What a month or so this has been! I
promise the Kyrie crew hasn't fallen off the face of the earth. I've
just, honestly, been enjoying myself too much to sit down and share
it all with you. We left San Diego with about 120 other boats on the
Baja Ha-ha on November 4th. Our friend Wade flew down to
San Diego to join us on the trip and having another adult on board
was wonderful! We've known Wade for about seven years through the
sailing club in Juneau, plus he has done the Ha-ha before. Wade
helped us with trimming the sails better, as well as taking turns on
watch so we all could have some more sleep! It made the multiple-day
passages much more palatable to have had six hours of sleep, instead
of four!
All in all, I think our
favorite stop on the way down Baja California was Bahia Magdelena. We
got there a day ahead of the rest of the fleet, choosing to only
spend one day in Bahia Santa Maria, and were very happy we did. Bahia
Magdelena, or “Mag Bay,” is gorgeous. I think we could have spent
a month there, just exploring. The first day, we went ashore to the
little village there and wandered around. A lot of the landscape near
the water was made up of uplifted seafloor. The kids (and the adults
too, frankly!) got a kick out of seeing so many shells embedded in
what looked like sand, but was actually about as hard as concrete.
Mag Bay also has a
beautiful palapa that some wealthy individual built years ago and
gave to the village. It has a roof made from woven palm fronds,
lights hanging from it, a wood-burning oven with a giant turtle shell
as a decoration, and a huge kitchen area. There are platforms
surrounding the palapa, designed for people to set tents up on. I
could handle that kind of camping—waking up each morning with the
beach directly in front, and then going down to the palapa to make
and enjoy a cup of coffee before breakfast.... Wait a minute! Isn't
that pretty much what I do every morning, minus the waking up in a
tent?!
I still have to pinch
myself, realizing that this is my life now. We have been saving and
working and delaying treats and telling ourselves for so long, “We're
doing this for a reason. We have plans we're saving for.” Now that
we're enjoying the fruits of our labors, it still almost seems like a
dream. People, Kyrie is finally in MEXICO! Oh my gosh, this is has
been so much fun. I know we were in Mexico almost the entirety of the
Ha-ha, but it finally feels like it now. We stopped in Cabo San Lucas
long enough to drop Wade off so he could fly back to Juneau and to
pick up all our paperwork for our official arrival in Mexico, and
then we got out of there. A storm, dubbed Tropical Storm Raymond at
the time, was bearing down on the Capes and we wanted to be out of
the area and somewhere safer by the time it arrived. La Paz was our
destination!
We stopped in La Paz for
nearly two weeks. The stop gave us some much needed down time to just
stay put and explore the town. Can I say that I love La Paz?
Population-wise, it's about the size of Anchorage, for all my Alaska
friends. It's a lovely mixture of locals, expats, and cruisers, and I
can see why so many people come to La Paz and end up staying for
years. We fell in love with the Mercado Bravo—an indoor market
full of produce stands, a seafood counter where a kilo of warm water
of shrimp cost us less than $20 USD, and loncherias with the best
empanadas I've ever had. We've been eating grapefruit and avocados
until... no, I can't say we're stick of them by any means. Everyone
we have encountered so far has been super friendly. Of course, it
helps that Megan has said “Hola” to everyone we walk past, and no
one can resist smiling at her and saying “Hola” or “Buenas
dias” back to her.
And now, it's time to
say good-bye, for at least a week and a half. We walked to our
favorite grocery store this morning to restock, filled our water jug
in preparation for deck showers, and checked out with la capitainia
del puerto. We're cruising past Isla Espiritu Santu, bound for Isla
Partida, just to the north, along with a bunch of other boats we know
from the Baja Ha-ha. The kiddos are excited about seeing some friends
again, as well as swimming in the water. I'm looking forward to being
out of town for a while. Joe already managed to catch dinner for
tonight—a lovely dorado!
We've been in Mexico for nearly a
month already and I still can't get over the fact that I'm sitting
here in the cockpit in shorts and a tank top and I'm totally
comfortable. We talked to Joe's parents on my birthday a couple of
days ago (side note: am I really 40 now?!) and they said it was in
the teens and snowing in Juneau. At the moment, I can't think of
anywhere else I'd rather be—chasing the sun with my family and
thinking about making a margarita after we drop the hook in whichever
bay we decide to hang out in for a while.
