The Baja Paddle

Text by Marijke // We finally left on Thursday morning, 26th February to drive  to San Felipe. Harry and Elaine, our friends helped us transport the boats and gear, we couldn’t have put it all into our car. We had a great drive via Tecate and Mexicali to San Felipe. The roads were good and the scenery beautiful.We have never seen Baja so green. We arrived in San Felipe after a 5 hour trip, the hotel we booked is right on the beach  and that made it easy for Herman and Martijn to load up their boats and put out to sea. The first afternoon they did a trial run stowing all their gear, it turned out they just had too much of it and discarded a fair amount.
Once that was finished  the boats were carried (no mean feat,Herman’s canoe is very heavy indeed) to our rooms which were big enough to hold them.
Everyone could relax (sleep) for a while before we went for dinner at the hotel.The food was good! After a good night’s sleep, after breakfast, the cars were driven onto the sand, close to the water, the boats  were carried back to water’s edge. After a while the canoe ended up in the water as the tide was coming in pretty fast. Luckily Harry was there to hold on to the canoe, he patiently stood in the water for hours it seemed while Herman and Martijn loaded up their
boats. Even more stuff had to be discarded, there was simply too much of it. So no fresh bread,butter and eggs for them! They also left behind a  lantern ( they do  have flashlights), and a few containers with cooking fuel, plus they emptied out 2 of their waterbags.Precious water,hopefully they will be able to get enough on their way. The weight was simply too much. All of a sudden it was time to go, Herman had to climb into his canoe while Harry was holding on, and Martijn  climbed into his  on the beach and just needed a little push to be afloat. A bit wobbly at first  but they were soon on their way. We watched them as long as we could until we could only see a few dots in the distance.
Harry needed a hot shower to thaw out his legs, no wonder after standing in the water for a few hours.

Then the three of us drove to a cacti farm outside of town, there you can see hundreds of giant seghuara cacti (I am sure I got the spelling wrong), and would you believe it, we actually passed by Herman and Martijn paddling along the coast looking quite relaxed and comfortable. The wind would come up  a little more soon afterwards and they had to go ashore, that’s why we couldn’t find them any  more on our return trip to the hotel.But we saw them once and that was such a relief. They saw us too (we honked and waved like crazy), as Martijn acknowledged us by sticking his paddle up in the air.

Today was our day to head to San Felipe and pack up the boats. Tonight will be our last night under a solid roof in an actual bed, tomorrow the fun begins!!!
Our neighbors Harry and Elaine were kind enough to drive down with us. They carried a whole bunch of our gear and Samoset, while we had the remainder of the gear and Galene in the Pathfinder. After a beautiful, leisurley drive, we arrived in San Felipe about 5 hours after departing Rosarito. It was a beautiful drive along the Colorado River Delta, and the Sea of Cortez greeted us with turquoise and aquamarine splendor.
Herman and I spent about 1.5 hours loading the boats on the sand, throwing out a bunch of things we didn’t need, and then packed it all back up. The boats are snug as bugs in our hotel rooms, as is our gear.
Tomorrow morning we intend to drag the boats down to the shore, load them, and wait for the tide to float us out to sea. The conditions are great, weather is beautiful, mid 70′s and sunny. It will be interesting to see if we actually float, or if we need to get rid of more superfluous stuff, but we are counting on lightening the load significantley every day, mostly by eating and drinking.
Our spirits are high, and we just can’t wait to get underway.

The boys are making good progress. On Sunday they passed Puertocito where they stopped to stock up on water and some fresh food. Check their progress on the satelite map: MAP

Today Herman and Martijn set off for San Filipe, the starting point of their Baja paddle expedition. In a convoy of two cars, the boats, equipment and supplies and the two lads are being dropped off in the sleepy north-Baja town where they will set off on Friday morning. Except for the occasional ship they probably won’t come across anybody but in about 14 days they should be able to send news to the outside world of their progress and hopefully also be able to send pictures and stories to be posted on the blog. For now, here are some pictures of the final preparations. (text by Sebastian Stiphout)