La Paz to Cabo San Lucas — INDEPENDENCE CHRONICLES

We leave Marina Costabaja to spend a couple nights at Marina Cortez (3NM) where we can walk into the town of La Paz. We have a great evening enjoying some of the final celebrations of Semana Santa with street vendors selling food and gifts. Part of the malecon is closed to traffic for music and dancing and families gathering to celebrate their time together. We pay a visit to the ‘Tequila Bar’ and get to know some of the locals and some of the expatriates, then trundle back to the boat happy to have enjoyed our final evening in La Paz. From La Paz we visit a past anchorage off of Playa Bonanza (19NM) to hide from the North winds and transit the next day to Bahia de los Muertos (40NM). Along the way we see Mobula rays jumping out of the water like popcorn popping, seal lions floating on the glassy water surface warming their fins and Gray whale mothers tail slapping while their calves hop about like puppies. The following day the weather is not conducive to our available anchorage so we press onward to Cabo San Lucas (86NM) and get into the marina a day early. The last couple miles of transit are against the wind and waves and as we pull into the famous bay of ‘Los Arcos’ it is quite the mayhem of tourist boats, fishing boats, superyachts and tenders all racing about combined with a stiff 13 knot breeze. Dealing with all the traffic (while on the phone/radio ) Larry secures our slip while I scurry about setting dock lines and fenders. Larry does a great job navigating the crazy traffic within the breakwater walls and the meandering fingers of the marina, eventually locating our dock and slip. Of course the wind gusts while we try and dock amongst million dollar sport fisher yachts but finally we are secure. We delay the tempting cold beer until we have washed the salt and grit from the Independence. When we can finally sit down it is well after sunset and we get to witness the parade of tourist boats returning to the marina from the sunset cruises. Their passengers are well lubricated and make for great entertainment as they twerk and gyrate their way back to their docks….more Baja ‘wildlife’!