla Partida, just north of the Caleta Partida anchorage which is adjacent to the channel between Isla Partida and Espiritu Santo. There is room in El Cardoncito for just a couple of boats and we were the only one there for the first night.

El Cardoncito anchorage.
On the second day we were joined by Osprey who had stopped over at another anchorage on the ways up to the islands. We had great fun with Kirk and his family over dinner and going ashore to beach comb.

Osprey in El Cardoncito.

El Cardoncito and T/T Aphrodite.

In the afternoon we did some spinnaker pole swinging from Osprey – a first!

Mexico is fun!

La Paz means “Peace” and even though anything after Cabo would be considered “peaceful”, it lives up to its name.

It took 3 days to hop up to La Paz stopping at Los Frailes and Los Muertos overnight. We caught some fish along the way..

Preparing breaded Mahi-Mahi roe sautéed in garlic and butter as an appetizer for the Mahi-Mahi fish tacos. Yum!

A peaceful corner in La Paz.

This VW bug expresses a lot about La Paz. One of those thousand word picture thingys.

La Paz waterfront looking toward Costa Baja and Marina Palmira.

Looking the other way toward the anchorage.

Laura said “pick the cafe where the old local dudes hang-out. She was right.

Callejón La Paz.

Our previous stops reflected the rugged remoteness of the Baja Coast. Not so Cabo. The appearance of a Mickey Mouse eared cruise ship as we approached the bay foretold of the shock that we would experience in our return to civilization. Overnight we had nothing but the twinkling of our co-traveller’s running lights to accompany us, but suddenly we were surrounded by water taxis, tourist boats, big game fishing boats and swarms of jet skis.
We refueled waiting to see whether we would be given a slip for the evening, as late entries to the HaHa, this was unlikely, especially since there was a big money sport-fishing tournament going on there were many boats (and a few mega yachts) in town. We had to return to the anchorage for a while and prepared to go ashore in the dinghy, but just as we’re about to jump in, we heard that Aphrodite had got a slip (or at least a share of one). Ashore we were gently accosted by street peddlers selling silver trinkets and small wooden toys.
In the evening after a break for some food, we joined most of the rest of the HaHa fleet at “El Squid Roe” which is zanier than it sounds, but a good time was had by all!

Our new friends “Rubber Duckies” after leaving Bahia Santa Maria.

Genna doing homework in the pre Cabo tranquility.

Peggy relaxing

Danger! Mouse!

The arch at Cabo.

Approaching Cabo San Lucas Marina

If you’re in Cabo and need some bread, this is the place to go. Marcus bakes a variety of breads from around the world and does it properly. San Francisco sourdough, Italian focaccia, New York rye, German pretzels and French baguette are a few of the fine things he has on offer.

Bahia Santa Maria is a vast, beautiful, unspoiled anchorage on the Baja Pacific coast. As you can see we easily fit the entire Baja HaHa fleet in with no crowding and plenty of room to spare.

We arrived in the morning and used the rest of the day to go ashore and explore the beach, collecting a couple of sand dollars (which are many and large) as we went.

The following day was the day of the Bahia Santa Maria beach party, the kids and those young at heart played in the surf and most of the adults gathered around the action on the top of the bluff, rocking out to the music and from the band who had travelled many miles overland (dirt roads) to get here. Much fun was had.

BSM Beach Fun

Party Central

Parking Lot

After the beach party we invited a few of the boats with kids to Aphrodite for dinner. Certainly the most people we have ever had on board!

Dinner on Aphrodite

Boy, are we behind with our updates!

On Turtle Bay there is a small dusty Baja town that lives mainly from fishing. The arrival of the Haha is a big deal here and it is given a warm welcome.

A big event is the baseball game with the locals in which a lot of the fleet play with kids from the town. The rules are relaxed and the scoring even more so, but the since the measure of success is the amount of fun had by the largest number of people, then it is time to pitch in and enjoy yourself. Check.

The infield at Turtle Bay

Looks more like a Cricket Player to me

You can participate in many other activities whilst in Turtle Bay – like walking the dog.

Walking the Dog in Turtle Bay

We left Turtle Bay the day after the Beach Party for the 2-day run down to to Bahia Santa Maria. We soon got back into the rhythm of the boat, enjoying the spectacular sunsets and the welcome sunrises after long nights on watch.

Sunset

Another Sunset…

Grilling Fish Underway

Robert is always happy

We had beautiful sunsets the first evening.

The next morning we were still motor sailing through most of the first day out, so we tried out the new fishing gear we had picked up in San Diego.
We had watched “Kinda Blue” who weren’t too far from us pull in a couple of fish, but things were quiet for a while and Peggy and I had gone down stairs to take a nap.
We both woke with a start at the sound of the reel paying out line fast. When we got back on deck, Richard was busy pulling in his first yellow tail tuna!

Later that day, the wind picked up enough to sail and set the spinnaker for while. In the evening the winds cooled off a little and enjoyed views of Paul and Janet’s Talos IV.

The next day, we managed to sail the full day, flying the symmetrical spinnaker for a while, before the winds got too high. We passed between Cedros island and the San Benito islands at dusk, and then had fantastic winds on the stern throughout the night, pulling into Turtle Bay around 9am the next day.

We had fantastic weather for the the start of the Baja. Though the air was warm, the winds were a little light. The Fleet paraded through San Diego Bay, with the fire boat and the TV crews there to meet us. With 330NM to go on the first leg, there wasn’t a lot of jostling for position at the start line, instead we had a rolling start with most people under power, slowly leaving San Diego behind us and passing between the Coronado Islands on our way south.
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