Hanging out in La Paz

Our friends rented a great little house in La Paz, just up the hill from Marina Palmira, so we settled into a slip for the week and enjoyed familiar faces and land life for a bit.

La Paz is the main cruiser hub for southern Baja; lots of marinas and anchorage choices, easy provisioning, tons of good restaurants. We plan to use it as a base for the next few months–heading up the Sea for a few weeks at a time, then returning to provision, meet friends, or just take a break.

It was fantastic to hang out with another family, uninterrupted, for a full week again. Our kids span a four-year spectrum–10, 11, 12, 13–and got along famously.

Also exciting: then new toilet pump they schlepped with them. Ours had been leaking, and getting progressively harder to flush; we’d also been having a terrible problem with occasional backwash from the holding tank…the less said, the better. With most boat toilets, the answer is generally: joker valve (probably because it’s fun to say). Instead of reconstructing the whole disgusting assembly, we just replaced the lot. All our problems are solved, and the head is a pleasant place to hang out again.

Every now and then, we are newly amazed at our circumstances. Hanging out with our friends last week was one of those times. We’ve been so lucky to spend time with people we love in unusual places over the past two years…we can’t imagine an alternate universe where we’d still be able to go out to dinner with A. and J. in Mexico–Mexico! Just, you know, exploring beaches and eating tacos. For sure, we’d do some traveling with them in, you know, a state park in Wisconsin, or maybe meet up for some camping in Minnesota; but planning a trip abroad wouldn’t have made it into the cards. We are so lucky to be able to share this life with friends and family.