Boaters heading to the Sea of Cortez will find a pleasant blend of the new and old in La Paz, Baja, California.
Standing at the gateway to the Sea of Cortez cruising grounds and sportfishing action, the sheltered port of La Paz is a harmonious blend of new boater-friendly services that bloom amid historical beauty and ancient culture. This favorable combination gives visiting recreational boaters (yatistas) everything they need for a quick port call or to begin cruising northward for the season — or to snuggle in and call La Paz home for a while.
La Paz has marinas, fuel docks, anchorages, marine supplies and boatyards for haulout repairs or for dry storage at the yard. It’s the best place in the Sea of Cortez to provision your galley. With daily flights to the U.S., La Paz has become the fastest-growing area for U.S. retirees in Mexico.
Located about 150 miles up and around East Cape from Los Cabos, the capital city of La Paz is tucked down into the southeast corner of Bahia de La Paz and is sheltered by the mountainous 15-mile-long La Paz Peninsula. But the nautical interest begins 6 miles north of the city center, at Bahia Pichilingue, and it extends 3 miles south to a new marina site.
WHAT’S NEW?
La Paz has outpaced Los Cabos in providing an abundance of marina slips and yacht services. At last count, La Paz has five marinas.
Marina CostaBaja is now in full operation. Within two sheltered basins, it provides 200 full-service slips from 30 to 200 feet, an easy-in-and-out fuel dock and state-of-the-art amenities in the slips. For personal security and weather safety, I think Marina CostaBaja tops the list. New scrubbers on the old power plant have eliminated any threat of soot floating into the marina, and the tranquility factor has increased greatly since a new bypass highway to Pichilingue opened last year, diverting truck traffic 2 miles inland. For more information, visit www.marinacostabaja.com. Marina de La Paz in the center of town has three new breakwaters to shield its 150 remodeled slips, plus a new 160-foot megayacht dock. For more information, visit www.marinalapaz.com. Completed and soon to open, a new Singlar marina is located at the south end of the La Paz Channel about 3 miles from the city center. I’ve seen the marina’s lovely three-story office building, floating docks with about 50 slips, a Travelift bay and a secure, paved dry-storage yard and twin above-ground fuel tanks.
Although some dredging has been done, I haven’t seen the completed 1.25-mile approach channel to reach the docks. This marina is part of Phase II of Fonatur’s long-promised Sea of Cortez project, and remarkable progress has recently been made on a host of brand-new Singlar marinas at Santa Rosalia, Puerto Peñasco and San Blas. This one may be open by the time you read this issue of Sea.
Just over the horizon, another new marina is planned in La Paz Harbor, this one located on the south side of the low, sandy El Mogote Peninsula that fends off north winds and seas. This marina is part of a large development called Paradiso del Mar (Paradise of the Sea), and the docks are planned to extend south from the south side of El Mogote toward one of the existing "free anchorage" areas. For more information, call (888) 201-2825.
Hungry? Gula Restaurant is one of the new businesses that sprouted in Pueblo Marinero, the shopping center that surrounds Marina CostaBaja. In a town known for good eateries, Gula is the newest rave. This is cuisine, not just food, so take 15 minutes to study the ingenious menu. Ever had cuitlachoce (Mexican corn mushroom) omelet? Delicious. All the presentations are elegant and prices are a bargain ($3 to $19). Even if you’re not staying in this marina, you gotta try Gula. Performing a major provisioning for extended cruising has never been easier than in La Paz today. Choices are Sorianna’s (Mexican-owned chain), City Club, Lays Supermercado, the CCC grocery store and, for the cultural experience, the Mercado Municipal (municipal farmers’ market).
Yes, the venerable La Perla department store burned down — but the façade is being preserved as rebuilding continues in downtown La Paz. The aquarium that suffered hurricane damage and was closed has also been rebuilt.
WHAT’S OLD?
Long before Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez showed up in 1535, the indigenous Pericue and Guayacura people thrived for centuries on seafood and gathered pearls from vast oyster beds in the La Paz region. Unlike tribes in northern Baja, these people probably descended from Pacific Island voyagers.
Cortez heard rumors that La Paz was inhabited by a race of giant women who adorned themselves only in pearls and gold, and who used men only for procreation. So of course he sent warships loaded with soldiers to investigate; unfortunately, the soldiers also carried European diseases that quickly exterminated the natives.
Pirates arrived on the heels of the Spanish gold galleons. Francis Drake, Thomas Cavendish and fleets of Dutch pirates reportedly hid out at what’s now Bahia Pichilingue. The name Pichilingue derives from a Dutch term for pirates’ lair. Spanish colonists eventually migrated to La Paz as a fishing and shipping port. The pearl-oyster beds supplied mother of pearl for the European button industry, but the last oysters died of a virus in the 1920s.
Check out this and more at the Museum of Anthropology and Culture in downtown La Paz, where interactive exhibits and classes for kids are popular year-round.
Why didn’t La Paz go the way of Cabo San Lucas? Locals tell me that in the 1960s Fonatur offered development funds to both southern Baja communities, promising to build another Cancun. But the citizenry of La Paz surprisingly voted it down. Their decision has preserved the unique and vibrant character of La Paz to this day.
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