La Paz to Mazatlan

After 3 months in La Paz, I was ready to make my first true passage over to Mazatlan. Total distance is about 220 miles, thus doing 5-7kts leads to a 40-50hr trip. I planned on 48hrs at 5-6kts and found out I was way off! We left La Paz around 8:30am on the 3rd and sailed into Mazatlan around 12am on the 5th. The winds were good the first 20hrs and we were able to cut the engine and enjoy a nice sail. Leaving La Paz, we had some porpoises (not sure what the plural is nor do I care) and a whale join us. I tried to get some pics but the water was rough and it happened way too fast. After my shift on the first night (3am), Rick came up and the winds died. We rolled in the jib and motored the rest of the way.

Coming into a new harbor at night is difficult and a bit scary; attempting to go into Marina Mazatlan for the first time at night is just stupid. With that said we anchored off of Deer Island just off the beach, had a celebratory beer and crashed hard. We woke up the next morning and decided that after 48hrs on the water, we didn’t have enough! We set the sails and headed south along the city front. We had an amazing sail with perfect winds. We headed out around Deer Island and motored into the Marina. Just to the south of Deer Island we noticed some rocks. We checked our GPS and paper charts and didn’t see them marked anywhere. There was a shoal but no rocks. We gave it a wide berth the night before (due to the shoal) but after looking at our course on GPS, we were a bit too close for comfort. Eyeballing it, we missed them by 20-30 yards! Lesson learned I guess or rather hope.

Rick and Fran had to leave the next day so we took advantage of the night. We grabbed some much needed showers, had a few cocktails on the boat, and then took the bus into town. We had dinner and enjoyed some margs. After losing the ability to speak, it took some time to learn the buses stop running at 10pm. We found a cab (more like one of those VW “things” in the 70’s) and made it back to the Marina before midnight.

Rick and Fran caught their flight and I cleaned up the boat. They were great crew and I already miss Fran’s cleaning. Hopefully, they’ll join me on another passage in the future.

I’m getting all my paperwork done including a visa that will allow me to work down here if I wanted to. I’m also getting my import permit on my boat, thus I’ll finally be “legal” in Mexico. Tomorrow, I start exploring Mazatlan. It’s a lot different from La Paz, with more English speaking natives and more nightlife! It's how I pictured (and wanted) Mexico to be!

More later, Dan