Wednesday 17 February 2016

BACK IN LA PAZ ... and ready to RUMBLE !!!


BACK IN LA PAZ … and ready to rumble …..

 February 12, 2016 ... the Kemps and the Talbots flew in to San Jose del Cabo via Calgary (after flight delays in both Vancouver and Calgary... should have flown Air Canada, eh Jeff !! ), then hit a 70 minute line up at Mexican immigration… ”longer than usual” so we were told !! …. Needless to say we missed our reservation for the ground transportation to La Paz.   BUMMER …..

Cam and Lawrence caught the next van/bus and Penny and I followed an hour later.  We all met in La Paz, grabbed a bite of dinner in a GREAT little restaurant on the malecon then grabbed the world’s smallest cab (with 4 of us, plus a driver and 4 suitcases) and headed to the marina.   We looked a little like the Clampets ..... 

All was well when we arrived … the boat was all cleaned & waxed and (our boat minder) Francisco even had his interior cleaners go through and clean the inside … complete with fancy folded towels, rose Kleenex flowers and little special soaps tucked into the “shell” towels … very fancy.  SO nice to arrive to a spiffy clean boat (especially after a 17 hour travel day !!)

We connected up with Ken and Christy on VARNEBANK, Jerome and Karen on DAYBREAK and Christopher and Diana on COLIBRI (friends from the CUBAR) and met our marina neighbors in their Nordhavn 60 called RELISH, Birge and Beth and Trigg.  It was great to reconnect and find out where everyone had explored and get their recommendations on MUST SEE places.  After many visits over coffee and a couple of GREAT dinners together, our friends headed off in various directions, leaving the Talbots waiting for Penny’s twin bro Peter to arrive and us waiting for our “crew” … Barb and Doug Vincent. 

During the couple of days between arriving and departing for our first grand adventure in the Sea of Cortez, we had some maintenance issues to deal with & much provisioning to do!!  So we got right to it all …. Cam had a few mishaps with fluid changes emptying themselves into the bilge (NOT happy) and I am sure I have forgotten to grab something at the store, but we will not go hungry.  We got to check out La Paz and it is CHARMING !!!   GREAT restaurants, a beautiful sea wall walk along the water (malecon) ,  very good provisioning (big box grocery) and GREAT local mercados (markets) with everything one needs .... cactus .... new and interesting cuts of meat .... very different cheeses ... all good !!!

Monday morning, we took a break from “chores”, joined our neighbors from RELISH,  and went swimming with the whale sharks.  VERY COOL !!!  The water was gorgeous and the juvenile sharks are very docile and not the least bit frightened by people swimming near them.  According to our guide, swimmers are not allowed to touch them and we were warned to not get near their tail fluke (don’t have to tell us twice) …. But we got some GREAT photos and GREAT video of the whole experience !!
The whale sharks ....
 

THESE are juvenilles !!
 

They are quite docile and are comfortable with people "up close and personal" ....
 




Barb and Doug arrived Tuesday evening in time for burgers on the BBQ … a little visit and off to bed to be ready to head out in the morning.


And …. We’re OFF ….. to Ensenada Grande on Isla Partida for our first nite. 

 

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