Hi from La Paz

Bread as good and chewy as Acme, yummy cherry tomatoes a la Berkeley Bowl, buttery baby lettuce and smoked marlin? Yes, it all exists in La Paz ( the city of Peace), the largest and not very touristy city on the east side of Baja. We just got back from a little farmer's market, and enjoying some of our favorite foods reminding us of the Bay Area. Grant you, due to the prices I only saw gringo's buying there.

We have been in La Paz for almost a week, and Bliss is docked in Marina Cortez. Our dock is full of other cruisers, with travel plans somewhat similar like ours. Tessa is having a blast with other cruises kids, all of them older, but that doesn't seem to matter. We enjoyed a dock party last nite, and Tod toasted to the good outcome of our engine troubles.  Yep, the iron sail has kept us busy here, and for a day I thought we would be here for a while (not at all a bad place to be). Without going into much boring engine detail, let's just sum up that we had an oil leak that got worse over time. A local mechanic suggested we pull out the engine. He made it sound like this was not a big deal, and all would be done in a week. Skeptical we decided to get a second and third opinion from 2 gringo mechanics. Both of them said this was not necessary at all, one of them provided the part we needed, et voila, we are back in business. Well, almost, Tod is working on it right now.

We plan to head out to Espiritu Santo Natural Marine Park tomorrow, just 20 miles North of here. We had a taste of the beauty that is awaiting us in the pristine anchorage of Caleta Lobos. Azure blue water to dive in, pristine beach and plenty of fish. If it wasn't for the pesty wasps (no place is never ideal), we might have stayed a bit longer. Our friends aboard Astraea will be snorkeling with baby whale sharks (the largest known fish species) there, and we are looking forward to doing that too, either this or next year.

walking along the Malecon, with the marina in the back