La Paz! May 3! we made it!

The jury is out about this midnight special – one thing I do know, is that wine before you do a red-eye flight and then have to hop on another plane is not a good idea. Especially when there is no attempt to serve anything on the first flight because hey, you are all going to sleep and leave us stewardesses alone, right??? I wish. A glass of water would have been nice.. and just when it looked like I was maybe so tired I was finally going to pass out, suddenly they started serving us “breakfast!” It was pitch dark out still- I am so used to waking up at 5 to a sunrise – it was 6 and there was no sign of light.  They do say Mexico City is very polluted – maybe it WAS the smog keeping the sun from showing up. Anyway, it all worked out – off one plane and onto another in relative short order with a minimum of fuss.  Immigration was simple, we amazingly beat the rush, and got the GREEN LIGHT when it was our turn to push the button!  Bonus!

The flight from Mexico City to La Paz was great. Initially the smog prevented anything remotely resembling a photo-op… but after almost two hours, the Baja appeared and with it the water in all its emerald glory! And lucky me, I was on the correct side of the plane when we turned and headed to the airport, allowing me  a birds eye view of the marina.. and our boat!!!

Getting a taxi was easy, and we quickly realized why the midnight special was actually a good deal. Less than half an hour later, we were unlocking the door to the boat and yelling “honey, we’re home” to our Northern Ranger. A quick check, stowed the little gear we did bring down, and then we were back on the road with the help of the Costa Baja guys, for our provisioning trip into town.

There are lots of places to choose from, from Walmart to Mega to whatever the name is of the one I chose to go to.  The driver was waiting to take us back to the boat, so I didn’t want to mess with a new store that I didn’t know.  It all worked out well – would have preferred to do a more leisurely trip through town, checking out the markets and the small stores.. but hey, this place had beer and wine and tequila, one stop shopping.

The weather is hot, there is a slight breeze blowing through the boat – we need to feed the captain, and the other captain needs to sleep – but we will probably work on getting everything in order so we can leave tomorrow.  With any luck at all, we may be able to catch up to Sea Level II before she heads back into Costa Baja, and with Colibri, before she sprints up north for their three week holiday.  We are only probably going to be out for just over a week – so I see a more leisurely, close to home itinerary in our future.

But whatever happens – we are here – the boat is great – we have food, we have drink, we have us….

Oh, and we do have a little odor coming from the holding tank underneath my drawers in the stateroom.  So I have bought heavy duty cleaner ( really radioactive green), a pink sponge, and rubber gloves… at some point, I’ll be head down and bottoms up over the holding tank once again. Oh joy!!!