The Baja Paddle

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The sun had been very hot every day. I was in shade for a little while when I got up because I camped right below the cliffs. I used this time to break down the camp and move all the gear to the kayak before the sun cleared the hill. This done, I took my time to eat breakfast; tortillas and jam, which I did not enjoy, but I needed the energy. I finished off with two bowls of cereal which went down very well.

I felt reasonably OK again; still not much energy but I did not have to paddle very far today.

It took me less than 30 minutes of easy paddling to get to the area where the whale sharks were supposed to hang out most of the time. I was wrapped up in clothes against the burning sun and was quite comfortable sitting in the kayak waiting for the whale sharks to show up. After three hours of cruising around the area I had had enough. By then my butt was sore from sitting in the same position for a few hours, my eyes and neck hurt from scanning as much area as possible all around me and the sun was getting very hot.

I decided to paddle to Puerto Don Juan where I was planning to camp. This spot is a well hidden bay just before one rounds the point to paddle south; the point where Martijn and I got beaten up by the sea when we tried to go that way in March.

I nearly missed the entrance to the bay because it it fairly hidden by a curve in the land; the entrance is not forward or to the side; it actually is slightly behind one when one paddles the normal route.

I was paddling at a very easy pace. It was around midday, very hot with very little wind and I had no need to hurry. I spent some time taking video shots of pelicans and some underwater shots of thousands upon thousands of tiny schooling fish which were practicing choreographed swimming.

Much closer to the Puerto Don Juan I noticed dolphins jumping out of the water. I paddled in that direction as fast as I could but unfortunately a zodiac with fishermen had also seen them and got right in the middle which broke up the action. I still paddled towards them since the zodiac left as soon as the jumping stopped and at least they were still in the general area. I did have some of them swim around and quite close for a little while but the jumping was over and they disappeared shortly afterward.

I had just turned into the entrance to the bay when I heard slaps on the water behind me. It did not immediately dawn on me what that could be, but then I realized that it could be jumping manta rays. I turned around in time to observe a number of small rays jumping rather high out of the water but they were quite a way off and went away from me so that I did not watch them for very long.

The day was already very good. No whale sharks, but I had seen some yesterday. The weather was hot, but not a lot of wind so the paddling was easy, and I had seen dolphins and manta rays.

I turned into the bay and looked for the beach at the end. Nothing was visible but I noticed that this bay has some twists and turns before the far end comes in sight.

About two thirds into the bay I noticed the wreck of an old boat on a beach. I went to investigate and while I paddled that way I noticed a few round stingrays shooting off into the distance; a good reminder to be careful when stepping out of the boat.

The wreck turned out to be the San Agustin from Bahia de los Angeles. I found it interesting to notice that it was tied to the rocks although this boat was never going to float again. After some pictures I continued to the deep end of the bay and found a tiny little beach on which to camp.

Fishing was next on the agenda. I sorted my gear and decided to try my luck with one of the lures that Martijn had given me. First I had to tie it to the line; this went fine but when I went to cast I found that I had tied the line on the outside of the reel so that I could not cast and instead had my line in a terrible tangle.

It took me a few tries to get it right and I had to re do various things a several times but then I was ready to cast. The cast went perfect; it went quite a way out and when I was reeling it in I felt a strike; a very firm one, so strong that I had trouble reeling the line in. It took me a few seconds to realize that I had caught the line on something other than a fish and that I was stretching the line rather than reeling in a fish. I kept tension on the line, got into the kayak and reeled myself to where the line was stuck. Once there I managed to get it loose and continued to fish, now from the kayak.

It did not take long for another strike to occur; also a rock. I managed to retrieve the line and lure from this mishap also and promptly had a real strike; I had caught a 10” spotted sand bass, the same fish which Tiny always caught during our paddle. Since I had not expected to be fishing from the kayak, I had nothing with me to get the hook out of the fishes’ mouth which was at a very awkward angle. I struggled for a while but finally got it out and released the fish; it was too small to eat. When I pulled out the hook I also broke the leader which held the bait; the rock catches and the pulling of the kayak to loosen the hook must have weakened the line to the extent that the last pull was just too much and it disappeared into the water, out of sight with lure and all to the bottom of the bay.

I continued fishing with new line and bait and ultimately caught six fish, all the same type and ranging from about 6” to 12”. I kept the 12” fish to make dinner.

I had to gut the fish to eat; I had never done this and the only skill I had developed up to that point was watching and re-watching videos on You Tube which demonstrate how to do this. On those videos they always started with a dead fish, but mine was still alive and swimming in my water bucket. I procrastinated for as long as I could but when I had everything ready and the fire burning, there was no more postponing. I had forgotten the board that I had brought along just for the the purpose of cleaning fish. I looked for a flat rock, in vain, so in the end I had to gut it while holding it in my hand.

Fortunately the fish did not struggle much when I picked it up out of the bucket. I had decided to cut its throat and hoped that this would be an instant kill. When I cut the throat, the guts came out. This was unexpected but very welcome. Then I cut off the fins and sliced it open and cleaned the rest of the guts. All this was not at all as bad as I had imagined. The next thing was to pull the head back and remove the skin. This is where things did not go so well anymore since I could pull as much as I wanted but the skin stayed on. Ultimately I cut the head off and sliced two fillets which went into the heated oil in the frying pan, complete with skin.

The fillets were done in about 10 minutes. I took a very small bite to see what it tasted like and whether it was completely done. Bingo! Right on target. The flesh was white and firm, the skin fell off by itself and I had two small fillets which were exactly the right size for a meal for one. I ate it together with mashed potatoes and spinach and was very proud of myself.

From late in the afternoon until it got dark, a lone sea lion patrolled the shore in front of my camp, it kept swimming from left to right and vice verse, without stopping to say “hello”.

.In the morning I had been reminded why it is a good idea to put up a tent under any circumstances. I went to find a spot to do my ablutions and virtually ran into a black and yellow scorpion of about 3” in size with a big poison sack at the end of its tail. I had decided to sleep out in the open all the same. There was not really a good spot to put a tent so I leveled an area large enough to put my sleeping pad down and lay on my sleeping bag watching the sky by 8.00pm.