Sea Spot. Play.

I feel like I’ve gotten millions of dollars of pleasure and joy out of being here,” says Jill Blacher, who shares her second home--a cottage on Punta Estero’s pristine six-mile stretch of beach--with her dog companion Picazzo Milagro and family. Blacher, who also owns a 1908 Craftsman home in Silver Lake, says there are no helicopters circling overhead at night and no traffic sounds. “The only thing I hear is the barking of sea lions.”

The psychologist had always dreamed about having a home on a beautiful beach by the sea. Over the years she searched for the perfect spot in Thailand, Fiji, the Cayman Islands and Anguilla in the Caribbean. In Costa Rica, a man she met told her “to look in my own backyard,” she recalls. “I’d traveled to so many places, but never crossed the border into Mexico.”

She began taking long weekend drives down the Baja coast, where the sinuous road hugs dry desert cliffs that drop precipitously into the sea. After several trips she found what seemed to be the perfect place to settle: Punta Estero, about a 40-minute drive south of downtown Ensenada.

“I was captivated by the natural beauty,” says the nature lover. “When I’m here, I walk to a bird sanctuary at the end of the beach with Picazzo Milagro and eat lunch. There’s often a colony of sea lions sunbathing; we stay at a respectful distance, of course.” She got a good price--how much she won’t say--in 1997 on a little midcentury house, which she estimates is now worth $350,000. The three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow required a face-lift: new electrical and plumbing systems, a roof, fences, appliances, a water heater, toilets, sinks and a paint job inside and out. For personal touches, she added colorful tiles around the windows and doors, then painted her beach door bright red. “It’s feng shui,” Blacher explains. “It’s supposed to draw positive energy into the house.”

For furnishings, she shopped at local segundas, or secondhand stores, in an Ensenada neighborhood locals call Los Globos. She bought a pair of almost-new living room sofas for $300. “The [stores] set a price and then you bargain,” she says. “They have absolutely everything you need for the home.”

But there is one cloud over paradise. She owns her home, but leases the land beneath it. “Every 10 years I renew my lease--I look at it like paying property taxes,” she says. For now, all is well, but she knows someday there’s a chance her lease won’t be renewed.

That’s when she thinks about the dolphins that swim almost daily in the bay in front of her house. When she sees them jumping, she makes a dash for the water. “Usually they remain at a respectful distance,” Blacher says. “Other times, they stick their heads out of the water and look right at you--it’s such a humbling experience to be in their presence. If I lost my home tomorrow, I would be terribly sad, but it would still have been worth every day I’ve spent here.” *

*

The comps

Location: San Martin del Mar, Punta Estero

Size: 1,600 square feet

Mexican cost: Blacher won’t say how much she paid, but she estimates her home’s current value at $350,000.

HERMOSA BEACH cost: $4 million

Buying arrangement: “I own my home and have a 10-year lease on the land, renewable for a 30-year period.”

Advice: “Interact with other Mexicans and share in their culture--if you only live in an expat American community you’ll miss a very rich experience.”

--Jill Blacher

*

Learn how one American couple relocated to Bajamar, a golf resort near Ensenada. Go to latimes.com/magazineresort.