Sailing to Baja

Tags: Baja, Cabo Frailes, Ensenada Los Muertos, Mexico, Puerto Balandra, food, sailing

Date: February 26, 2024

After spending Christmas and New Year's Eve in Denmark and taking a trip to Florida in January, we arrived back in Puerto Vallarta in February. We spent a week getting the boat launched and prepared for sailing and by mid February we crossed over til the Baja peninsula. The trip took about 48 hours and we arrived at our first Baja anchorage, Bahía Los Frailes. One of the first things we noticed upon arriving was that we did not have any phone or internet connection, and that turned out to be quite the theme in Baja.

So, the day after we arrived we took our dinghy to the beach to hike up to the nearby hilltop to see if we could catch a phone signal there. It was quite a scramble to get up until we found a trail — apparently we are not the only ones to climb the top. Here is the view looking back towards the bay where Amanda is anchored:

Here we are a little further up and Amanda as well as three other anchored boats are visible:

Baja is full of cactuses:

Here is the view from the top looking towards the opposite side of Bahía Los Frailes:

Here is Félicie sitting at the top holding her phone up to try to get a signal:

Eventually we managed to send off a few text messages before heading back down towards the beach:

Someone from the other anchored sailboats told us about a small colony of sea lions living on a rock around the corner from the anchorage, so we took our dinghy out there to have a look. Here is a funny rock formation:

Another view of the rocks:

Sea lions:

Our next anchorage was a little further north at Ensenada Los Muertos. Here we had a drinks and snacks at sundown:

We did have a phone signal but we went for a hike anyway :-D

Here is Félicie in front of a large cactus:

There were lots of cactuses. In fact it was almost like a forest of cactus:

The dark green line in the background is cactuses:

We climbed a hill again. Here we are looking back towards the bay where we anchored:

Same direction but from the further up the hill:

We left Ensenada Los Muertos and continued further north, towards La Paz. We passed these cliffs that look almost like folded fabric:

Before maiking it all the way to La Paz, we stopped at a large bay, called Puerto Balandra: