Safe and Sound In La Paz

Let me say first that this portion of our passage was begun after six days with less than four hours sleep, by yours truly. My accuracy might be a bit questionable, as much of this trip is rather blury. I will do my best to give an accurate account, although the order of events might be off a bit. After Judy's encounter with the whales we proceded into the Sea of Cortez heading for La Paz. The weather was good with mild winds not exceeding eight knots.We expected to make it to La Paz in a day and a half at the most. Unfortunately, it did not work out as expected. We sailed throught that day and into the night without any exciting moments. They were yet to come. A little after midnight I checked the GPS for distance remaining to La Paz. Now there is two ways to get there. One is to go between an island and the Baja peninsulla, continuing north until you reach an opening off the port side which enters the bay right above La Paz. The other is to skirt the outside of said island and go around the north end of another island dropping down into the bay, but much further north. I opted for the shorter route which enters the bay slightly above La Paz. The only problem with this route is that in the opening to the bay there is a large shallow danger area in the middle of the opening and it is too shallow on the north side to even consider. The distance was great from our position, but if I increased our speed to seven knots we could make it there in time to navigate the channel to La Paz before dark. So, a little after midnight I poured the coal to her and off I went. Judy was asleep below and I was having a hard time keeping from nodding off at the helm. It was very cold, which helped a little but at the same time made it miserable standing at the wheel in the wind. A little before daylight I was watching the GPS intently, as I was getting close to the channel between the island and the peninsula and was concerned about depth as our sonar was out. When I looked up there was a dark shape to starboard that should not be there. AS I reached for the throttle to slow down, another dark shadow appeared off the bow. I throttled back to an idle as land became visible directly in front of me. I turned the wheel hard to port and slowly made a u turn. I had run into a dead end and if I wouldn't have looked up at that moment, we would have grounded. I traced my path back out to safe (deep) water, shut the engine down and started rechecking coordinates. The coordinates on the GPS coincided with the charts. This didn't make sense. I almost ran aground. I rechecked the GPS track and it showed the boat entering the channel where it was supposed to enter. The GPS turned out to be eighteen miles off. At this point I lost all confidence in a GPS. At this point I changed my course to run outside the island as I no longer trusted the GPS to go through the opening with the danger area.




As we rounded the point on the north end of the island the sea had become angry and the white caps were enlarging considerably. I had a couple of rods out with a couple of magnum lures on that I had been trying to drown since my GPS fiasco to no avail. The wind was up and the current strong, pulling us south. There was a buoy ahead that I rounded on the north, forgetting about the fishing lines behind and the southerly current. Would you believe that it snagged both lures? Yep, I did a dandy job of losing both lures. The person who owns that trap will be delighted when he discovers two brand new $27.00 lures attached to it. In the seas that prevailed at the time, I was not about to stop and try to retrieve them. We could now see the island at the head of the bay that we must round. It was about eighteen miles distant. By the time we reached the lower end it was getting dark and the weather had become very bad. The sea was now raging. The currents were very strong, the wind howling, and the waves the size of two story buildings. By the time we reached the head of the island it was pitch black out. We tried to round the head but could not make any headway. At this time I began to hallucinate due to sleep deprivation. I asked Judy to take the helm she did but we still could not make any headway. At that point I decided to head north east out to sea. I went out into the sea approximately four miles to lie a-hull and wait for daylight. The current and wind were pushing us in a southerly direction so I had to keep a vigilant eye on the drift, as we were on a leeward shore. Once again the GPS failed me as we drifted towards the island shore. According to it we were a good three miles from shore when I noticed the high swells on the south side did not recede as the boat rose. That indicated that the dark outlines were not swells, but land. Sure enough it was. I throttled up and headed offshore again, going out even further this time. When daylight came we headed towards the point of the island. It took several hours to clear the point beating against the high breaking waves, the current, and the wind. Once around the point it was a downwind sail into the bay.



The channel entrance into La Paz is poorly marked, but once into it, it is okay. We tried to contact the marina on the VHFs but the mike was out on our main radio (we discovered later) and the hand held wouldn’t reach out far enough. We finally got the marina on the cell phone and made arrangements for a slip. It was touch and go for awhile there, but we made it okay and are now safe and secure in La Paz Baja Sur, Mexico! I still want to go fishing. Maybe after repairs this time.