Cabo San Lucas/Los Barriles Baja RV Trip - April 2011

In April we took a trip with some close friends to a house we had rented north of Cabo San Lucas near a small fishing town called Los Barriles. We were originally going to take commercial flights there but even 4 months before the trip the tickets were over $900 per person and I knew I could fly for there for less than half of that and have a fun adventure along the way. We invited quite a few friends to come since this house had 7 bedrooms but no one accepted but Tim and Andrea Olson and their family.

This turned out to be one of the most relaxing trips I have ever been on. Anna was just over 12 months old on this trip and RaNae and I are expecting another girl in September so anytime we went above 8500 feet (which was only once) she wore O2. We monitored her O2 levels about ever 30 minutes just to make sure was in the mid to high 90's. The flight down was great and we had no problems. We left on a Friday afternoon and Tim had left on Thursday afternoon and flew to Texas to get around some weather where he stayed. Tim did a great trip report so I won't say much about it other than we met over the Grand Canyon and stayed the first night in Chandler, AZ. Our other friends flew on the airlines with their two boys. Our plan was to meet at the house Saturday night.

Here is a link to Tim's write-up. He did a very good job. I almost did not do this one but thought it would be fun to share my pictures as well.
Tim's write-up

I really enjoyed using Foreflight for all my flight planning and weather. We used the iPad to file our eAPIS with no problems the morning we were crossing the border. Here was my flight plan from Foreflight.


We flew direct from Salt Lake City to Chandler and used Foreflight to fly the VFR transition over PHX International. It worked perfect to zoom in and get the terminal chart where I just flew the plane over the arrows.
We stayed the night there and enjoyed a great dinner together.
The next morning we filed our flight plan and eAPIS and we were off to San Felipe MMSF via Yuma AZ as there is quite a bit of restricted airspace around there. One thing we found out quickly as we entered Mexico is they do not know what a flight of two is. San Felipe was a great airport to land at and make your airport of entry. They were faster than Mexicali and very nice about everything.

Leaving Chandler, AZ




Crossing the border near Yuma, AZ


Approaching San Felipe


San Felipe Airport


The airport at San Felipe is very small which I like. I have heard from others that San Felipe is the best airport to stop at and do the paperwork. We fueled up there and it took about 45 minutes to get everything done. I read where you have to pay in pesos but they accept both dollars and pesos no problem.

Filling up with gas at San Felipe


The girls played while Tim and I did the paperwork.

From San Felipe we flew direct to Cabo San Lucas airport. The flight down was a fun one. We had the new audio panel streaming music from our iPhone and iPad through the Bluetooth and Anna slept for half of the trip. We cruised the coast and it was perfectly smooth at 8500 ft. We ran LOP (Lean of Peak) almost the whole trip burning around 10 gph at 155 - 160 kts. What a great way to travel.

Anna sleeping with her childs Peltor ear muffs in the back seat.


A picture of Alfonsina's in the distance. This was my favorite spot on last years trip.


Following Tim down the coast


I stole these next three pictures from Tim's site. Anna woke up and was having fun pointing to flying plane next to us. She was very happy and never fussed once in the plane and RaNae does a great job with her in the back seat.
Here are three pictures that Tim took that I will cherish forever.







As we approached Cabo we descended to 1000 feet to take some pictures of the house we rented. We found it on Google Earth so we had a pretty good idea where it was. Sure enough we flew right to it.
It is the house sitting out on the beach.





We approached Cabo and approach handed us off to tower and no one was there for a few minutes but eventually someone answered. I could not believe how many private jets there were there. It made Van Nuys and Scottsdale look like the poor house. There were lines of jets everywhere.



The RV-10 fits right in with the big iron.

There are two airports at Cabo San Lucas and I had e-mailed one from home before the trip to get approximate costs. I had heard this airport was more expensive but when they came back with a rough quote of $160 for a week with all the fees I didn't think it was too bad. But as you will read later I e-mailed the wrong airport. The FBO was super nice and we rented a car at Enterprise and we were off to Los Barriles which was about one hour north of Cabo.

We arrived Saturday night after a great dinner and found that this house was amazing. There was a caretaker who came by each morning to see how we were doing and if we wanted to do anything. The first few days we just wanted to swim, play at the beach and relax. For dinner, his wife would cook up a bunch of food and bring it by around 6pm. We were eating fresh fish, guacamole, enchiladas and tons of other stuff every night, this was the rock star treatment for sure. With the beach right there we would spend time building sand castles and other things as well. I've included a few pictures of all of this including our castle with it's own runway.







Our works of art on the beach including a toilet that would flush.








Happy kids at the pool.


One night we had fun with some glow sticks and a 15 second time exposure.

We did some fishing for two days and the first day we caught two nice Yellow Fin tuna that fed us the rest of the trip. We had amazing fish tacos and still gave about 8 lbs of meat to the locals. Our guide must have been good because we approached an area where 5-8 boats were and then he moved north about 1/4 mile and everyone followed him. Where ever he went, they went. We also caught rooster fish and a bunch of Bonita. That was a great day of fishing.

FISH ON!


My Yellow Fin


My friend Danny did get a bigger Yellow Fin but who is really counting? (DANG)




This was a great sequence of pictures. The kids had more fun with the bait than anything else. Here Owen is holding a fish and it made a run for it and got away. You can see it just wiggling off the deck.




Another day we chartered a boat to take us up north to an area called The Bay of Dreams. There was a very good restaurant there and some amazing homes with a golf course. I think more Americans live down there now than indigenous people. After lunch we went to a great snorkeling spot. Tim and Andrea are very experienced divers and were able to point out a bunch of different fish.

Group Picture


We saw wildlife everywhere on this trip. We saw turtles, whales, dolphin, manta rays and tons of other stuff. In the evening a couple of nights the whales were jumping out in the Sea of Cortez. I have some amazing footage on video that I will eventually link here of the whales. The manta rays were constantly jumping out of the water. We would sleep with our doors open and awake to the sound of slapping on the water where schools of them would be jumping out of the water. Which leads me to the sunrises. Anna would wake up pretty early on the trip, probably because she wanted to swim. Before this trip we did 4 months of swim lessons with her and when she saw the pool it was all over. I am glad she woke up early because it was fun to go outside with her and we would watch the sunrise together.








Eventually it was time to head home. Tim and Andrea left the day before to give them an extra day to get home if weather was going to be a problem. We returned to Cabo International and found out that the total cost was around $290 for week. This includes all their taxes, landing fees and tie down fees. It was not what we had expected but I really didn't mind too much. It was my fault for checking the wrong airport. They had a phone at the desk that was free to use for filing my flight plan back to Yuma and I called customs and advised them of my ETA and we were off.

I knew there was going to be a tail wind so I decided to fly direct from Cabo to Yuma over San Felipe. That was a 644 nm trip, the longest for me so far. We departed and climbed to 8500 feet again and leaned the plane out for LOP. We hit our arrival time at the customs office about 1 minute 30 seconds off, I could not believe how close it was. Also, Anna slept 3.5 of the 4 hours in flight, that was a record for her.

We pulled up and waited about 10 minutes before the customs agent came out. He did not make us take anything out of the plane.


This was Saturday and the weather in Salt Lake was bad. Sunday was going to be a great day so we flew to Henderson airport near Las Vegas and stayed there for the night. I wanted to do that new free fall jump off the Stratosphere but after watching some You Tube videos it did not appear to be a true free fall so I decided to save the money and go skydiving again some other time.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at the cafe at the Henderson airport. It is a great place if you are ever in the area. While I was eating I saw a Beachcraft Starship start up and taxi out and take off.
We loaded up the plane and we were off and had a great flight home.











We called the grandparents in-flight and updated them on our ETA, they surprised us and met us at the airport. I think they really just missed their grandchild. We were back in the snow again as you can tell in the picture.



That was our fun adventure in the RV-10 to the tip of the Baja peninsula.
I'll say it again, "What a great plane!"

Awesome trip!...but I think you could squeeze one more GPS in your panel. Maybe I'm just a little jealous.

WOW! That was some trip


Neptune's Finger at the end of the earth in 1987

Thanks for the memories. Mexico is a special place to visit - not without risks -but those trips stand out in my memory. Even though we always stayed in hotels instead of a private home there is a primitive unhooked peace and beauty that is incredible.

Bob Axsom

Excellent stuff Scott, thanks for posting!

Someday ...

Walking on Water?

I knew there was something special about you.....

Great write up, your posts are the only ones my wife wants to see.
When I grow up I want to be just like you.

Great write up Scott

I would tell you in person but I thought it would give me a chance to say,"Gracias..very much"!

Awesome trip and outstanding trip report -- as always. Another additon to my bucket list.

Scott,
Awesome. As always, pictures and story first class.
Thanks for sharing.

I don't know to be envious of such trip or the instrument panel.

Very nice indeed on both

''wow''

thats what i call ''living the dream'' unreal

Great write up.

Don't you love it that the kids know of no other way to travel It is just the norm for them. Sure hope they grow up appreciating it, and not say, "Do we have to go in our plane again"

Some day we may convince ourselves to head south of the second border too

Baja trip

Scott,
Your write-ups inspire me. Especially last year's trip down the Baja. I looked at those pictures over and over again for weeks on end, and decided that "someday...." was going to happen soon for me. So I started making preparations. I got everything in order (eAPIS regisration, customs decal, insurance, etc), but I was too nervous to go....

Then on April 8th (2011), I got a phone call from one of my customers near Loreto begging me to accompany him to a meeting at a mine in Santa Rosalia first thing on April 11th. After checking on commercial flights to find none available, I decided to go for it!

To make a long story short, on Sat, the 9th,I flew from Boulder City to San Felipe, then on to Loreto for fuel and to see a customer. On Sunday a short flight to Mulege to stay at Hotel Serenidad. On to my meeting at Santa Rosalia early Monday morning. Then back to Mulege for Monday night, home on Thursday. All on 55 gallons of Diesel / JetA. MUCH cheaper than flying commercial.

It was a wonderful trip, and it wasn't that difficult to deal with the border crossings, customs, fuel, airport fees, etc. It's like going to another world - everything's laid back, no one's in a hurry, the food is fantastic, the scenery beautiful. I highly recommend it!

Thanks again, Scott, for inspiring me to make the trip! I'll be going again soon.

Kurt
Boulder City, NV
RV9 Wilksch 120 diesel, 235 hours.

Good read as always. Thanks Scott. Someday...

Cool, way to go!

kgood said:

Scott,
Your write-ups inspire me. Especially last year's trip down the Baja. I looked at those pictures over and over again for weeks on end, and decided that "someday...." was going to happen soon for me. So I started making preparations. I got everything in order (eAPIS regisration, customs decal, insurance, etc), but I was too nervous to go....

Then on April 8th (2011), I got a phone call from one of my customers near Loreto begging me to accompany him to a meeting at a mine in Santa Rosalia first thing on April 11th. After checking on commercial flights to find none available, I decided to go for it!

To make a long story short, on Sat, the 9th,I flew from Boulder City to San Felipe, then on to Loreto for fuel and to see a customer. On Sunday a short flight to Mulege to stay at Hotel Serenidad. On to my meeting at Santa Rosalia early Monday morning. Then back to Mulege for Monday night, home on Thursday. All on 55 gallons of Diesel / JetA. MUCH cheaper than flying commercial.

It was a wonderful trip, and it wasn't that difficult to deal with the border crossings, customs, fuel, airport fees, etc. It's like going to another world - everything's laid back, no one's in a hurry, the food is fantastic, the scenery beautiful. I highly recommend it!

Thanks again, Scott, for inspiring me to make the trip! I'll be going again soon.

Kurt

Click to expand...

Thanks for the report from your trip. I'm glad you went, I bet you had a great time and will go back again. I wish I had customers down in Loreto or anywhere around there like you do.

I was really happy to be going back this year. This trip was actually planned by my wife and her friend. If anyone wants to rent this house it is on VRBO. Here is the link: http://www.vrbo.com/211895

This trip was really easy for traveling down and back. Once you do it and learn how easy it is that is no longer a barrier and it is much easier to do it again.

What is great, is anyone with an RV can do this trip very easily so we are all lucky to have the capability.

"Gracias very much" for all the nice reply's. (I said that one time last year in Baja and we still laugh about it)

Beautiful pictures!
Maybe someday but I gotta be honest Mexico gives me pause

Great trip! That RV-10 really is capable ... and cavernous!

Thanks for sharing