La Posada San Miguel La Paz

... only for it's location from the Lonely Planet. Slap bang in the centre of the quaint Malecon (seafront walk), our room was indeed a suite, with split level dining and sleeping areas, kitchen, fridge, A/C, cable T.V. and a full ocean view from the balcony. Even the fact that the decor clearly hadn't been changed since the 70's didn't detract, adding a retro flavour. But we quickly came to realise that best thing about this hotel wasn't the facilities or location but the ...

... a pole or bait. Yeah, for real. The process is an art, for sure. I think the idea is to throw out the line in a school of small fish and then gaff them in the side with your hook. We've seen several doing this, all catching bait size fish along the shore. And we also saw a man doing it on the Pacific side in deep water with bait. Pretty cool.

Also including two pics of whale statue - the dogs are 'Blackie & Terry' that we see regularly when we walk.

... as its known for having the best carnitas (roasted pork, though sometimes also panfried). We confirmed it - muy rico (delicious)! I'm sure we'll be stopping here on a regular basis when we drive south. Due to the number of photos, I'm going to break up the day up a bit Really beautiful country.

... of the day. Housekeeping was really excellent. Our room was neat and clean every day and always had new towels. I guess I don't really know about the sheets, but they always seemed fresh. Three in our group stayed in the condo building, and their room was very spacious. It had a king bed in the master bedroom and two twin beds in the other bedroom. One of the couches also was basically a day bed. The condo had a full kitchen and dining ...

... really cool about this site were all of the canyons carved into the rocks. It made for some great exploration and some fun swim-thrus. What sucked? Current!! It became intense here before long. The cutouts offered some protection, but when it was time to find the line to go back up, we found ourselves really, really working. We wanted to find the stern line to the back of the boat, but it just wasn't making itself that obvious. Instead, we ...

... of dive gear came in right at 50 pounds, and my carry-on didn't seem much lighter. TSA certainly didn't like the "clutter" of my bag, to put it politely. I found a Corona bottle opener that will get a fair amount of use back home. Maybe even here! I also found small sun and moon wall hangings that I thought were perfectly sized for future placement next to some of the photos from this trip. Other than that, it was great just to ...

... on board long enough for us to actually make the dive. As much as we wanted to dive the site, the thought of trying to get back onto a boat where the ladder was coming up 3-4 feet out of the water at times was too much. We just couldn't see how we were all going to make this a relaxing, safe dive. That being the case, we decided to bail on this dive site for today. So instead, our guide and captain took us back to nearby Los ...

Funny how something simple like Lipton tea can make one happy.Little fish swimming under the boat and a heron on the bowprit meditating,waiting for a small movement to catch his breakfast.A Grey whale blows behind us and it meanders out of the bay,probably a male on his way back to Alaska. The markets are lively and it's more fun bartering and chatting with local La Pazians.Such smiling ,gentle, relaxed people ...

Costa Baja Marina -> Bahia Balena, Isola Espiritu Spiritu

Most of the crew attended the detailed briefing about the cruising grounds while one of us returned the rental car. By noon we were on our way to our first anchorage. We were hoping to get Caletta Partida, but instead due to the slow going against headwinds, we stopped short ...

... find out that Mexicans are as excited about soccer as us and that everyone was eagerly anticipating the Spain vs. Germany final. Tired and full of delicious home cooked Mexican food we went to bed early. Pat and Ken kept encouraging us to go out to experience the malecon in La Paz, but the long day of traveling had us beat and we were headed for bed early. Hey! Jess here, the road from Bahia Concepcion was pretty high-speed with an increasing amount of commercial ...