66 days in La Paz and counting... (Part 1 of 2)

S/V Pacific Mystic
Eric & Valerie Wagoner
Tue 26 Jan 2010 00:00
Considering we hadn’t envisioned to stop in La Paz or even in the Sea of Cortez in our original cruising plan out of Seattle, we are the first ones surprised by our extended stay here. But in retrospect, it isn’t really surprising.

 

The truth is the past couple months since we’ve arrived in La Paz have been a period of adjustments to our new life. I’m referring to the life without a job and therefore without a regular income and without a daily routine. In other words, I’m talking about our big adventure. That’s what we wanted, right? Easier said than done. The reality is it has left us both, Eric and me, in a great deal of confusion and made it difficult for us to talk about it even to each other as we were going through it. We needed a period of transition which we hadn’t accounted for in our original plan.

 

Our state of confusion was greatly heightened by the fact that Miette disappeared at the beginning of Dec. We eventually found her on Jan 2nd. But needless to say that the holidays were not quite the same without her for the first time in 12 years. I find it difficult to understand how she kept herself alive during the 26 days she was on her own. She was very thin and looking a bit catatonic after we found her. But after just one week, she bounced back to her old self. She's been eating like a champ, and in a little over 3 weeks now since we found her, she has regained the 2 pounds she had lost and started playing again in the last few days. Her disappearance and return have definitely changed our perspective on the trip 180 degrees around a couple times. We stopped questioning the why and how of the whole experience. We're simply happy to have her back. 2010 could not have started any better.

 

Despite all the talk about confusion and heartache over the temporary loss of Miette, we have had some good times too in La Paz. We’ve continued to enjoy the great friendships that have developed since we started on our trip. At the beginning of December, we were able to visit our friends Gay and Troy and their 2 children Havana and Hudson in Cabo San Lucas while they were vacationing there. Last week, our friends Dave and Rebecca visited us in La Paz. The 4 of us went to Isla Partida in the Sea of Cortez and had some great fun snorkeling. Chris and Duane on ‘Risk Taker’ joined us too. We buddy boated with them from La Paz to Isla Partida.

 

One thing we knew when we left Seattle was that we had 2 options as to where we could spend the Winter months. We could either make an attempt to dash out to the Caribbean by the end of November and await favorable weather in the late Spring to cross the Atlantic.

But most likely, we would have to winter in Mexico  and wait for the next proper weather window in mid-March to go over to the Caribbean. We didn’t have a plan as to what we would do while in Mexico. We didn’t plan to stay in La Paz, just like you don’t plan when and where you’re going to encounter your great love. It just happens. In the end, La Paz was a great place to spend the winter months, watch our own drama unravel and hang out to ponder the kind of life questions Eric and I have been pondering. Amidst our own drama, we discovered that the climate here is very mild in the winter and much more to our liking than the higher temperatures a little further south of the country would have been.

 

Soooooo. How much longer are we planning on staying in La Paz? Hopefully, not too much longer. We are now eager to resume our voyage and we hope to do so in a few days. One of our initial reasons for pulling into La Paz was that we needed work done on the engine and we wanted to install a windvane. With the most recent events of Miette’s running away and getting lost, we also decided to have some mosquito net panels made for the cockpit, which would double up as kitty enclosure too. We had heard that La Paz was really the last port before the Caribbean to find skilled workmanship to work on cruiser boats. (Central American countries apparently have no services to cater to cruisers needs.) Only problem is that things take much longer in Mexico than they do in the US. And while we started hiring out for the work we needed to be done and looking for parts we needed before Christmas, it has taken this long to get the parts and get the work completed. As of today, our windvane is installed, our mosquito netting panels/kitty enclosure are finished and our engine has a brand new heat exchanger and oil cooler. The only things we are waiting for are for our engine starter and alternator to be rebuilt and reinstalled. Our mechanic hopes to get this completed by this Thursday at the latest. The forecast calls for some fair weather through the rest of the weekend. So as of today, we anticipate being back on the road, or more precisely on the ocean, by the end of this week. Next stop: Puerto Vallarta.

We’ll keep you posted when we get going.

 

Following are the highlights in pictures of our life since our last post, between 12/9/2009 and 1/24/2010, in chronological order.

 

Visiting Gay and Troy in Cabo San Lucas (where we returned by land this time): 12/9/2009 – 12/11/2009

 

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       View of the front courtyard from our guest room wing

 

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       Gay and Havana

 

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       Troy, Gay and Havana at breakfast

 

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       Valerie and Havana in the pool

 

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       Eric sporting his new signature hat on the back patio while checking his email

 

 

La Paz - 12/14/2009

   

Views from the top of the hill behind the marina where we’re staying in La Paz.

 

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       Chris of ‘Risk Taker’, Vicki of ‘Inspiration at Sea’ and Valerie of ‘Pacific Mystic’ made it to the top!

 

 

Dock party - 12/23/2009

 

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Christmas Day Dinner at the marina

       Our table…

 

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       Terry and Heidi of ‘Cetus’; Dianne of ‘Adirondack’

 

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       Valerie of ‘Pacific Mystic’; Jim of ‘Adirondack’ 

 

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       Eric and Valerie of ‘Pacific Mystic’

 

       At another table…

 

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       Monica and Scott of ‘Scott Free’

 

       At the buffet table…

 

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       Wally of ‘Stella Blue’ and Vicki of ‘Inspiration at Sea’ are carving turkey

 

 

Saying goodbye to our friends on ‘Luna Rossa’: 12/28/2009 – 12/30/2009

  

‘Luna Rossa’ is the 98-foot Sun Seeker that was moored right next to ‘Pacific Mystic’ since we arrived. If you want an idea of what a Sun Seeker looks like, check out Casino Royal, the first James Bond movie with Daniel Craig. It is the big yacht one of the bad guys toward the beginning of the movie lives on.

On ‘Luna Rossa’, there were no bad guys. Instead, there were 4 live-aboard crew members: Salvador, the Captain; Mario, the Engineer; and Dante and Sergio, deck hands.

We’ve been very fortunate to get to know them in the time we spent together in the marina and had some wonderful times with them.

On Dec 30, the owner of ‘Luna Rossa’ sold the yacht. He is having another one built, which will be ready in May. So the crew went home till then. Home is in Puerto Vallarta for Salvador, Mario and Sergio, and in La Paz for Dante. Salvador, Mario and Sergio took Luna Rossa’s tender across the Sea of Cortez to go home to Puerto Vallarta.

 

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        Luna Rossa’, which was renamed ‘Ornella’ by the new owner is leaving the dock with Capitan Salvador at the helm 

   

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        Mario and Dante getting ‘Ornella’ ready for hand-off to the new owner

 

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        Goodbye 'Luna Rossa’, hello ‘Ornella’

 

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        Dock folks saying goodbye to our friends of ‘Luna Rossa’.

       (From left to right: Eric of ‘Pacific Mystic’; Salvador, Sergio and Mario of ‘Luna Rossa’; Suzan of ‘Apple II’, Cricket of ‘Fusion’; Bill of ‘Apple II’; Charlotte of ‘Wilfull Simplicity’.)  

 

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        Mario, Salvador and Sergio leaving for Puerto Vallarta on the tender to ‘Luna Rossa’

 

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        Adios, Salvador, Mario and Sergio. Nos vemos en Puerto Vallarta en pocas semanas!

 

 

Goodbye dinner for ‘Little Lara’ at the very nice Buffalo BBQ restaurant in the Center of La Paz – 1/11/2010 

‘Little Lara’, the smallest boat on the Baja Ha Ha 2009 fleet, went back home on a truck today after a couple months in La Paz.

‘Little Lara’ and ‘Pacific Mystic’ were just a few slips over from each other in Marina Palmira.

We had dinner with Peggy and Jay the night before they flew back home.

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          Peggy and Jay of ‘Little Lara’ at Buffalo BBQ