La Paz to Puerto Escondido

Though we left the states six months ago, we finally spent our first two weeks cruising north into the Sea of Cortez. It is as beautiful as anyone could ask. The clean waters, abundant sea life, sparsely inhabited land, miles of beautiful beaches, the austere desert beauty marching right down to the Sea just adds up to a breathtaking experience.

Our first stop was in the islands of Espiritu Santo and Partida which are slightly north of La Paz. They are nature preserves, so few inhabitants and no dogs allowed. It was hard for Rudy, but fantastic for us. We spent nearly a week there at a couple different anchorages. We filled every day with combinations of snorkeling, fishing, swimming, hiking, kayaking and hanging out. We saw sea turtles, sea lions, mantas, and thousands of tropical fish all swimming around our boat. At Ensenada Grande, we anchored in 10 feet of water over sand. Just a Minute looked like a toy boat in a swimming pool. The water was crystal clear and we easily watched manta rays feeding under our boat, and all the curious puffer fish that found shelter under our hull.

Our next stop was Isla San Francisco, a small island with rugged volcanic rock cliffs. We all went for a hike one evening up to the top to see the view. The sheer drop off the other side of the ridge line had all of us a little wary, except for Rudy. Good thing we had a leash on him. We spent two nights there, building rock towers on the beach, snorkeling and hiking.

Somewhere around this time, Patrick and I realized that we really wanted to get back to Bahia Concepcion - one of our favorite places we stayed on our honeymoon fifteen years ago. So we decided to pick up our pace and head north much faster. With that in mind, our next stop was Punta Telmo. On the passage to Telmo, a couple dolphins gave us the show of a life time. They swam right in front of our boat and launched themselves high out of the water. They only did five leaps, but it was spectacular. We caught a little footage of it but please forgive the crazy focusing -between my excitement, the moving boat and trying to keep the camera from getting splashed by the dolphins, I only got one good leap on film. We will try to figure out how to post video on the blog.

We were only going to spend one night at Telmo, but it was sooooo beautiful we stayed two nights. This point of land has fantastic red rocks that look like piles of slightly melted soft ice cream, with swirls and rounded contours. The beaches were some of the most beautiful I have seen yet. The second night a local fisherman came to our boat, asked if we wanted lobster and when we said yes, he moved his boat about 100 yards from ours, stripped off his shirt, dove in and brought us up three. All for about 10$. Yummy!

We pulled ourselves away the next morning and made it to Agua Verde. Another absolutely stunning anchorage. We will definitely return another time, but the pull for Conception Bay kept us moving. We left the following morning (which is today) and ended up in Puerto Escondido. This is the first port we've been to with Internet and we will stay here one night and leave tomorrow.

Since pictures are worth a thousand words, I will just forgo any more descriptions of the beauty around us and load the pages with pictures. Enjoy!

Laura