Cruising Adventures of the Red Witch

March 1, 2023 Early in the morning on March 1, 2023 we pulled up our anchor from the La Paz harbour and headed out.   We radioed the port captain, and in Spanish we told him that we were leaving La Paz with three people on board, headed for Guaymas, with no return date.   We were excited to be leaving, but it also felt like we were leaving a home, Falcon’s hometown, where a lot had happened.   With zero wind all day we motored our way over inky, glassy-calm water up to Isla San Francisco.   Just as we were b-lining our way northwards, the warm water was just starting to return to the southern part of the Sea of Cortez and wildlife was easy to spot with the glassy calm seas.   We saw two whale sharks, several turtles, lots of jumping rays, and several rays swimming near by.     Seeing the jumping rays always makes me laugh as they hurtle themselves up and out of the water, sometimes quite high, probably about four feet.   They f...

February 27, 2023   On February 24, 2023 we received an email from the Canadian Consulate in Mexico City informing us that Falcon’s Canadian passport was being shipped.   We were given a tracking number and when we checked it, it said that the expected delivery date was Monday the 27th.   Yay!    Back on February 14th we had gone to the Mexican passport office to try to find out where in the process Falcon’s Mexican passport was.   We had gone with our Mexican friend so as to ensure that there was no confusion with the language barrier.   We were told that they were still awaiting confirmation of Falcon’s birth in La Paz from the health centre.   Since it was the doctor at the heath centre that gave us Falcon’s original proof of birth certificate and who had filed the appropriate papers, we contacted him on WhatsApp and he told us that his office had sent confirmation to the passport office on February 22nd.    Now, it was a week an...

February 21, 2023  Between the 16th and 21st of February it was Carnival in La Paz.   Before the preparation along the Malecon began, we didn’t even know that La Paz celebrated Carnival, but apparently it is actually the longest running celebration of Carnival in Mexico, and the people of La Paz take it quite seriously.   It was a six-day celebration that completely transformed the Malecon, which is the road that runs along the waterfront.   Brightly coloured, small circus-tent-like structures lined the roadway, making the whole strip look very colourful from the water.    Four main stages were assembled, and each night a variety of bands and performers played until 2am; it was incredibly loud.   Of course noise travels very well over open water, so we could easily hear each stage from our boat.   The few times that only one stage was playing, we could hear it so clearly that it sounded like we were seated in the front row.   Unfortunately, t...

February 1, 2023   After coming back from being out at anchor at the islands, we settled in to being at anchor again in the La Paz harbour.  We continued to work with the bureaucracy and wait some more in order to get Falcon’s Mexican and Canadian Passports.   During that time we enjoyed many long beach walks, some swimming, watching dolphins, foil boarding, and experiencing the beautiful sunsets of La Paz.   We had some cooler temperatures with some lows down to 13 degrees at night and some days with highs only up to 18 degrees, but when the sun was out it warmed things up quickly.   The increased cloudiness gave us some spectacular sunsets, but also some cooler days.   Since Falcon has become more and more alert and interactive, he has also begun to enjoy the beach more.   He seems to enjoy having his feet in the sand and in the water, and he will wiggle his toes and stomp his feet.   He also got to meet his first Pelica...

January 21, 2023   On January 21st the wind arrived, it actually came in overnight and we awoke to a windy, stormy anchorage.   We were well protected, such that only the strong gusts made it to us.   This meant that in between gusts the wind would drop right down, often to almost ten knots, but then with a vengeance the next gust would hit and the boat would shudder under its force.   Because of being protected from the wind by the hills and mountains, the large gusts were also funnelled down to us making the wind stronger at the water's surface than aloft.   At the top of our mast we clocked 34 knots, but it was stronger at deck level, and because we were not too far from land, there was very little fetch for the wind to build up the waves, but it was amazing what a 30-40 knot gust could whip up in seconds.   Blowing spray went flying past our boat, and we even saw a spray tornado form off of one of the points of land.   It remained windy for tw...

January 19-20, 2023   When we had arrived at Bahia Bonanza the wind had been blowing from the south, so we had anchored near the south end of the beach for the best protection.   With the forecast for the winds to switch to blow lightly from the north we moved to the north end of the bay to seek the best protection.   We were definitely protected from the wind, but as the waves built up out in the sea they began to wrap around the point that protected us, and our anchorage became more and more rolly.   On January 19th we pulled up anchor and headed around the south end of the island over to the east side so as to be well protected from the north and the west.   The forecast was for some strong northerly winds so we picked our anchorage carefully.   Before the strong winds arrived we had some time to head out in Kiki to explore our new area.   The coastline was very different on this part of the island.   There were smaller bays with beaches,...

January 18, 2023   The next day we once again packed a picnic and headed to shore to hike across the island.   We had not checked the distance of the hike as it didn’t look that far from up on the mountain, but it turned out to be further than we had expected.   It was over 5km one way, and being so flat and low there wasn’t much of a breeze until we got past half way.   It was a hot walk, but we had lots of water with us, and although the area was very interesting, it did get to the point that it felt like a bit of a hot desert trudge.   At first we were walking through a sandy plain, grown in with a variety of large shrub-like plants, and Jason carefully picked us a route through this area as most of the plants had large thorns.   The mix of large shrubs and small trees transitioned into smaller plants and larger cacti, and we followed the more open area along the edge of the red rubble rock that came down and formed a very clear ...