Passage from La Paz – Frailes

[Kyle]Leaving Marina de La Paz, our plan was to stop at two different anchorages for a final rest and organize before leaving the Baja Peninsula for the long ocean crossing. The legality of this was a bit fuzzy since we had only been given 48 hours to leave the country after clearing out the day before. Our dinghy was in full lifeboat mode for the crossing, so we had no plans to go ashore at either location, which meant that we were technically not reentering the country. A boat at anchor, even though it is hooked to the sea bed and not underway, is still considered to be navigating, since it is not at a berth. We were hoping to not have to argue the nuances of international maritime law with a patrol boat in broken Spanish, but at least we wouldn’t be there with no basis whatsoever.

Sunsets at sea - we love them...

We had a pretty slow night going through the Carralvo Channel, which separates the Bay of La Paz from the rest of the Sea of Cortez. It usually blows like crazy through there, so we had been expecting better progress. By morning, it was apparent that we were just barely going to make it to our first planned stop at Bahia de los Muertos before it got dark. With all of the activity of anchoring, getting settled and then having to leave the next day, we figured we wouldn’t be getting much rest, so we decided to skip it spend another night underway to get to our next stop at Frailes, where we had spent our first night at anchor after entering the Sea of Cortez almost three months earlier.

Provisions stowed - Flag has worked hard and can now be retired

We arrived sufficiently early the next day to have a whole 24 hours to rest up for the passage. Maryanne pre-cooked a bunch of food for the first few days.