Monday, November 09, 2009
Back in La Paz
With the approach of Hurricane Rick, which early on was being forecast as a very severe hurricane destined for La Paz, Shawn flew down early to sit with Om Shanti through the winds. Luckily the storm weakened and veered to the east, and the worst Shawn saw was heavy rains and flooded streets. I flew down a week and a half later after a nice visit with my family in Yakima, WA, and was pleasantly surprised by a very clean boat, completely put back together. After seven years of dirty boat yards and never ending projects, I was definitely given the princess treatment this year. We are currently in Marina Palmira enjoying life back in La Paz and soaking up the sunshine. We recently returned from a two day road trip to Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo for the awards ceremony of the 2009 Baja HaHa group. Our publishing company was a sponsor this year so we traveled down with Dennis and Susan of Ross Marine Services and welcomed this year's group of HaHa'ers. Our future plans remain open ended, but there's no better place to contemplate the future than peaceful La Paz!
La Paz Entrance Buoy Update
We heard over the morning net today from Tom of Baja Insider that the entrance buoys to La Paz might have moved around a bit after last week's high tides and the norther that blew through. We were curious so we took the dinghy, GPS and handheld depth sounder to check things out. Nothing too dramatic, just FYI.
La Paz Entrance Buoys
A direct line between the first red buoy (unmarked) and red buoy #2 takes you very close to the bar. The shallowest we saw was 5.8 feet at zero tide. My advice would be to steer clear of the red buoys and favor the first green buoy (unmarked) and green buoy #1. (These are the buoys in front of the Bercovich Boat Yard and Costa Baja Marina.) The unmarked red buoy and red buoy #1 have always been close to the bar so I don't know if they have moved or not. Red buoy #6 has actually broken away and is now sitting on the sand bar between red buoy #8 and red buoy #10. Looking down the channel you can see a long stretch with no red buoy (where #6 should be). Red buoy #6 is currently at 24 11.7N, 110 18.339W, but the next high tide might change that. Needless to say, don't steer towards red buoy #6. Red buoy #10 seems to have gotten a fresh coat of paint, however no one has bothered to repaint "#10" on the buoy - it's faint under the new coat of paint. Finally, red buoy #12 looks to be stretched to the end of its tether at high tide and is a little lower in the water than the rest, but seems to be in a good spot, although probably a new spot judging by its tether.
La Paz Entrance Buoys
A direct line between the first red buoy (unmarked) and red buoy #2 takes you very close to the bar. The shallowest we saw was 5.8 feet at zero tide. My advice would be to steer clear of the red buoys and favor the first green buoy (unmarked) and green buoy #1. (These are the buoys in front of the Bercovich Boat Yard and Costa Baja Marina.) The unmarked red buoy and red buoy #1 have always been close to the bar so I don't know if they have moved or not. Red buoy #6 has actually broken away and is now sitting on the sand bar between red buoy #8 and red buoy #10. Looking down the channel you can see a long stretch with no red buoy (where #6 should be). Red buoy #6 is currently at 24 11.7N, 110 18.339W, but the next high tide might change that. Needless to say, don't steer towards red buoy #6. Red buoy #10 seems to have gotten a fresh coat of paint, however no one has bothered to repaint "#10" on the buoy - it's faint under the new coat of paint. Finally, red buoy #12 looks to be stretched to the end of its tether at high tide and is a little lower in the water than the rest, but seems to be in a good spot, although probably a new spot judging by its tether.
