BACK TO LA PAZ

We've returned to La Paz to reprovision before we head north into the Sea of Cortez for more adventures. We left Caleta de la Isla on Tuesday afternoon, February 12 and arrived here just before sunset. Shortly after we finshed anchoring the the Fat Tuesday Carnival Parade started down the Malecon and provided several hours of entertainment.

We caught a very nice Pacific Sierra Mackeral (we think that is what it was a Sierra or maybe a Cero) on the way down here. They sure are tasty! But, I don't understand why a 30" long Mackeral would hit a 9" lure. Are they really that aggressive?

We had to return to civilization because our second propane tank was getting very low. We'll spend a week or so here in La Paz and then head further north along the west side of Espiritu Santo. We're going to get a third propane tank so we can stay out in the islands for at least a month.

While at Caleta de la Isla we hiked up the valley that led from the beach to the 2000' rock wall at the east side of the island. You can see a picture of the valley toward the end of the February 9 2002 log entry.

The valley floor was open arid grass lands with a variety of cactus and other plants with big thorns. Why is it that every plant in the dessert has thorns?

The area around each big plant is so neat and tidy, almost like someone had done some serious landscaping with rocks and bonsaied plants. We kept thinking that the entire valley looked like a formal dessert garden you would expect to see around an expensive home in Phoenix.

Some of the cactus were pretty strange looking, at least to our Pacific Northwest eyes that are more used to evergreens and moss.

That is not a skull on top of the cactus, it is just a growth, at least that is what we thought.

We kept finding these hollow woody things around the cactus. We finally figured out that when a cactus limb dies and all the green vegetation decays away it leaves the wood matrix behind.

Arlene has been talking about making salads out of the fruits that grow on the end of each arm of the prickly pear cactus . The round fruits, shaped 'sorta like a pear, are called "tunas" and are supposed to be sour and good. Well, she found out why they are called "prickly pear"."

You can see the tuna on the rock by Arlenes right knee in the photo below.

The fruit is tasty but the skin, which she didn't peel off, is covered with tiny, almost invisible, fuzz that turned out to be fine little thistles. After the first bite her tongue and both lips were covered with hundreds of stickers.

In this photo Arlene has just realized what she has eaten is now stuck in her lips.

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We took turns pulling the stickers out, it took about an hour off and on. She did remember that the recipe suggests peeling the skin but we didn't have a knive to use for peeling.

The articles she has read say that the fruit has excellent medicinal qualities.

Finally, here is the view of our beach from the hill to the Northeast. We call it our beach because not a single boat came into the cove during the 11 days we were there.

Every day we would see two to ten sailboats and the occasional motoryacht headed north or south, just outside the cove, but none ever came in to explore this lovely place.

That is the Portabote sitting on the beach. Those rows of rocks just off the beach appear to be an attempt to create a fish pen or some other kind of tidal pool. They were submerged at high tide but dried out at low tide.