Adventures in La Paz Part II: The Path to the Yard

Back in what seems like ancient history, when we were coming down the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula, we decided to check out a place called Bahia Magdalena. After leaving Bahia Tortugas, we wondered why we were skipping the rest of the western coast of Baja. We looked at the charts and saw this great bay and estuary. Our guides told of good fishing and that this bay was a calving grounds for whales this time of year. There was a chance for fuel and immigration at San Carlos, deep in the bay, so we decided to check it out- having generally let go of anything resembling haste.

Approaching Bahia Magdalena.

We accidentally approached at night, as had been typical of the trip at the time. There was no moon, but the bioluminescence in the water were spectacular- the best we have seen- and lit up our path astern. The stars were likewise glorious. The bay is formed by Isla Magdalena, which, several miles long, constitutes the westernmost perimeter. At the southern end of the island there is a break about as wide as that spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge. The channel therein was well lit entering the massive, well-protected bay. All was well as we coasted in planning to stop at a small anchorage nearby to rest until the next day. Then, in the dark night, we heard a thump. We looked around but saw nothing, and assumed it must have been something shifting in the cabin. A few minutes later, I looked astern at a biological light show that had changed a bit from earlier.

“What are we dragging?”

We gathered at the transom. I put the engine in neutral and got a more powerful flashlight. It was a crab pot. It dragged under the boat miraculously without getting snagged in the prop. However, one of the small floats that extends from the main float to provide a retrieval rope pulled through the small gap just in front of the rudder that accommodates the engine prop. I shut off the engine and after a few minutes grappling with a boat hook, we unfouled her. About twenty yards down the long line to the trap was a big snag of coiled rope; my guess is that the snag kept the trap off the bottom and allowed the whole thing to drift into the channel, but it's probably not unlikely that it was just put in the channel because that's where the crabs are. Anyway, problem solved, we motored in to anchor.

Anchored just off the fishing village of Puerto Magdalena.

The rest of our stay in Bahia Magdalena was great. There are amazing mountain landscapes, beautiful deserts and plenty of whales. We failed to find anchorage at San Carlos, so didn't get fuel or immigration papers, but we spent some time at Puerto Magdalena, a little fishing outpost, which was a very quiet, pleasant place. From there, we went for a hike through the desert, past a marsh and on to the Ocean side of northern Isla Magdelana. I excitedly jumped about tide-pools, overturning rocks and taking photos.


 I came across one particular crab who was strangely comfortable with my presence. After taking several photos, getting closer and closer, my suspicion was peaked. I thought he must be dead but, it turns out, he was molting. Crabs, along with other crustaceans, insects, and several other taxonomical groups with some form of exoskeleton, undergo ecydisis, or molting, whereby they shed their exoskeleton and a new slightly larger one forms so that their body can grow. They are soft and vulnerable throughout the process, so they typically find a good hiding place and it's a rare sight to see (it's common to find the evidence, though, in the form of intact old molts of crabs, insects, etc.). Anyway, I got excited and took lots of pictures of the fellow.

A molting crab- the stubs are new legs- he must have lost a couple since
his last molt.

A nudibranch found in the tide pools.

Ok, yes, I moved some things around to set this one up.

The desert-beach interface in Baja is magnificent.

Like this story, our minds digressed from the old crab pot for some time. It wasn't until I was diving the boat a few weeks later in Los Cabos to clean the waterline and check the prop-shaft zinc that the crab pot came up again as a likely culprit. On examining the shaft zinc, I noticed two large vertical cracks in the leading edge of the rudder. They were on either side of the rudder shaft and clearly penetrated through to the wood of the rudder. I then rose to the surface and was seized by the now very short moment of panic that most boat-owners have experienced. A new problem. And below the waterline? I told the crew and we took some photos. There wasn't much to talk about though. It was highly evident we would have to haul the boat out to repair the rudder. We mused it would take a minimum of three days: one to dry out, one to lay epoxy, one to sand and paint. That was best case scenario, and we by now know how frequently best case scenario comes to be in the world of sailboats.

The underwater view of the rudder damage on starboard.

The underwater view of the rudder damage on port.

We didn't let it bum us out much, since it was merely a fact and nothing more. The good news was, the wood was not rotten yet, which bought us time. We could wait until La Paz to haul the boat, where we would have more boating infrastructure and where we were itching to spend some time anyway.

So, after we lazily made our way round into the Sea of Cortez, having left the rudder damage in the back of our minds so as to enjoy fully our beautiful surroundings, there we were in La Paz. In the days prior we had made a list of side-projects to be completed while we were out of the water. We figured we could get done much of the tasks that precluded our crossing to the Marquesas. Our main goals, aside from the rudder, were to re-bed most of the stanchions, which hold the stainless steel lifelines around the perimeter of the boat, and to varnish the toe-rail, which is much more easily accomplished on the hard than in the water and was badly needed. Since much of the rudder repair would be spent in waiting for the wood to dry and for fiberglass to kick, we would be able to stay busy in the mean time.

On our second day in La Paz, I walked barefoot, having forgot my shoes at the boat, to three boatyards in town to determine prices and availability. I also had to negotiate so that we could perform our own repairs. A typical price was about fourteen dollars per foot for round-trip crane fees and fifty dollars per day in the yard to perform your own work. It was a bit painful to think about, but do-able. After completing this journey, I rejoined Taylor and Dana and we decided that we would go to the cheapest yard the next day and schedule for the following day.

Later, though, we ran into our friend Shane, a long-haired dude with tattoos all about his arms and back who I never once saw with a shirt or shoes. Shane is from Santa Cruz, CA, but had been around La Paz for a while. He bought his yellow 30-or-so-foot sloop a year ago for a dollar back home; it was barely floating, but he fixed it up, taught himself to sail and made it to La Paz. He had been there for months preparing his vessel for a crossing to the Marquesas with his little black cat. Shane is making do on the super cheap, at one point joking that he didn't know whether to buy windvane steering or groceries for his crossing. He, like so many of the cruisers in La Paz, was endlessly helpful. We hope to catch up with him in French Polynesia. Before he took off across the big moat, he mentioned one boatyard I hadn't visited. It was way out near the entrance to the channel away from town.

“It's called Berkovich. Talk to a guy named Abel. He's in charge. He's a good guy- laid back with a kind of strange sense of humor but he's fair and whatever deal he makes with you is gold. You won't find a better price.”

Trusting this, I set out on foot to find out the prices down the road. It ended up being a very long walk, and eventually I hiked up over some talus to the road and picked up a ride from some young Mexicanos in a pick-up truck. As I hopped into the truck bed, the guy in the back slid open the rear-facing window and greeted me in Spanish. I told them where I needed to go, which by then wasn't very far, and we were soon out front.

The Berkovich boatyard occupies a long stretch of waterfront but is relatively narrow due to the presence of the road on which I arrived. Nevertheless it is large and packed with boats. When I arrived, it seemed deserted. It was just after noon and, not seeing anyone around, I let myself in the gate and began to wander quietly among the myriad vessels in every imaginable state of growth or decay. There were some beauties and a great deal of potential in others, but the sadness of those neglected boats in various states of disrepair lingered. Combined with the heat of the surrounding Baja landscape and the quiet in the yard, it had a sort of eery feeling when I first wondered in solitude through Abel's yard.

Presently I came upon the office, which was temporarily closed. A man was listening to the radio in the driver's seat of a parked truck with the window down. He wore a gray short-sleeved shirt, large, dark sunglasses and a white cowboy hat that contrasted heavily with his dark skin. He was quintessential Baja. As I approached the truck, he turned the radio down and I soon learned that Abel wasn't around but would return in about an hour. I told the man in the truck, Abel's brother, that I would wait and proceeded to take another lap around the yard to admire boats.

I was staring jealously at a 52 foot catamaran that sat on a track lift recently hauled when the owners wandered up. We began to chat and it turned out the couple were finishing five years of cruising and selling their boat so that they could go spoil the grandkids in Berkeley, of all places. We talked for a while and they invited me on their fantastic, huge vessel for some lunch, which would turn out to be incredibly lucky, since I hadn't eaten and wasn't going to have the opportunity for some time.

Eventually, about two hours after I'd first arrived at the yard, Abel returned. Even more so than with his brother, it was immediately clear that this man had character. He had the full getup: leather pull-on boots, blue jeans, tucked in collared shirt-perfectly white, a prominent mustache. He had an authoritative air at first, which I would find to seem at constant odds with his also easy-going persona.

We walked into Abel's office and I told him about the boat and the services we needed. After some discussion, we agreed to a rate of 600 USD for hauling the boat out and splashing her back in along with 3 days in the yard with the ability to do our own work. While we negotiated the price, he assured me:

“Look, wit me, they not gonna be any surprises. And, maybe you take an extra day, I not gonna worry about it- I not gonna charge you. You need a little help, you need tools, we help you. You have your own tools?”

“Yes.”

“What about fiberglass? You got your own fiberglass?”

“Yeah, we've got fiberglass and epoxy.”

“Ok, well, look, everybody come here leaves happy. They not gonna be any surprises.”

For those who haven't had to go through the process of putting a boat on the hard, it can be difficult to comprehend the complications and considerations involved. It's also wildly more expensive than most land-lubbers would guess. This was certainly the best price I had been quoted in La Paz, and the same job back home would be difficult to accomplish for less than a grand. What I found surprising was the resistance to people working on their own boats while they're hauled. Abel was the easiest to convince, but every yard I visited was displeased and added to the daily cost for my wanting to do my own work. That may be common in the States, too, but I am only familiar with good ole' Berkeley Marine Center, where it was never a problem.

Anyway, the conversation came around to scheduling and I was hoping to have Ardea pulled the next day. Abel glanced over at his pin-up calender with tides lines drawn across the days. The next day he already had a boat scheduled (i.e., written in tiny lettering above that day on the pin-up calender) and the tide wasn't favorable for getting two boats out. He suggested that, instead, we do it immediately. I really did not want to deal with it today- it was nearly 1500 hours already, this was beginning to be a long day and I greatly preferred to go back to town to eat tacos and drink beer. I tried to use the excuse that I had to walk back to town, which would take at least an hour, even though I was pretty certain I could hitch-hike in no time. No luck. Abel arranged to have his brother, who hadn't left the seat of that truck this entire time, drive me to town. I reluctantly agreed, assuming it best to take what I could get in regard to scheduling. I got the handheld vhf out and called the crew back at the boat to inform them that I would return shortly and we would pull the hook and bring her to the yard right away.

It took us about an hour to get Ardea underway and out to the mouth of the long channel to La Paz. When we got there, I saw through the binoculars that the huge hydraulic trailer that was to pull us out was not yet in the water. We waited a couple hundred yards from the boat ramp where the trailer was stationed, attached to a very old big-rig truck. A wind had picked up and was blowing about 8 knots at an angle to the boatramp; this was a rare instance in which a wind increase was met with scorn on Ardea. Soon, we called Berkovich on the vhf and were handed off to Mark, a gringo that works at the yard who I had met briefly earlier.

“You guys just want to let us know when to start the approach?”

“Yeah, Abel is changing. When you see him come out looking like frogman, you'll know we're ready to go. Just hang tight.”

We were getting blown toward the jetty, so I had to decided whether to try to keep Ardea in one spot, or circle back to the channel and start over entirely.

“How long's it gonna be?”

“A Mexican minute.”

I swung the wheel and circled back to the channel. Ten minutes or so later, the trailer was going in the water and we could see Mark standing on it, waving us in. I kept the bow pointed into the breeze, about 45 degrees off from the trailer, as long as I could on the approach. When we were close, I swung the wheel, lined it up as best as I could and slid in a bit too quickly. The result was a ding in the gelcoat on the bow, but I had needed the speed to maintain steerage- a rock jetty was only about four feet downwind of the trailer, so it was sort of a one-shot deal.

On the trailer.

During this process, people began to come out of the woodwork all over the boatyard. The couple from the catamaran stood watching from near their boat. A few scruffy old gringos stood along the jetty next to the trailer watching, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. Several Mexicans that worked at the yard were standing around the trailer and truck watching the action. Earlier in the day I had seen hardly anyone around, but now their were a dozen or more folks who had emerged one by one and chatted amongst themselves as they watched Ardea come out.

Getting the trailer adjusted. Mark and Taylor standing on shore.

 Once on the trailer, Abel set about with full wetsuit and a mask diving around the boat to set the stands properly. Then, using a remote control, he lifted the boat up with the hydraulic arms at which point Mark put the truck in gear and started toward the gate. Soon they had us backed in and settled, still on the trailer, in the middle of the far North end of the yard, where I hadn't wandered earlier. After Mark brought us a ladder, we spent some time with the hose giving Ardea a good freshwater bath before she needed to dry out. Some folks said hello as they walked past, but for the most part, everyone seemed to sort of disappear again while we cleaned.

On the hard.

By the time we finished it was nearly dark. We had planned our course of action for the following day, which was important since several steps must occur with adequate time in between during fiberglass repairs and we had to keep our stay to a minimum. Finally, after what seemed an excruciatingly long day, we were ready to find food and beer. Awkwardly, and with noted distaste, we clambered down the ladder to the sandy floor of the yard. As we approached the ramp where Ardea was recently pulled, we saw a group of people under a flimsy white canopy sitting around a table, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. One of them saw us approaching and exclaimed amid the laughter and loud conversation at the table:

"Hey, it's the new guys."

Another turned and looked at us.

"Welcome to the Yacht Club."