Blog Post 20 – San Jose del Cabo

November 16, 2015

22:51.91 W – 109:54.44 W

What a blessing to be out of Cabo San Lucas! San Jose del Cabo is much more to our liking. The 16 mile trip was nice, the coast is lined with mega mansions and resorts. The marina is spectacular probably the nicest one we have ever been in.  It is large and was built about 10 years ago, so it has everything you could possibly need The docks are brand new, the  slips are huge and the amenities are first class. It is expensive ($90 per night) but it is worth it. There is a beautiful little beach called La Playita right next to it. We took the dingy there many times to swim. The beach was completely deserted every time we were there. Nothing like the craziness of Cabo.  The marina sits right next to an estuary that is like an oasis in the desert. There are over 100 species of birds that live in the estuary as well as numerous lizards and other reptiles. Jirig and I took a bike ride through the estuary. There is a sculpture garden, a botanical park and a huge cactus garden. After experiencing the barren desert scenery all the way down the peninsula it was nice to see some green for a change.

The marina has a bike path that surrounds it that has incredible sculptures everywhere. There are two restaurants and dolphin discovery center. We spent a week here waiting for a weather window and always had something fun and interesting to do. I wanted to explore the estuary in more detail and there is a trail called La Sendero that goes right through it. I talked Nico into coming with me as Jirig did not want any part of it. It was an ill-fated bike ride. We rode our bikes to the trail head where the estuary empties into the ocean. It had been washed out last year by hurricane Odile. We asked an American nearby if the trail was good past the entrance and she assured us that it was. Big mistake. We carried our bikes through the mud and guck and got thrashed. Nico kept saying “mom this is not a good idea” but I did not listen and pushed to continue on. There were bugs and slimy things everywhere. When Nico stepped in mud up to his ankles he had had enough. It was time to concede that he was right. So we had to carry our bikes right back through the mud to get out. I consoled him with a delicious gourmet hamburger in town. Of all the adventures we have been on together that was the first time he insisted that we stop.

Nico really wanted to swim with the dolphins at the discovery center but at $200 bucks an hour I figured our money was better spent elsewhere. San Jose del Cabo is a small little town about a mile and a half from the marina. It has a beautiful and traditional town square, with block after block of little shops and eateries. We even found a French patisserie that had real croissants and pan de chocolate! There were numerous fancy tequila stores and more jewelry stores than you could count. But it wasn’t the junk stuff you found in Cabo but really nice artisan workmanship with none of the hustle you got while in Cabo. There is a tourist district lined with mega hotels and resorts but it is far from the little town center. The only time we went there was to go to the MEGA grocery store. It was the nicest grocery store I had seen in Mexico and rivaled anything in the states.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

We have become quite the weather experts. There are so many websites and apps for marine weather you can take your pick. As long as you have an internet connection or a cell signal you can get all the weather information your heart desires. The weather is extremely important on a boat. The difference between 10-15 knot winds, which is perfect for us, and 25-30 knots winds is night and day. It is the difference between being comfortable and being miserable. Our boat can take the winds and big seas but us humans, not so much. We learned our lesson on the trip from Turtle Bay to Mag Bay and did not want to repeat it unless absolutely necessary. That is the nice thing about not having a schedule to keep. We can wait out the bad weather and never have to subject ourselves or our boat to it.  Our apps were telling us that the winds and the seas were terrible going around the East Cape and would be for the next few days. There were over 40 boats in the marina waiting for a good weather window to head to La Paz. We were in good company and made many friends while we were there. We even ran into a couple from Santa Barbara we had met last summer in Marina Del Ray. You could tell theirs was a cruising boat due to all the equipment on board. We struck up a conversation and shared some resources but to run into them on the dock (their boat was right across from ours) in San Jose del Cabo was pretty cool.

There is a fantastic reef called Cabo Pulmo that we had planned to stop at along the East Cape but since we were stuck in the marina due to weather we decided to rent a car and go there.

Figure 4 -The Container Restaurant. Built in a 40ft shipping container!

Figure 5 - Sunset  in the marina

Figure 6 - Fishing Boats in the marina

Figure 7 - Inside the church in the square

Figure 8 - Inside the tequila store

Figure 9 - Some really cool doors in the town

Figure 10 - with equally cool door handles