Sailing, Singing, Side-Trips, & Sea Lions

The winter cruising season is slowly winding down here in La Paz, and everyday more slips open up in the marinas as boats depart for their summer homes.  For some boats it means a storage yard in places like San Carlos or Guaymas (northward on the Mexico mainland side of the Sea of Cortez), and for others it means taking off on the "Baja bash". The "bash" is the long, often arduous trip around the southern tip of Baja, past Cabo San Lucas, then northward up the ouside of Baja to the United States. Since winds generally blow NNW to SSE, the "bash" is predominently a motoring trip, engines running 24/7, 5 knots/hour, for 1200 miles to San Diego. 


And still other boaters choose to transport their boat via Dockwise, a very efficient but expensive freighter service.  With a Dockwise transport boats are motored into the waterfilled hold of the freighter where divers secure each boat with underwater supporting stands.  The hold is then closed, drained of water, and the boats are left standing high and dry for their trip north. For a still-novice boater like me, the notion of many boats being motored into the hold of another, bigger boat is quite amazing...

Bayfest 2010, the annual cruisers' club three-day celebration, was great fun.  Music, seminars, wine-tasting, art shows, volleyball, dinghy races, sailing races, quilting classes, jewelry making, plus a variety of other events made for a most enjoyable time. With my friends Larry Whitney on drums and Stefan West on bass, and me on piano/vocals, our little trio "Helado", performed for two hours for listening and dancing on Saturday night at Bayfest. Larry came up with the name "Helado"....it means (ice cream) smooth & cool. 

With our good friends Larry & Erleen Whitney helping us crew, SEA STORY took 2nd place in our class on Bayfest Sunday's Race from Roca Lobos to the public dock in La Paz.

Bayfest Awards!!!  Yea!

Friends Butch & Cynthia traveled with us last Sunday to El Triunfo, a small community back in the hills about an hour's drive southeast of La Paz.  Like many communities in Baja, El Triunfo is rich with history and culture.  After Calfornia's 1849 gold rush began to thin out, many miners headed south to Baja in search of more gold. El Triunfo grew as silver mining began there, and remnants of that industry remain today.

Jerry & ML walking through the El Triunfo mining site.


Our visit to El Triunfo was on a day of big celebration.  The new plaza was dedicated, the Governor of Baja California Sur was in attendance, and the streets were filled with arts & crafts venders, food stands, bike racers, and families gathered under trees and awnings to laugh, eat, and enjoy a very typical Mexican Sunday.  

Mexican dancers in the El Tiunfo Plaza

A stop at the El Triunfo Cultural Museum.  

This remarkable horse was created entirely from palm trees....
bark, branches, palms, wood, coconuts, 
right down to the frayed eyelashes, mein and tail.  Simply remarkable!

Waitress bringing our pizza from the wood fired oven at
Cafe El Triunfo.  

Cafe El Triunfo...a gem of a place!

We also enjoyed a very special day at Los Islotes, or Seal Rock, where scuba divers and snorkelers can swim with the sea lions.  After a hour and half very fast ride in a panga (Mexican utility boat) from La Paz to Los Islotes, we joined the sea lions in the water.  They are simply playful and seem to really enjoy the company of us curious folk....

Our friend Butch is a scuba diver and wonderful underwater photographer.  
This is one of the hundreds of photos he took that day.  Isn't that face and graceful body amazing??!

One of the seal pups thought it was fun
 to nip at Butch's fin. No fear, only fun....

Our time here in La Paz is quickly drawing to a close, and preparation for our trip north has begun. SEA STORY will begin the bash on Saturday, May 1st....weather permitting....and we should arrive in San Diego approximately 10-14 days later. We will have veteran bashers, Connie and Dennis, with us on our trip...I'm the bash newbie onboard. I'm excited!! There will undoubtedly be lots of time for story-telling and world-problem-solving sessions and book reading, when we're not sleeping in preparation for our 3-hour watches, that is!  In the boating life winds and weather dictate, so we may have to tuck-in and let the wind blow for a day or two (or more?) on the way north.  Luckily we're all retired, so we're free to take our time. We'll be fine...it's all part of the life.  And it is indeed a wonderful life!!

More another day....
ML