The Baja Paddle

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…