After months of steady southbound miles to Cabo, we turned north again and let ourselves slow down in the Sea of Cortez. Our distance weekly average for the 2025 sat at 156 nautical miles, and the average for the last 6 weeks of the year was 40, a 75% drop. After the fast pace and constant socializing of the Baja Ha-Ha, we stayed put for a full week in Los Frailes just to recover. Days fell into a rhythm of sunsets, winging, snorkeling, and keeping an eye out for passing pangas.
Los Frailes also became the handoff point between boat life and land life. My mom and brother flew into Cabo with plans to drive north to Cabo Pulmo, a small town centered around a marine protected area and an active dive community. My brother missed his flight, leaving my mom alone on the dirt roads with a GPS pin I’d sent for Discovery. Mason and I arrived about ten minutes late at sunset, but luckily we made contact just in time thanks to waving arms and car horns.
We left the boat and Loops on anchor in Los Frailes and spent the week on land. Cards were a daily activity, usually paired with tacos and beers on the beach. We snorkeled from the boat and at Playa Arbol, spotting more than ten sea turtles. As full-time cruisers, we indulged in land givens: multiple showers a day, uninterrupted sleep, no dishes, and walking into town without worrying about getting soaked in the dinghy. We highly recommend the Palapa restaurant!
La Paz was where we intended to stop moving altogether. We took our time getting there, breaking the passage with stops at Bahía de los Muertos and Balandra Bay before finally dropping anchor.
Arrival meant checking in over the radio in Spanish. Mason took French in high school while I took Spanish. Mason was less than impressed with how much of it remained under pressure (just wait until we’re in French Polynesia mister!) Without visual context clues, the VHF exchange went something like this:
“Puerto Capitanía, Puerto Capitanía de La Paz. Discovery”
“Discovery, uno-cuatro”
“Uno-cuatro”
“Hola Discovery”
“¡Hola Puerto Capitanía! Este es el velero Discovery. Llegamos de Espíritu Santo. Tenemos dos personas a bordo. Nosotros anclar en La Paz.”
Something in Spanish we barely understood
“Ummmm no comprendo…¡Gracias! Discovery, uno-seis.”
We spent 5 weeks in and around La Paz. We biked and walked the Malecón, hiked up to the caves, and spent an enormous amount of time winging. The anchorage isn’t known for clean water, but it turned out to be the perfect classroom. At previous anchorages, every attempt at getting up on foil ended the same way: I’d drift downwind and Mason would come rescue me in the dinghy. The strong current in La Paz changed everything, carrying me back upwind for each restart. By the end of our stay, I was riding on foil consistently and working on my gybe to toe-side, trying to eliminate the need to crash at every turn. Getting me into wind sports beyond sailing has been a five-year journey for Mason. Many tears were shed in the OBX, Jones Beach, Hood River, Lake Washington, Naples, and Jetty Island. Shout-out to my husband for continuing to push me out of my comfort zone.
Life in La Paz wasn’t just physical. We fell in with an eclectic cruiser crowd: yogis, illegal shroom business owners, biology teachers, Apple software engineers, a proper Montana cowboy who trained dog sled racing teams during the winter season, recent lawyers, and CEOs still running their companies remotely. It’s hard to imagine crossing paths with many of these people in our Seattle life. When you’re anchored out, you’re eager to talk to someone other than your boatmate and you don’t really get to be picky about the company. On the way to the dinghy dock, we’d usually run into one or two people we knew. Mason would try to beeline straight for the dock, while I grabbed the tiller and detoured to a friend’s boat for a quick hello. Mason’s social bar is thriving!! Through our cruising socialization, we also developed a reliable appreciation for mezcal and Pacifico Ballenas.
For Mason’s birthday, I bought him a speargun, and we spent a few days on Espíritu Santo catching and cooking dinner. On our first venture out, we both naively assumed we wouldn’t catch a thing. Instead, Mason we returned to the boat with two fish Mason shot, while I managed to hit a rock. The next day we came back with two more, this time including a beautiful snapper, courtesy of yours truly. We shared our catch with Mike and Stephanie from Stella Blue, a Saga sister ship. Hopes were high that the fish count would continue to rise.
Family time folded naturally into our La Paz stretch. We picked up Mason’s parents on the 20th, did some last-minute provisioning, and swam with whale sharks, one of the region’s winter highlights. Around fifteen juvenile whale sharks visit La Paz each year to feed, moving constantly with their mouths wide open as they filter plankton and anything slow enough to get caught in the flow. The first jump in was intimidating, mostly because of their size and speed. By the second and third swims, knowing what to expect, it became calmer and almost meditative. Whale sharks are spotted along their backs, and while not factual, a favorite local story is that those spots mirror the stars on the day they were born.
Despite the multiple bouts of Montezuma’s Revenge, we celebrated our version of a Seven Fishes dinner on Espíritu Santo featuring tuna tartare, lobster and crab bisque, and blackened fish tacos. Spearfishing was less successful this time around, yielding just a parrotfish and a chub. One of the harder lessons has been realizing that skill matters less than simply knowing where the fish are.
Eventually, La Paz pulled us back in for one final reset. We restocked the boat with enough food for three weeks, whether that carries us north to Loreto or across to the mainland. We caught the new Avatar movie with spectacular visuals, albeit a familiar plot, and took stock of the year. We accomplished our two main goals of 2025 of leaving the dock and making it to Mexico. All told, we covered 4,755 nautical miles and are looking forward to spending the rest of the winter moving slowly through the Sea of Cortez.
