The Baja Paddle

After yesterday’s down day, my mood had improved somewhat today, though not because the weather is any better.

I got up before sunrise with the wind still blowing hard, though not as violent as yesterday. By the time I was ready to start paddling, the wind had died and the water was calm. This was a teaser; one hour later it was blowing again at nearly full force.

I decided to stay on the water anyway and hug the coast very closely. This meant taking the longest route from point to point but that was still immeasurably better than sitting on a beach waiting for the weather to improve.

Soon after I had left, I was overtaken by a pod of dolphins in a playful mood, judging by the way they moved through the water. It was as though they were playing catch with each other. Continue reading

The wind had continued to blow hard all night. I had no wind protection at all on the beach and I ultimately dug myself in, in a small depression in the sand. I covered the tarp with layers of sand on three sides and crawled in at the top end. It was not very comfortable and I did not get much sleep. But I did get my hair blown so full of sand that I needed about 10 minutes in the morning to get most of it out again.

I did not think that I would be able to paddle. The wind was still pretty strong and whitecaps were everywhere.

I climbed the rocks at the back of the beach to pass the time and found a large valley stretching out to the far away hills. The vegetation was the regular mix between sand and scrub with plenty of cacti in between.

At about 9.00am most of the white caps had disappeared from the water and I decided to see how far I would be able to get. I hugged the shore close at about 50ft, but not so close that I could not avoid the rocks. In the beginning the wind was still rather intense and the paddling was strenuous, especially since this part of the coastline was rather sandy, but interspersed at very short intervals with rocky outcrops and rock gardens.

I got dumped on a rock by a sudden wave but luckily got washed off it again by the next swell without any further problems. Continue reading

Today was a day of nothing. Nothing seen, nothing heard and nothing went well.

It was hard to get going this morning; I finally left the beach at 9.30 and paddled to the shop at El Barril to fill up with the last necessities.

I left there at about 11.00am with rather calm weather. My back hurt from the beginning and the paddling was heavy. I wanted to reach Punta San Miguel today, a distance of about 10 miles in a straight line; much more when following the contours of the coast. I followed the shoreline and paddled along beaches of various compositions; some with a lot of pebbles, others with only sand, and all that was interspersed with areas of rocks. Two thirds into the bay the shoreline became very uninteresting, sandy rocks and pebble beaches all along.

In the sea and on the shore, nothing was going on. There were even very few birds to break the monotony of the shoreline. Continue reading

A coyote ate my lunch, and my breakfast, too.

Last night I cooked a big pot of rice of which I ate about half for dinner. I left the remainder in the pot; this was to be my breakfast in the morning. Since I had both pots in use, I put my four remaining hard boiled eggs on a plate. They were to be egg sandwiches for lunch.

During the night I woke up and looked straight at a coyote which was looking at me from about 20ft distance. I called out to scare it away but it just stood there and kept looking at me in the bright light of the full moon. I had to get up and chase it with a stick before it ambled off into the bushes. I took a quick look at the kayak and nothing seemed to be amiss.

I woke up again later to watch a beautiful moon set. The moon had the same orange/yellow colors that it had when I wrote about the moon rise in the beginning of our trip. Continue reading

The day was rather overcast and it looked like rain. The sun was not coming through the clouds at all, but the temperature was very nice for paddling; rather cool but no wind to speak of.

I had an ebb tide departure, which meant putting Samoset on the cart and dragging it across 20ft of rocks to get it to a sandbank to start loading.

As I was carrying my stuff to the kayak, I noticed that the water was not receding any further, and shortly thereafter I saw the water rising; a very quick change of the tides was taking place here and I needed to rush to get everything packed away before the kayak started floating while still on the cart. Continue reading

The morning was marred by an endless procession of shrimping vessels. From about 6.00am, one after the other, always a few miles apart, they were traveling north. The droning of their engines, and occasionally very loud music, disturbed the quietude on the water.

Add to this the fact that the coast at this point was rather ugly, just nondescript rocks and pebble beaches, and one understands that I was just paddling for the joy of paddling, hoping that the other factors that had made this paddle so special would soon return.

Just before I put Samoset into the water, a rather large pod of dolphin passed by my camp site and this time I managed to get some pictures because the camera had not yet been packed away in the kayak. Continue reading

This is the day at which our joint paddle ended. Martijn went home to see to his personal and job related issues and I was going to try to paddle through the Canal Salsipuedes a second time.

The first time ended in our return to Campo Archelon because the wind conditions were so bad. This time the weather was supposed to be more cooperative since it was much later in the season and the winds had generally become less of an issue. Martijn got some info from Antonio, who runs the tortuga center, especially about people he knows along this stretch of the coast, and where to get water. Then he helped me put the boat into the water and I was off at about 8.30am.

Like the previous time we tried, the water was very calm and there was no wind. When I passed the Cabeza de Caballo the wind picked up a little, same as the last time, and I started getting a little anxious. The wind did not get stronger, though, and close to the point where we nearly got into serious trouble the last time, the wind died down completely and the sea was nearly like a mirror. The rounding of the point went very well and I could even look down into the water to see the fish swimming in between the rocks. Continue reading

We left La Paz at approximately 6.30am and arrived in Bahia de los Angeles just over 13 hours later. We had an uneventful but tiring drive and we were both very glad to be there.

Martijn had developed wrist problems during the last few days of our paddle together and this injury was playing up rather badly during the drive. He had to wrap the wrist to give it some support, but still it hurt.

At Campo Archelon we quickly settled in and then went out for tacos. After dinner we spent a few hours organizing the stuff that I wanted to take along on my solo paddle to La Rosalia before getting into our sleeping bags for a good night’s rest.

No luck with Manta rays. The manager came to collect the fee and when asked replied that there were no Manta rays at La Ventana. This was later corrected by another camper who had seen them quite often; he said that there were none right now but there had been plenty.

We organized ourselves, packed up the car and went back to La Paz.

Sylviana had arranged for us to stay at their guesthouse and after we got organized there we met Sylviane and a friend on the Malecon for some drinks and dinner.

A fresh breeze had been blowing all night and had created some turbulence in the water, but at least kept the bugs away.

Breakfast was going to be pancakes and we set the cooker up in the wind shade and found that the denatured alcohol we bought in La Paz does not burn anywhere near as hot as the USA equivalent. Thus, the pressure build-up was too little and the stove kept going out. It took ages to get one pancake done and after the second one we gave up and had bread and peanut butter instead.

As we were getting ready to launch our kayaks, we noticed that the motor cruiser had lifted anchor and was leaving the cove. We wondered if they were getting seasick and decided to look for a more protected anchorage. Whatever it was, we now could not return the bucket and bottle opener as we had said we would do. Martijn paddled with the bucket strapped to his camera case on the rear of his deck, which was beginning to look like a cargo boat. Continue reading