Blog Post 26 –  Liz and Max come for a visit

01/08/16

24:0.35 N – 110:1.57 W

La Paz, Ispiritu Santo, Todos Santos

My sister Liz and my nephew Max came to visit for a week right after New Year’s. We were excited to have them here. It was the first family visit (not including Daniel of course!) since we had embarked on this journey. Liz has stayed on the boat many times but it was a first for Max. For him, it was his first real vacation. They wanted rest and relaxation and most of all, beach and warmth, as they live in Northern California.

We had a nice weather window, so as soon as they arrived on January 4^th we took off again for Ispiritu Santos. It has become our favorite get away since coming to La Paz. This will be our 4^th trip there. This time we returned to Punta Bonanza beach. It is a large cove with a 2 mile wide white sand beach with great hiking and snorkeling. I have blogged about it before. We spent the first two days snorkeling and walking the beach. We had a great time showing them around. We played games at night and snorkeled and hiked during the day. Liz and I both love to beach comb for shells so we were in hog heaven, this beach is full of them. It is an east facing beach and the surf just pounds this place when the wind is coming from that direction thus dumping shells galore. We then took them to our favorite anchorage in Candelera Cove on the other side of the island for more of the same. After 4 days we were ready to return.

They wanted to see some more of Baja so we rented a car and took a road trip. I had read that there was a national Kiteboarding competition in La Ventana on the East Cape. None of us had ever seen one so we decided to go. In addition, the East Cape is a beautiful drive south from La Paz along the coast. The plan was to go to the Kiteboarding competition and then head back to Todos Santos. Jirig and Nico opted to stay in La Paz, Nico to hang with his friends and Jirig to do some work on the boat.

The reason that the Kiteboarding competition is held in La Ventana is that the East Cape gets almost continuous wind at this time of year. There is an island called Isla Cerralvo that is right off the coast and it makes for a virtual wind tunnel between the island and the coast that sets up perfect conditions for Kiteboarding. The drive there was spectacular. The desert was lush and green and the rolling hills and scenery were beautiful. It was great to be away from the boat on a road trip with Liz and Max. We had the stereo blasting and were singing along with the music.

It was not easy to find the actual competition but we stopped to pick up a hitchhiker (not to  worry,  clearly he was a gringo, he had his equipment with him and was heading to the competition) that turned out to be competing that day and he guided us right there. I have never seen so many gorgeous guys in one place in my life! Kiteboarding is a very difficult sport that requires significant strength and skill and these guys showed it. There were also many women competing and they were in tip top shape as well. We sat on the beach and drank beer while watching all the Kiteboarders set up their rigs. It was pretty cool to watch. The course was set up  with obstacles that the competitors needed to navigate around or jump over and the first one to the finish line wins. More often that not a group of them got all caught up in each other's rigs and were unable to complete the course. We had to leave before the final race as we wanted o get to Todos Santos before dark. We did not want to be driving through the mountains in the dark. We still needed to find a place to stay so we needed to get going.

As I mentioned earlier Todos Santos is an artists colony and has turned a bit she-she of late so it was not easy to find a reasonable place to stay for the weekend. We looked at several but we're not willing to pay $250 a night to stay there. We should have done our homework better.  We finally found a funky little place called the “Surf Camp” and that is exactly what it was. We stayed in their “penthouse suite”. Most others either were in Palapas, had small campers of their own or pitched tents right in the courtyard. It did have a saltwater swimming pool with a swim up bar though!

We spent the next day in Todos Santos, shopping and eating and generally enjoying ourselves and the scenery. Liz and Max were leaving on Monday so we headed back to La Paz.

It was a great visit and we were thrilled to have them.

But for Jirig, Nico and I, we were done with hanging in the marina in La Paz. It was time to do what we came here to do and that was to cruise up the Sea of Cortez…..