STRONG WINDS & BIG CURRENTS IN LA PAZ

It is Monday, December 18, 2001 here in La PaZ, Baja California Sud. We are anchored off the commercial dock, about a 1/4 mile from the beach, in the heart of La Paz. It is beautiful. There are miles of nice beaches with one and two story buildings across the street from the beach. The commercial pier is just the small dock, kinda like Old Town in Tacoma, where the 100' sight seeing boats tie up. The picture below is looking from the shoreside of the pier towards Mirador, anchored behing the big power boat tied at the end of the dock.

We are quickly learning the "La Paz Waltz" which is the dance Mirador does as the wind and tidal currents struggle for control. The wind has been blowing from the north at 20 - 30 knots all day. Right now it is 24 knots gusting to 28. The ebb tide current is flowing directly into the wind at 2 knots. Mirador currently is sitting with her STERN pointed into the wind since the current is stronger than the wind.

But we swing about 100 degrees each way as the wind increases or decreases. Now we are broadside to both the current and wind. The wind waves are about 2' and the rigging is howling. We have an anchor bouy out. It is strange to see the bouy 60' astern of us in 25 knots of wind. The anchor rode goes straight aft from the bow and is rubbing on the keel. Oh well - this is Mexico and stange things are common.

There are about 100 boats within a mile of us and they all point different directions. We are anchored near, really too near, a Vagabond 47 (Garbi) from Santa Cruz. We have been talking with them during the last hour as we swing different ways. We are afraid that we are too close to Garbi and may swing into her when the tide changes to a flood around 6 PM this evening.

We planned to go grocery shopping this afternoon but the wind is so strong and waves so choppy that we are reluctant to put the Portabote in the water. I think we'll just stay on Mirador one more night and try to get along with early November's groceries.

We left Estero Ballandra at 10:15 AM Sunday after a very uncomfortable night. We planned to motor to the inner La Paz anchorage.

The Coromuel wind came up last night at dusk and blew 15 - 20 until 4 AM. The Coromuel is a West or SW wind that blows many nights around here. It is caused by the land cooling faster than the sea. We were quite exposed to the 4' swell caused by the Coromuel blowing over the 20 miles of Bahia La Paz.

At 10 PM I was on the bow sprit checking the anchor when a big wave came thru. The bow sprit was underwater, as were my feet, before I could move. Then I was seven feet in the air as the stern dropped into the wave. It is miserable down below when the boat is pitching that much. We seriously considered moving to the other side of the cove for a little protection from the westerly swell. Good thing we didn't!!

By 5 AM the wind was blowing over 30 out of the North. We were well protected by the 50' high rocky point just to our North. If we had moved we would have been very exposed to the North wind and swell. By 9 AM the north swell was up to 4' and it was wrapping around the point and bouncing us around. We hauled anchor and made our way into La Paz by 12:30 AM.

While we were motoring from Ballandra to here we were trolling a blue Rapala off our medium big rod and reel. We heard and saw a Big strike and the line really started stripping out. I picked up the rod and started to reel, with the star drag very loose. Then bang and no fish, no lure. Whatever it was it made easy work of the line on your reel. I think it is 60# line? Maybe I should replace it if we are going to hook into such big fish!

Finding our way down the 200 yard wide La Paz channel was fun. The channel is seperated from Bahia La Paz by 1/2 mile of water only 3' - 5' deep. The channel is dredged right up against the cliffs and rocks on the La Paz city side of the bay. The problem, only in Mexico, was that the red and black bouys are so old and the sun was so bright that we couldn't tell the difference in color. We had to keep the red bouys on our right but often couldn't tell if a single buoy was red or black, even when we only 10 yards from it.

We experienced our first grounding today. We dragged the keel thru less than 4.5' of mud several times as we explored the El Mogote anchorage across the channel from La Paz. Hurricane Juliet really changed the channel and anchorage and our charts don't show the new shoals. Just as we hit bottom one of the local boats hailed us "Mirador - watch out for the shoals!" I just increased power, spun the boat, powered out of that mud, hit another mud spot, and then got directions from the local boat on how to cross the channel and not hit the flats. Whew!

We think we are anchored in the 'virtual' marina that Martin and Sandy spoke so highly of. There are no docks or piers, just a big anchorage. But there are swimming pools, palapas, showers, dinghy dock, and all the other ammenities that cruisers love. We think the price is $77/month to anchor here. There are two dinghy docks, one about 300 yards away.

The Picture to the right is looking up the La Paz "Malecon" which is the waterfront street we are anchored off of.