Agua Verde to La Paz

We were having some issues with a few things on the boat:

The Mercury outboard quit working,

the SSB radio could not transmit voice messages,

and the auto pilot would not correct to port,

so after two weeks in Agua Verde we decided to make our

way to La Paz to get everything fixed and instead of crossing

over to the mainland we decided to fly to Mazatlan to meet the kids.

We are now in La Paz and Jim was able to fix the autopilot with

some trouble shooting conversations with the manufacturer,

both outboards were fixed and tuned up by "Sea Otter Jimmy" 

and the SSB guy is coming to the boat on Monday to (hopefully) fix the SSB.

We will be in La Paz for a month or so. 

Our stops between AV and LP:

Puerto Los Gatos:
We knew our friends on Three Hour Tour were headed north to
Loreto and we were headed south so we tried calling them on the
VHF radio and they answered! We met in Puerto Los Gatos and
had a fun afternoon and evening - no other cruising boats,
but the National Geographic small cruise ship anchored behind us
and all their passengers were taken ashore to have kayak and snorkeling lessons.
Puerto Los Gatos is NOT a big anchorage;(

Isla San Francisco:

We stayed here a few nights. While we were there both the National

Geographic cruise ship and the Safari Endeavor (Uncruise) ship

spent an afternoon and evening here (on different nights). Below

is a picture of the guests of the National Geographic ship having a buffet dinner

on the beach (we weren't invited:)

There was an amazing sunset that night:

View of the bay from up on the hill (tried cell, but no joy)

Puerto Balandra:

This is a shallow bay and the tides were very low.

We took the dinghy in. These photos are from the west side of the bay 

looking at the boats anchored WAY out there.

This is a daytime destination for a lot of tourist boats out of La Paz

so it is noisy and busy during the day, but very quiet at night.

Because the tides were so low this snail was stranded.

We helped him find a puddle to wait out the tide.

Loomba-Loomba anchored in Balandra:

The bottom line for our cruise from San Carlos to La Paz:

Winter in the Sea of Cortez is cold and windy (relatively speaking), 

and the anchorages are more crowded with lots and lots

 of charter catamarans, mega yachts, and mini cruise ships.
We much prefer the fall and spring on Baja.