November, 2012

November brought the much anticipated arrival of our guests from San Diego, Kristin and Shawn. NEOS had been thoroughly cleaned and scoured and all was ready. We met them at the marina office on the morning of the third and spent a great day out on the Bay. The wind was perfect and we sailed for almost 3 hours. Then, back to La Paz to drop them off. In contrast to our Mexican couple last month who wanted the sale of the boat to happen quickly, Shawn and Kristin are much more cautious and are not quite ready to take the plunge. They continue to look at boats on the East Coast and, who knows, they may come back in the future.

Three days later, we welcomed friends from back home, Lloyd and Terry Hawkinson. They arrived on the late shuttle and we met them at the bus station. We stopped at the Super Burro for dinner on the way back to the marina and then spent the next day in La Paz. We ended up walking all over town sightseeing, looking for the great shrimp taco stand (which is across from Allende Books but NOT on Allende Street), picked up a prescription for meds and took the bus out to the hospital to pick them up, and ended up at Chedraui to stock up on groceries for their 10 day stay. Terry and I took a taxi back with the groceries and Rog and Lloyd hoofed it. By the time they got to the dinghy, we had everything loaded up and had filled the water jugs. We bought a bag of ice and headed out to the boat.

The next day, we headed for Balandra. This is such a beautiful bay, we thought they would enjoy it. They spent much of the day out in the kayak exploring the reefs and beaches. That night, I remembered why we prefer to stay in Caleta Lobos. Every time we are in Balandra, the night winds are horrendous. This night was no different. In the middle of the night, Rog and Lloyd saved our lounge cushions from going overboard and we all got an uneasy sleep.

From Balandra, we headed to Caleta Partida and ended up staying about 5 days. There was a front coming through and it was a great place to weather the storm. Lloyd and Terry usually got in at least one kayak adventure a day and we had fun chatting and playing a different game each day. We spent 2 days in Ensenada Grande and met a couple from Colfax while we were out tooling around in the dinghy. We had a great chat, then moved on. Heading south again, we stopped for one day at a new spot, Ensenada de la Raza. We all jumped into the refreshing water for a swim and Terry stayed in for close to an hour snorkeling all around. The next day we stopped at Caleta Lobos and took a long hike on the south tip of the bay. Then it was back to La Paz for a bit more shopping before they flew out on the 20th. Great visit with great folks!

We spent a quiet Thanksgiving back in Caleta Lobos and returned to La Paz on Monday, the 26th to welcome our buddies, Russ and Janet, from their stateside trip, due back late that night. Tuesday morning we headed into town to run a few errands while we were sure they were sleeping in. We stopped at the clubhouse to see if they were up and about, but didn’t see them. We stopped at Marina Cortez and reserved a slip for our Christmas trip, headed off to the bus stop to buy the shuttle tickets to Cabo Airport, stopped at the doc’s office for my prescription, bought material for the dress up clothes we are making for the grandkids’ Christmas present, then headed to the hospital to pick up the prescription.

We stopped at Mega on the way back into town to pick up a few things and found our friends shopping there. They had a rental car so drove all of us back to the marina, then came out to NEOS for a LONG overdue Baja Rummy game. It was great catching up on each other’s adventures with the HUGE news that they have decided to become CLODS (cruisers living on dirt) as well. They will put the boat up for sale and hope to get a fifth wheel and do some travelling. They had hoped to splash when they returned from their trip, but the yard had not done the work they were supposed to do while they were gone, so they ended up staying in the yard the rest of the month. This gave them time to start offloading and preparing the boat for sale. We, meanwhile, left La Paz and stayed in Caleta Lobos, preparing NEOS for another prospective buyer coming in December.