Sea of Cortez Bahia Los Frailes to La Paz April 17 through April 26

 

Sea of Cortez: Bahia Los Frailes to La Paz 104 Nautical Miles

April 17 through April 26 

Back in the Sonoran Desert!

Most of the Baja Peninsula is within the Sonoran Desert. I love and generally prefer the tropics - lush vegetation, coconut palms, neo-tropical and tropical birds, mango and other fruit trees - but the Sonoran Desert is home & there are definitely familiar comforts in the desert .I love that wet things dry within 10 minutes after hanging them, I don’t sweat immediately after I get out of the shower, my hair actually dries during the day, the amazing sunsets, and the sunny climate.  

 The contrast between the sea and the desert is beautiful too.

 

Los Frailes was our first anchorage on the Cape.  It has a nice beach located partially within the Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park. 

Cabo Pulmo has excellent diving, the only hard coral reef in the Sea of Cortez and is known for the opportunity to dive with hammerhead sharks.  There are a lot of rays in the area too – saw well over 50+ of them jumping out of the water for some reason.  We stayed in Los Frailes for two nights.

Cocktail I made for Los Frailes - I started making a unique cocktail for every SOC anchorage

Our second anchorage in the Sea of Cortez was Ensenada de los Muertos.  It has one restaurant and a small housing development. The area also attracts charter fishing customers from the US/Canada.  We took the dinghy out fishing and easily caught several Cabrilla (Spotted Sand Bass) near the rocky shores. 

Cabrilla don’t fight at all – in fact, it felt like you had a log on your line when reeling them in.  We didn’t keep any of the Cabrilla because we didn’t know what they were awhen we first caught them – I have a hard time killing things in general so I definitely did not want to kill them if we couldn’t eat it.  Apparently, they are really tasty and on a lot of restaurant menus.

 

Sunset in Bahia de los Muertos - No Filter! 

 

Sunset #2 in Bahia de los Muertos - No Filter! 

We left Los Muertos early Saturday morning early to avoid the northerlies & currents that can make boating through the Cerralvo Channel uncomfortable and slow. The channel is between the Cape and Isla Cerralvo (also known as Isla Jacque Cousteau) and winds funnel through the channel, which makes for excellent kite boarding & wind surfing.  Along the way, we fished and caught some black skipjack, which are no bueno to eat so we threw them back, although they are fun to catch and put up a fight - We broke one of our fishing rods reeling it in! 

Forty-five miles & 8 hours later, we arrived at Pichilingue Beach and anchored for a half hour or so.  

It’s a beautiful beach but super popular and we didn’t want to be around so many other boats, so we pulled anchor and went to La Paz. 

La Paz (translates to the Peace) is the capital of Baja California Sur (BCS) and is a fairly large city.  Tom & I spent about 4 weeks or so in La Paz in the past – taking our ASA sailing certification classes, shopping for boats. It has a really nice Malecon, plaza, great restaurants, a decent airport, and some cool old churches.  It's cool to see the locals and families use the Malecon and beaches, especially on Sundays.  La Paz also has a lot of ex-pats living in the area so many of the locals speak some or fluent English.  

It is a large boating community with a huge diversity of boats from boats that seem to barely float to amazingly huge super yachts – similar to La Cruz but La Paz has many more super yachts.  I don’t know what the technical definition of a “super yacht” is but if the yacht has a tender almost as big as our sailboat, more than one tender,  a helicopter pad, a swimming pool, a gym, or anyone of these things, then I think it would qualify as a super yacht.   

 

La Paz has several marinas, but they are consistently full and kind of pricey.  So, we anchored in the La Paz channel, which is an easy dinghy ride to the dock at one of the marinas.  Anchoring is free and usually quieter than marinas. Plus, you get to see cool things, like dolphins at sunset!

We anchored right in front of the Mexican Navy base – I was a little worried we were too close, but it seemed fine (there’s no way we could anchor that close to the US Navy).   

Many boats – including the large super yachts – anchor in La Paz as it’s a great area to cruise with islands, good fishing, and beautiful beaches.    

In La Paz, we stocked up on provisions, enjoyed supporting the local restaurants, bars, and shops, and got some more fishing supplies (new rod), including this huge net!

Sunset over the La Paz Anchorage

Enjoying dinner & drinks at Harker in La Paz