For sailors, La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, has traditionally been a gathering point for people coming to or leaving the Pacific cruising grounds. Itself the gateway to the Sea of Cortez and it's formerly glorious cruising opportunties, La Paz also became the gateway to and from Hawaii and the South Pacific islands.

Unfortunately, La Paz is no longer able to host sailors as it has grown far too corrupt and expensive for anyone but a very few to come here. And that's partly because of the people who are here. But that isn't the core of the problem with La Paz. As with every other problem in life, the answer can be found in pure and simple greed.

Long ago, a man came to La Paz with a dream of sailing the world with his family. Instead, he found financial opportunities here in La Paz, and eventually established La Paz as a sailing center, eventually encouraging an entire important sailing rally to make La Paz their final destination. But his greed caused him to build infrastructure for satisfying that greed, all the while still appearing to support the sailing community.

As exemplified by the fact that the club has forgone the annoying formality of an election this year, evaded not because of the coronavirus lockdowns as the voting is done by mail and most members aren't actually in La Paz, but for other, more nefarious reasons; namely the candidates for office and their intent to change how things are (including yours truly, candidate for Commodore), this man's efforts do not support sailing and sailors, but the ability of himself and his friends to make as much money as possible.

People coming to La Paz are wondering why slip fees at marinas in La Paz are on par with prices in San Diego, even in spite of the horrible conditions of these marinas and lack of reliable services. Their wonder can cease if they were to pay attention to the boats leaving the marinas for a few hours with tourists on them. These tours are unregulated, and are paid for by all boaters because the marinas in La Paz, unlike just about every other marina in the world, do not charge boarding fees for charters. These boats make tons of money on charters, but none of that goes to the marina except in the form of slip fees. And that means that marinas charge a lot of money so they can capitalize on the money being made on charters, which is wholly unregulated, untaxed, and insanely profitable, bringing in typically in the range of $1000 per hour AND UP!

But this isn't the worst of what's wrong with La Paz. The real problem is the nature of the man who brought sailing to La Paz, and who also founded API, Mexico's private corporation that also acts as the nation's sole port authority. That's right, an American founded Mexico's port authority. And given the level of corruption obvious in Mexico, any fool can know that this man, and now his son, wield immense influence over boating matters in La Paz and throughout all of Mexico.

The problem is, this man is one who believes that if you are not of the same faith, you are not worthy of his favor. And worse, this man will yield his power to destroy anyone who crosses his path, or the path of anyone who knows him well enough to garner such powerful favors.

Sadly then, La Paz is dead as a cruising location. Mazatlan is far better. I hear that instead of the $20 a foot they are charging here in La Paz, that it's only $0.40/foot. Sorry La Paz, we'll take our business elsewhere, somewhere where the people won't be so selfish.

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