Thursday, June 13

North 24° 09.287’
West 110° 19.529’
Distance: 10.3 miles

We paddled 10.3 miles today. Our goal today was to get to Los Barriles to visit my dad and Nolan Johnson. We got moving reasonably early and paddled along the sandbar which protects La Paz harbor. It is kinda a bummer we had to go all the way around wince it would be a short paddle otherwise. On the way we saw two boats beached and abandoned. The first was an old wooden fishing boat – maybe 25 feet. The second was a steel sailboat. The weather was easy – not too hot or windy but just nice. Once we made the corner we had to decide what to do. We thought for a while about hiding our boats in the bushes and walking in but decided in the end to go to the marina. Good decision. Mary, the woman who seems to be in charge, took care of us. She showed us a place to leave the boats for a dollar a day and we bought a shower each. These were great showers and we cleaned up pretty well. Then a meal and a couple of beers at The Dock which is a restaurant at the marina. Then we packed what we needed and headed for Los Barriles. Our thought was to hitchhike there, but after an hour and a half with no luck while walking toward the edge of town we came across a better idea. We saw a bus with “Los Cabos” on it. For 60 pesos we got a nice, comfortable ride to Los Barriles and got there about 8:00 pm. I called Mom to try to make contact and also used the numbers she gave me. No luck. We found the Playa del Sol hotel and Juan, the guy who helps Nolan. He took us to the house just as they had gotten back from dinner. The boys were all baracho and were watching slides. Jerry is an underwater photographer with some great stuff. Frank is a doctor friend of Nolan. There were also Kevin and Betsy who live a few doors down. It was great to see them and we were invited to stay the whole time they were there. The house is wonderful and Nolan made us feel welcome while we crashed his party. We all finally went to sleep about 1:30 in the morning.