La Paz 2 – Wahoooooooo!!!!!!

Our first venture out into the bay of La Paz on Indian Summer, came a few days later when we set off North to Isla Espiritu Santo National Park. A stunning volcanic island, rich with marine life and home to dozens of shallow sheltered anchorages. After a day looking for whalesharks in the bay (unsuccessfully) and night on the hook out at the island, we decided that the conditions were right to try and repeat our success earlier in the week of diving with the hammerheads out at El Bajo. Johnny had sneaked his GPS onto the dive boat and got the location of the sea mount, now all that was needed was to get out there and hope for hammerheads. We decided to troll our lures, as has been the theme all down the Pacific coast in the hope that a fish might bite. So far, after nearly 1500 miles of trolling we had caught 2 fish and trolled 2 lures to destruction. On approaching El Bajo, Johnny joked that he'd seen a big wahoo here during the dive last week and that he looked stupid and hungry enough to take our lures. 

About 100m away from the GPS point, BANG! The drag on our big rod started screaming, we looked back to see a huge fish thrashing its tail and whole body out of the water behind the boat – it was him, it was the wahoo! Finally, the great white hunter had a chance to reel in his prize! The fight was a long one, the fish was big and powerful and had a irritating habit of swimming under the boat. Johnny was lucky that the line didn't get broken off on the prop or the keel. After about 15 minutes of running and reeling, we finally saw a flash of colour at the boat. It was huge! On seeing the hull however, the fish took off and it was another 5 minutes before it was back on the surface. An expert gaffing from Mike meant that barring a miracle the wahoo was ours. However in the past Mike has had a tendency to catch a fish, bring it aboard so enthusiastically he has flung it off the other side. Not this time though, Mike decided that this one wasn't getting away and while bringing it aboard managed to hook himself on the same lure that was in the fish's mouth. Yes that's right, we had a 20kg (44 pound) wahoo on board and it was hooked to Mike's arm!.

After performing iki jimi (a good stab in the brain with a sharp spike) on our bounty and making sure he was brown bread, the task turned to getting the hook out of Mike. Despite his best efforts, it would not simply pull out, the barb was taking it's job very seriously and would not give an inch. It was now necessary for Mike to take off his skipper's cap and put on his ship's surgeon white coat. Requesting his a stanley knife and a clean blade (hygiene comes first), Mike was triumphant in cutting the hook out of his arm with the minimum of damage. After this it was picture time with the fish of a lifetime. Very happy crew members then contemplated the myriad of potential meals in the offing. From sashimi to ceviche to fish and chips and beyond, willy the wahoo did not die in vain, in fact he sustained the Indian Summer crew for 7 days with more to spare in the freezer.

Unfortunately our dive on El Bajo afterwards did not produce hammerheads. Despite this we were still all on a high from our fishing success and decided to end the day with a dive at the sea lion colony. It has to be one of the most enjoyable dives we've all ever done. Literally hundreds of sea lions, flying all around you. From the big 3m bulls to tiny pups only about 2 or 3 months old. The babies are amazing, even though they're young they can swim circles around any diver and will shoot all around you, bite your fins, bark, loop the loop. They just have so much fun investigating you and as divers there's nothing else like it, you can literally touch and stroke these little wild animals and they love it and will come back for more! We had an hour of mayhem and chaos in with these guys and loved every minute of it. Like playing with 100 puppies :)

La Paz 1 – Hammerheads Baby!

La Paz you might say, gave us a change of luck, with most things Indian Summer related going right. After a few days in the Marina Palmeira stocking up and cleaning the boat, Johnny and Emsy decided to take a chance and go diving with a local company to try and see the hammerhead sharks at El Bajo (a seamount 30 miles north of La Paz that rises from over 3000ft deep to just 50 ft). Johnny had previously tried to dive here in 2006 but was thwarted by hurricane Juan (or John in English, would you believe it!). This time the weather was fine and we were lucky enough to see about 30 hammerheads in the 2 dives we did, including a small school of 10 together. The dives were great in that every 2 or 3 minutes 2 or 3 hammerheads would pop into view. 

Some were deep, some came close and they were much bigger than we expected despite the fact we've seen the odd one before. A thoroughly successful day was topped off by a dive at the sea lion colony at Los Islotes. Something that the Mexican divemaster described as diving with “leetle pawpies” and was so good we came back and did it 3 times on Indian Summer!

The Road to La Paz – The Promised Land

For virtually the whole time we've been on Indian Summer thoughts had been focussed on getting to La Paz and experiencing the diving, fishing, food and natural beauty it's so famous for. As it was our next port of call we were all very excited. After leaving Cabo behind we had a three, one night stopovers before we got there. The first was in Los Frailes near the only hard coral reef on the Pacific side of Mexico, Cabo Pulmo. Whether we actually found the best place to snorkel, we don't know. The bits we did see however did not live up to the billing of one of the finest coral reefs in the world. Green water and very little in the way of coral and fish life meant we did not stay another night. The second stop on the way to La Paz was Ensenada de los Muertos, “The Bay of the Dead”. A very pleasant little bay that is the gateway to reputedly one of the best fishing areas in the sea of Cortez. As usual though, we didn't catch anything :( Our 3^rd and final stop was in a bay just north of La Paz called Ballandro Bay. A gorgeous little spot, perfect for the steak BBQ we had that evening in anticipation and celebration of arriving in the promised land the next day.

Cabo at last...Woohoo!!!

A big push was needed to beat the Baja Haha flotilla to Cabo from Turtle Bay but after 435 miles, an overnight stop in Bahia Santa Maria and seeing yet another blue whale and sun fish in the same day, we did it! We were in Cabo and ahead of the crowd. Beautiful white sandy beaches, nice bars, good food and diving were all on the menu for the next few days. Anchoring about 50m from the beach near the bars we were in prime position to get into town and avoid the extortionate marina fees.

Cabo was really beautiful and for the first time we had warm clear water to swim in. Our first attempt to dive however began with a hiccup as the wind started blowing 30 knots out of the South East just when we wanted to go. This wind was strong enough to sink a couple of water taxis and get the harbour master to close the port so it was probably for the best we waited it out! The next day it was calm and we had a fantastic dive around “The Point”. The highlight being some awesome sea lion encounters.

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Although we really liked Cabo the number of boats was steadily increasing day by day (including 2 huge cruise ships) and the touristy feeling was beginning to get old. Our big achievement was that we had finally arrived at the gateway to the Sea of Cortez and at least from now on the water would be warm and hopefully the fish would be biting. We decided to press on and get to La Paz where the fishing and diving would be even better than in Cabo and hopefully there would be a few less people.

Turtle Bay – Home of the original Mexican one arm bandit

After all the action of Guadalupe everyone was looking forward to a relax and a bit of peace and tranquillity. Where better to find this than the most popular anchorage on the Baja peninsula, Turtle Bay (now without turtles). We arrived in the dark after a 36 hour crossing from Guadalupe to a disorienting light show that looked like stars low to the horizon, stretching for about 2 miles along the shore. Trying to work out what we were seeing took a little while as we knew the town was only small. As it turned out we were looking at the anchored armada of the dreaded Baja Haha – 200 yachties/locusts/dollar signs that annually cruise down the peninsula using all the resources the Mexican population can provide and paying through the nose for them. We picked a spot away from the rabble and were very happy to have a good sleep and just hoped there was still some food and fuel left in town.

On waking up we took the dinghy and docked it at the pier next to town. It was at this point we met Pedro the original Mexican one armed bandit. At around 400lbs, cross eyed and with only one arm, Pedro was not who you might expect would be at the dinghy dock to help you tie up. What he lacked in depth perception and hand-eye coordination he made up for in entrepreneurship, in that the only phrases he would use were “Soy Pedro” and “One dollar”. That is “I am Pedro”, so give me $1 to dock the dinghy, $1 for each bag of rubbish you want to put in the public bin and $1 for untying the dinghy when you go. Working on this formula we estimated that Pedro, could be earning upwards of $1000 a day as a result of the Baja Haja being in town, making him the richest man in Turtle Bay. Not bad for someone who would surely be a ward of the state in any other country.

As for the town itself it was not all that it was cracked up to be, with the charm and cleanliness of a Mumbai slum and the prices of Harrods it wasn't exactly paradise. After stepping into the beach side bar we were greeted by about 8 stray dogs, a cat playing with a half dead mouse and some dried out turtle shells (possibly explaining the lack of turtles in the bay). After fuelling up and getting the last fresh water in town we decided the best idea would be to get down to Cabo ASAP and hopefully beat the Haha!