The Baja Paddle

We used the internet facility at the camp site to call Sebastian and spoke with him and Kim. Unfortunately, Luca was not there so that we missed him. After breakfast and a couple of glasses of fresh orange juice, served by Tarzan, we went on our way to Playa Santispac, after picking up Marijke’s parcel from the post office. The camp site was just as I remembered from last year, only this time it was quite busy with many motor homes and caravans on site. The facilities are as crappy as ever, and the daily fee is still the same, $8.00 per camp site, although the cost to shower has gone up from $ 1.00 to $ 1.75 for the same horrible showers that would be called anything but this anywhere else. The bay is as beautiful as ever and we will be spending a few days here exploring the islands, snorkeling and getting ready to make the coastal trip to Loreto.

I launched at approx 7.00am for a six mile paddle to Mulege. The sea was calm, the wind had not yet started.I was paddling in the direction of two shrimp boats which were moored off Mulege. I rounded the point and the light house was right in front of me, less than a mile away. The lighthouse was the meeting point that Martijn and I had arranged. I did not see his car, or tent so decided to paddle into the Rio Mulege and land somewhere close. As I was entering the estuary, I saw Martijn’s “Diablo rojo” come into view on his roof rack. I saw him get out of the car and talk to some people; he had not noticed me yet. I started waving the paddle which someone noticed and then Martijn came rushing to the shore to help me get the boat on land.

I met Christine and Rosie, two australian women traveling the USA and Mexico, as well as Sam, their friend from California. I also met another real character, Tarzan (not his real name, I am quite sure), who the previous day had become Martijn’s big buddy. Apparently they had been drinking beers all evening and if they remembered anything at all it was that they got on like a house on fire.

Tarzan had lots of stories to tell… Continue reading

I woke up regularly during the night to shift my body in a more comfortable position. During one of these awake periods, I witnessed a most beautiful moon set; it was a very clear night, a waxing moon just above the horizon and it had the same orange/yellow colors which we had seen a few weeks earlier, when the moon was full and rising. I watched the moon set completely and then went back to sleep a few more hours.

The sun was well up before I decided it was time to get out of my sleeping bag. I was not in a hurry because the waves crashing on the shore were not very inviting. The surf on this spot was rough; big dumping waves on a very steep shore. Continue reading

The next few days were going to be a solo paddle. Martijn was going to organize things in Mulege while I paddled the 35 odd miles. Martijn accompanied me for a while after we left the Campo Lucas. We paddled out through the mouth of the estuary, which supposedly harbors great numbers of stingray, but we did not see any on the shallow sand bank which we paddled across. We paddled close along the shore, on the fringe of the sea grass where Martijn saw a big moray eel. After a while, he decided to explore the rocky shore for a while before paddling back to Campo Lucas.

I continued on my way south in increasing wind and turbulent water. Ultimately it would become a day of heavy paddling in sometimes very confused seas which took more… Continue reading

We shared a panga with Jim and a family of four. Our expectations were high; everyone we had talked to recently had had close encounters, with the baby whales and sometimes the mothers coming towards the pangas to interact with the people on board.

We had no such luck; we saw plenty of whales but mostly from a distance of at least 60 ft away, without anyone being inclined to interact with us. We were already on the way back to the camp when we got close to about five or six whales; they did not move away immediately. They did not come c lose, either, but at least…  Continue reading

The boats strapped to the car and the roof rack reinforced with some extra straps, we set off to Guerrero Negro. We had not been long on the road when we stopped to take pictures of an amazing scene; the desert green and in full bloom. Colorful flowers everywhere; green ground cover everywhere and in between whole forests of cacti; truly remarkable.

The little mazda really looked a sight in this great scenery with expansive views everywhere, despite the mountain ranges on both sides of the road. The car looked really small below those two large kayaks. Martijn and his friend Eric had discovered a field full of shark carcasses and ray carcasses about five years ago during one of their surfing and drinking forays into Baja. He told me that he had waymarked the spot so that he could find it again. Should new go look for it? It seemed like a good idea; another something that is uncommon and would be a nice addition to the experiences that we had already had. We turned into a side road and later took a smaller side road into the direction the gps told us we had to go. The sand got softer, the road seemed to have no end so we stopped and Martijn went ahead on foot to try to find something familiar in the landscape. He could not find anything so we decided that this search would probably be in vain and decided to turn back and continue on to Guerrero Negro.

Not so fast, though. We got stuck in the soft sand; the same we had traveled over without any problems shortly before; we had probably softened it up ourselves. Anyway, making the car heavy in front to get some traction only dug us in really. We freed the wheels, tried again and got stuck again after a few feet. Continue reading

I got up before sunrise, showered, and started driving south to Bahia de LA, where dad was waiting. It was a pretty uneventful drive, I stopped for gas and snacks, as well as a piece of Agave cactus to later make a didgeridoo out of. 8 hours later I got to Bahia, it was still windy, and Dad told me it had been blowing violently the entire day before. The forecast had said light winds, hah, we know not to trust the forecast anymore. We packed up most of our stuff in order to drive to Santa Rosalia the next day. Since we were going right through Guerrerro Negro we decided we might as well go see the Gray whales which have their calves in one of the lagoons there. Good dinner, and bed followed.

I left camp at 6:15am this morning to hitch a ride to the main highway 66km up the road. I was picked up within minutes by two guys in a truck, Felipe and Jose. I got in, we did our introductions, and Jose started to pray. The entire 45 minute ride he was reading passages from the bible in Spanish, quite impressive. Maybe they knew something I didn’t. The two of them were headed for Santa Rosalia themselves, apparently to go on the radio. They offered to buy me coffee at a little shack by the Junction, but I thankfully declined. This was at about 7:30am. The bus was supposed to be there around 8 or 8:30am. I ended up waiting in frustration until about 10:30am when a surfer from Sonoma, Brandon, picked me up. He said I looked quite desperate, and I was. No way did I think the bus was coming, and being Mexico, who knows. We drove for about an hour to Catavina, stopped for beer and snacks, and talked a bit while eating Ice cream. All of a sudden he said “ Hey, isn’t that your bus?” It was, so I flagged it down, said goodbye, and grabbed my things. For the next 2 hours I could see Brandon behind the bus, until finally he passed us on a dirt detour. Funny. We got to El Rosario, where the bus stopped for lunch, and as we were about to leave Brandon pulled up. We exchanged e-mails, and I had to run after the bus which was leaving already. I ended up seeing him 2 more times on our way north. All in all it was a very long day, I didn’t get to Rosarito until about 7:30pm. I immediately grabbed a Taco and Torta at my favorite place and went to my parents place. I had some things to sort out, but I neede keys, so I went by our friends Isabel and Peters place. We had a beer together, I explained the revised mission, and went on my way. Elaine also came by to drop off our car keys, and to give us some info about whales at Guerrerro Negro, a place down south. I was sorting stuff in the garage when Isabel came around the corner. She’d made fresh milkshakes, and she’d been looking for me to bring me one. It was one of the best things i’ve tasted in a long time, and these people are just sooooo nice. I did laundry, talked to Liz for a while, and finally had a real shower. After that I crashed out in a real bed. A nice ending to a long day.

We got up at sunrise and made ready to shove off. It was like a lake, glassy without a breath of air moving around. Herman looked at me and said “you sure we should head back?” Yes. Of course it would have to be the perfect morning for us to go back, it would have been a no-brainer if it had been shitty, but we made a decision so we should stick with it. The paddle to Campo Archelon in Bahia de Los Angeles was great, maybe 4mph wind by the time we got there, but glassy. We landed, and I walked up to Antonio, the owner, who was quite surprised to see us. “What’s going on, you’re back” he said, to which I replied that, as we’d say at home, we got our asses handed to us two days earlier, and we decided to come back, get a car, and drive to Santa Rosalia to continue. I thought he’d think we were a bit soft, but instead he thanked me and said that too many people die there because of their inexperience and ignorance of the dangers. I told him that’s exactly what we were thinking, better safe than dead!

We occupied the same palapa as the week before, had some rice with delicious veggies, and went into town for beer (haha) and e-mails. Town is about 2 miles from camp, and we did not look forward to walking through the desert heat on an asphalt road. Luckily a fisherman living next to the camp, Marco, picked us up within 100yds of the camp and gave us a lift. I’d hitched a ride with him before, he is such a kind man. He also fishes for squid, but had not been going out much, he said it was way too dangerous with the winds. This put me at ease a bit, that we made the right decision. We did our thing in town and started walking back. This time we weren’t so lucky. We walked through the heat to about 0.5 mile before the camp when another guy living there, Tyler, stopped for us. His girl was in the cab, and he had a cover over the truckbed, but he flipped down the tailgate for us to ride on. Awesome! We turned down the dirt road leading to camp, and as we went over a bump Dad’s sandal fell off. He laughed, and said he’d probably go get it later, way too hot right now. We thanked Tyler and set to leave, and here comes Marco driving up, waving Dad’s sandal. He must have noticed it, stopped, and picked it up to retrieve it for him. The kindness in these peoples’ hearts is something the US could learn from, truly. We hung out in the palapa the rest of the day, the wind had picked up, although the forecast was calm for the next two days. I’d told Dad that I’d catch the bus to get my car to drive south with, and I wasn’t sure how much of the rest of the trip I’d come along for. As I walked down the beach that evening I started doubting if I’d made the right decision, but so it was. By sunset the wind was gusting over 25mph, we hid in our palapa and went to bed early. During the night it must have been gusting well over 40mph, very violently. Great…

We got up at a leisurly pace this morning to a beautiful sunrise over Isla Angel de la Guarda. We ate some cereal and decided to go check out the northern cove, which was all cobblestone with lots of wood and flotsam washed up. We walked for a while, picking up many purple and pencil urchin shells, as well as a few other marine items. Behind the berm was a big lagoon of really salty water, so we went and explored that as well. Quite neat. We headed back to camp and made a giant batch of hashbrowns and moms spiced veggies. She really outdid herself, and for me to say that about veggies is amazing in itself. Thanks again Mom, we love you very much!!! Dad took a nap, I beachcombed some more, and went for a snorkel to cool down. Tons and tons of small schooling fish were around, as well as different types of puffer fish and many invertebrates. We essentially just relaxed on the beach most of the day, took a bunch of pictures of feeding birds and osprey, ate excellent food, and got lazy in the heat. We decided to head back the next day, so we slowly packed up the boats. Since we were going back to Bahia we… Continue reading