More Birds!

Since I posted the bird stories, a kind Tahitian contacted me to let me know the more common name of the bent-nosed reef poker is Bristle-thighed Curlew (Numenius tahitiensis), teu'e in Tahitian. It breeds in Alaska and winters on tropical Pacific islands.

He also identified some other birds I’d photographed but not written about. The Tuamotu Reed-warbler (Acrocephalus atyphus) is pictured to the right. It lives only in French Polynesia and was photographed on Tahanea atoll. Thanks Yvan.

If you would like to comment on any entries, or edumacate me on any factual errors you’ve caught me at, my email is ginnical@yahoo.com.

Lobster Walking

Cruisers mention “lobster walking” on the reef at night, and it sounded as easy as picking coconuts. After one extensive reef prowl and several subsequent observations, we decided that lobsters are actually fictitious creatures, conjured by experienced cruisers to sent the rookies wandering in a harsh landscape at night while they sip their rum and giggle, snug in their yachts. Like a snipe hunt.

We did not yet know this, so one night we kayaked into the lagoon through the broken light of moon on the water; through the waves that had kept Misty pitching on anchor all day. Noddies croaked and terns sounded their high note of alarm as we pulled our kayaks up on the edge of the motu and organized ourselves for the trek. Perhaps they knew the joke.

We trekked out through a strange world of crunchy dead reef and shallow pools of water. Henrick armed himself with a 4-pronged spear that he made with his angle grinder. I carried a net I’d constructed that afternoon on the motu of black netting, cordage, and palm frond. Of course we saw neither claw nor tail of a lobster, but we did observe several small eels.

The eels prowl shallow pools. They are light grey with a darker pattern, as if somebody decorated them with a miniature sponge. One slithered its way from one pool over the sharp crags, and into another pool. It poked its streamlined head into tiny hiding places, sometimes with an open-mouthed lunge. Terrified little fish darted away. Some of them wiggled over land as well, coiling and springing themselves like frogs. A strange world indeed.

Way out, where the relentless ocean swells trip over the reef and pours itself through fissures that become channels that fill the lagoon, I netted a small grouper in my palm frond net, and we killed and gutted it on one of the few patches of ground that was not under water.

On our way back to the kayaks, I spied some strange creature and clomped the net over it. “What is it?” I asked Henrick.

“I think it’s a coconut crab,” he said.

It did fit the description. Something like a giant hermit crab without the shell. We plopped it into Henrick’s bucket, which was barely big enough to contain it. It rode in his front hatch back to the sailboat, and we had it for lunch the next day. The meat was good, tender, almost sweet. A layer of “crab butter” lined its shell and was soft enough to spread on bread.

Exploring the Motu

From July 20
From our private anchorage in Makemo atoll, we explored the palm forest and paddled into mini-lagoons between the motus. I jogged along the beach in the morning and took long picture-taking walks. We snorkeled together. Henrick repainted some rusty bits on the boat and I scrubbed the galley until it shone. We walked to the ocean side of the motus to scavenge among wave-tossed trash from the world over. Garbage lines the craggy beach, a stunning amount of it.

Plastic bits and bottles, intact light bulbs, a TV set, a metal cooler rusted almost beyond recognition, scientific equipment, fishing equipment, a truck tire, rope. Deodorant from Equador. Laundry soap from Japan. Shampoo from someplace with curly Sanskrit-looking letters. Something round from Spain. Rum bottles, empty of contents or messages.

Hermit crabs rule the motu. Fist-sized crabs with red legs, covered in bumps with short yellow hairs sprouting from the bumps. They inhabit every shell. They claw round holes in fallen coconuts and dig out the innards. They climb up into trees and young palms and wave their little antennae at the world.

We walk through their domain in the shadow of the palm forest. Fallen palm fronds crunch underfoot. Mounds of split coconuts attest to the copra trade of the area. Natives harvest the coconuts, split them, shuck out the meat, and send it out by the burlap bag on the supply ships that periodically pass. Copra is their main economic mainstay, along with tourism. The pearling industry has essentially collapsed.

Palm forest is maintained by burning. Charred trunks and patches of ground tell the tale. When we reach the ocean side of the grove, the wind picks up and we think we hear coconuts falling. Repeated thumps vibrate the ground. I put my hands over my head and look up. Not a coconut in sight. They have all been harvested. Two palm trunks colliding in the wind are making the ground vibrate. Still, we gingerly make haste through the maze of coconut husks and fallen branches back to the lagoon. Henrick wants to harvest a wild coconut, and becomes disillusioned by all the empty trees. It isn’t until the next atoll we visit that we find any coconuts still in the trees, but that’s another tale.

Breakfast on the Beach

One morning a feeding frenzy of sea birds passes not 20’ offshore from my sleeping bag. The commotion heads north along the beach. Cormorants take flight leaving contrails of sunlit splashes. They skid to a landing and immediately submerge, herding the fish northward and inshore.

A snowy egret follows the fray, stilt-legged jogger with yellow feet. Brown pelicans, who normally dive from a height, don’t bother lifting a wing when they jab their bills into the shallows. A black wave surges onto the beach and a cormorant appears at the feet of a great blue heron, which tilts its head at the sight of the fish flapping in the cormorant’s beak. Throaty cormorant grunts are audible over the splashing.

The frenzy calms. Pelicans depart for a splash seen further out. Two snowy egrets take to chasing each other with incongruously peevish displays of their angel wings. They raise white head feathers in a punk crown, jump about, make short banking flights, but both keep returning to the edge of the water where the cormorants mill about.

Second course. The feeding regains momentum, moving back south towards me. Pelicans return. Cormorants glide out of waves onto the sand and waddle ungracefully back. Egrets and herons stab at the waters edge. One wading pelican jabs and comes up with a cormorant’s head, which it grudgingly releases.

Soundtrack of Life

On my way into Rattlesnake Beach late yesterday afternoon, I saw an owl perched on the top of a sturdy mesquite bush. At first I wondered it if was a plastic bag caught up there in the wind, then it turned. Its ear tufts blew a bit sideways and it wore a rather disheveled look on its face. Its head swiveled as it followed my slow progress along the bumpy dirt road.

I’ve been feeling a bit like that owl lately—a bit windblown and swivel-headed as events and milestones and old blue Ford pickups keep passing me by.

After a month and a half in Australia, I checked in with business partners in Washington, and stopped at the hospital for a routine post-cancer check-up while I was there. The 3-day Turbo Business Meeting was as productive as it was random and fortuitous. Mark, co-owner and manager for Columbia River Kayaking, and I often discuss things while driving errands, and one takes notes. This year’s meeting went a step further. On the way home from the airport, I bought a used truck, the kind I’ve been seeking for about a year. It was owned by a kayak club friend, and Mark alerted me to its existence just 7 hours before during my layover in the LA airport.

The doctor’s visit was historical. I sometimes don’t keep track of dates very well (just ask my family about birthdays!), so it was a surprise when I went to leave the post-MRI and mammogram consultation, and my doctor said that had been my 5-year checkup. Statistically, the chance of recurring breast cancer is so minimal if you’re still clear after 5 years, that follow-up care ceases, except for the routine mammogram that we should all get. I was clear!

My doctor said I am now just like any other normal 42-year-old woman, and turned me loose on the world. I felt a strange mix of thankfulness, awe, freedom, and denial, as I walked out the hospital doors for the last time. Denial that 5 years could have gone so fast! I’ve heard that the years start to do that at a certain point, so I must be getting to that accelerating age. I have some people to thank for the smoothness of those 5 years: in particular, my surgeon Dr Katterhagen who takes the time to listen to my concerns and explain how things are, Carmen the nurse who greets me with the biggest smile, and Kelly the most amazing arranger of schedules and insurance coverage. You gals have gone the extra mile and beyond! Thank you!!!

I don’t know what any “normal” 42-year old would do the next day, but I flew to my other home, a patch of sand under the Giganta mountains and the full moon just south of Loreto, Mexico. I moved back in, which consisted of setting up the dusty old Coleman stove and making 3 pieces of French toast for dinner by the light of my headlamp. Then I went for a paddle to nowhere in particular. Just for some perspective on the shadowy mountains and the bonfires of neighbors down the beach. I almost ran over a sea lion sleeping with his flipper in the air. Every few seconds he lifted his whiskered nose for a breath, then let it sink. He didn’t change at all as I glided by. Moments later a shadowy diamond shape passed under me, flapping gently. A ray. Close to shore, the moon shadow of my kayak followed along the bottom, and laughter of my neighbors carried out into the warm night. Amidst the swirling passage of events, it’s moments like this when time stops and one can hear the music of life’s soundtrack in the background.

Driving south

From October, 2010
In El Rosario, white confetti blows everywhere. Onion skins from the harvest. In the borders of the great arroyo, through which the road also runs, white onions lie drying. Rows and rows of handsome white globes in the sun. Men walk down the rows, pulling them and setting them out. In a corner of one field, pink mesh bags slouch full of their pearly load.

Another field has 6” seedlings, which look beanish. A man hunches under the sun in a brown sweatshirt and a red hood, tending the seedlings with a short hoe. Perfect rows surround him with green stripes, a dozen between him and the far fence. Five dozen between him and the road. From him to the horizon, the green stripes extend endlessly as I drive, reducing this red-hooded gnome to futility in my mirror, which he defies by simply continuing.

Again tonight I listen to sounds of the sea. In Santa Rosalillita the ruin of an abandoned, unfinished Singlar marina slowly covers its shame in sand dunes. A perfect 12” wave peels across the entrance of the breakwater. This was to be the crux of the Escalara Nautica project, a scheme that would entice yachts to haul out here and drive across the peninsula and thereby shorten their time from the southern US to the Sea of Cortez. Rumor has it that the project was purchased by an Asian firm which will continue the development. Meanwhile, the osprey family enjoys their new blue and yellow nesting platform atop the unused yacht hauler. It’s the only thing left here with color. I think the scene would make a great end-of-the-world movie set. Be sure to capture the dead palms bending in the salt wind in front of the grey coastal fog.

Perspective increases with miles traveled from home. Scenes and memories pass easily through my mind as the landscape scrolls along. Books, friends. King of the Moon, a tender and profound account of rural life where there is a poverty of economy but a richness of human spirit. A friend’s ongoing health challenges. A couple of other friends passing on in recent months. How temporary is this situation called life! Somehow as the miles grow, priorities shift. Migration is a meditation on what is real and what is important.

To live consciously enough to follow inner callings. To live slowly enough to hear them. Open enough to share them. Why do I keep thinking this is just around the corner? What is now, is. Upon arriving somewhere, I get busy, and the dust of the immediate starts clouding the perspective. Not this time, I tell myself.

When I arrive to the beach I’ve called my winter home for 14 years, there is nothing about it that would indicate that I live here. It’s just a patch of sand and shrubbery.

I find a broken blue crate left by the fishermen, and sit on it beneath a quarter moon. And breathe. How simple and beautiful a moment can be. Life, I celebrate you! A cool mountain wind hugs me from behind. Ripples tickle the shore and make the only sound in a vast, calm silence.

I drop the truck’s tailgate and cook there. Then throw my sleeping bag on the beach and sleep. There will be other days for working. I resolve to keep the perspective I’ve found, do what I can each day, and leave the rest in peace.

A lizard rousts me from dreamland by running up my face. Its lightening fast, but I can still feel each gripping foot across my cheek. I rub the feeling of lizard feet away. The water is so calm that Orion throws three stripes on the surface. One for Rigel, the foot of the celestial hunter as he hooks it over Danzante Island and shimmies up into the sky. One for the belt, since the three stars are vertically aligned, and one for Betelgeuse, the shoulder.

I’m home.

Aussie shark stories

At Sally’s party, some of my new paddling mates were talking about shark attacks on kayakers. That is casual conversation among Aussie paddlers.

Rob told stories of a kayaker meeting a rower on the sea and the rower asking if the kayaker had been seeing all the sharks along the coast. The kayaker had not, but then kayakers look forward and the sharks normally follow the slowest member of a group, waiting for their chance to pick off the weak ones. The rower was of course looking back all the time, so he saw them. I think I’d rather be looking forward!

Aussies kayakers are mostly unbothered by sharks. Its crocks they fear. When sharks taste a kayak, or for that matter, a human, they usually bite and let go. Crocks actually have humans on the menu. Crocks hunt intelligently and will stalk kayakers and campers.

One kayaker unknowingly camped in the company of a large crock who emerged from the mangroves shortly before dark. She’d heard that a fire will stave off a hungry crock, and quickly gathered all the driftwood she could find on the tiny island. She lit a fire, and the crock backed away. As the fire died, it advanced again.

She set her watch for an hour, and stoked the fire every hour through the night. Each time it died down, the crock was a little closer. She launched early the next morning.

Approaching a cove the next afternoon, another crock bigger than her kayak trailed her. It began nipping at the stern. She made a beeline for the shore, jumped out, and ran up a hill. The crock chomped onto the stern of the kayak and thrashed it about for 15 minutes or so before deciding it was inedible while on land. It retreated to the water where it set to pacing from one side of the cove to the other. All afternoon.

The kayaker got her sat phone from the kayak and called in a motor boat pickup to end her trip. When the motorboat came the next morning, the crock was still pacing.

Crocks have historically eaten aboriginals, and vice versa. The most respected were crock hunters. Now, without the aboriginals controlling the population to the same extent, there are more and bigger saltwater crocks than in remembered history.

The only people allowed to kill crocks are aboriginals. One man was camped with friends on an island, and a crock pulled the friend from his tent in the night and began chomping on him. The man’s 60-year old mother leapt to his aid, jumped astride the crock and started clubbing it. The crock turned on the mom, so the aboriginal man shot it. They called in emergency services. On the sandy beach a crew set up a makeshift aid station, using the dead crock as a table to keep the medical tools out of the sand.

Thankfully for me, crocks reside on the northern, more tropical part of Australia, and not around Sydney where I was paddling. Neither did I see a shark. But then, I tried not to look back too much.

Dismantling a Centipede

I returned from a 10-day Carmen Island Circumnavigation to find a 6-inch centipede sunbathing on the dirt of my campsite. Closer inspection revealed it to actually be quite dead. Each plump amber segment had its own pair of blonde legs. A set of ferocious mahogany mandibles folded under the head. A file of miniscule cider-colored ants hustled to and from its body. I let nature take her course and just watched over the next couple of days, stepping around the scene whenever I went to the water tank.

Slowly the ants began deflating the centipede. Segments at the tail end lost their plump roundness, then turned transparently hollow, then broke off one by one and drifted away in the breeze. After three days, the ants still marched on the front half, climbing through the exoskeleton like a jungle-gym. Even the legs became hollow tubes.

I know it’s cliché, but it still amazes me what a focused and united effort of itty bitty critters can accomplish: dismantling a centipede several hundred times their size. Are they consuming it as they go? Do they have a pantry in their basement under my camp especially for centipede jerky?

Their industry and effectiveness reminds me of the best moments of our recent kayak trip. Working together in teams of 4 to move a loaded kayak to the water, two pairs each sharing a strap. Or the synchronized way we packed, sometimes on a moment’s notice to take advantage of a weather window. Somehow we managed to be ready all 10 of us at the same time. Somebody was paying attention to the bigger picture, picking up the little pieces, offering a hand to somebody who was struggling, filling water bottles for all if they were ahead. Good attitudes, good chemistry, aware people. What magic!

I wonder if the ants ever have a discombobulated day, or a few mutinous individuals? Do they have a sense of humor and joke together as they work? Give antennae high-fives as they pass, moving too fast for the human eye to really follow?

After a week, the centipede segments have dispersed, probably lodging under bushes with the dry leaves. The ants still commute their meandering highways through camp, and I’m about to organize another group of kayakers. The wind carries on.

Overconfidence

The scorpionfish is an overconfident creature. It has camouflage so convincing that I have been snorkeling nose to nose with one and thought it was part of the rock, until it moved an eyeball. It will venture into water so shallow that you can step out of a kayak onto one. The venom in its dorsal spines is legendary. I once saw someone whose arm was still swollen up to the elbow two days after a puncture on the thumb. I heard about another strong and mature adult male stepping on one and screaming virulent curses upon the fish’s entire lineage, then whimpering for days.

After a morning run today, I waded barefoot into the Sea of Cortez for a rinse, and in water less than knee deep lay a scorpionfish, confident as ever. Thankfully, I saw it. This situation posed an interesting opportunity, with just enough risk to be tempting. The flesh of a scorpionfish is tasty, if you can capture it, kill it, and fillet it without getting pricked by a dorsal spine. That, and I was hungry.

I submerged a 5-gallon bucket in front of the fish, scooped the bucket under its wide head and pushed it in with a stick. All it did was raise its spines. It was way too easy. Too late it realized its captivity and thrashed about in the bucket. The price of overconfidence.

Its head was as hard as a rock. With a pancake flipper I held its spines to the side while trying to stab something vital through the gills with a 6” kitchen knife. Quick stab and pull back while it thrashes. A few times. I felt my adrenaline starting to build, so I walked away. Not a good time to be hasty with those spines flying about. I bathed in the sea and returned to see if the fish was any closer to dead. A couple gulls inquired about the progress. How do they know what’s in the bucket?

The fish thrashed less when I prodded it, and allowed itself to be turned on its side. With the spatula holding it, and my knife hand wrapped in a T-shirt, I began to fillet it in the bucket. I did side B with the fish on the sand. The colors in its skin and tail were beautiful. Greens, browns, oranges all blended in a minute camo.

The second fillet always comes out worse. I left it on a plate while moving 2 steps away to rinse the first one in the sea. This was overconfidence on my part, and I paid in an instant. In swooped a waiting gull and made off with the other fillet! In two midair gulps it was gone. “F*&#$@ER!” I hollered after it. “You stole half my fish! How it got that whole fillet down in one piece, I don’t know.

I had been looking forward to tossing the carcass to the birds. Instead I briefly considered burying it in revenge, but that wore off quickly. A pelican tried to get the wide head and prickly attachments into its bill but couldn’t manage, so the gulls pecked at it and at each other for a while.

Meanwhile, the remaining fillet made two tasty breakfast tacos, and an interesting contemplation on the price of overconfidence.

Easter trip

April 17 2009

The last trip of the season is over. Eight days around Carmen Island with my friends and clients Sam and Lee. The sea gods smiled on us, for all the windy days were all tailwinds, following us as we rounded the island.

It was a relaxing trip, knocking off the 8-12 nautical miles usually before lunch, and taking time for siesta and exploration in the afternoon. Time too for contemplation and conversation. Time for music and stars and paddling at sunrise.

On day 5 we left Salinas Bay and rode the following seas to the island’s freshwater spring. After a good bath and lunch, we caught some more rides south to the white cliffs that hide a little beach called Arroyo Blanco.

As we rounded the final cliff that Easter Sunday, 5 great egrets took flight from atop the entrance to the cove. Five white angels with long spindly legs and the sun shining through their wings. Up they circled, looking down at us. The purity of their translucent wings, the whiteness of the cliffs, the grace of their flight, balanced between the profound blue of sea and sky, was the perfect Easter song.

Later we walked the arroyo up to a pour-off 40-50’ high, sculpted like modern art in the fossil-laden gray and white rock. Fingers, alcoves, and ledges of the craggy formation have long tempted me to decorate them with candles some still and starry night, and play music until the moon finds me. If I ever have an excuse for some ceremony that can be held on an island in the Sea of Cortez, up an arroyo that requires a little climbing, this is the place. It holds magic.

Today, I carry my flute and play a simple, heartfelt rendition of Amazing Grace beside the fig tree as my reflection on Easter.

Fresh Crab and Warm Tortillas

I usually plan and prepare the meals for my kayak trips and there’s good reason for this. This week was an exception. I had a custom lesson for a group of 7 plus their 2 leaders—lessons on two levels at once. I welcomed the freedom from the kitchen that they offered so I could focus more on coaching.

Their frugality, resourcefulness, and creativity were admirable and set in my life a new standard for minimalism. They cooked for 10 on a 6” frypan, using a whittled stick as a stirring utensil. A 10-pack of tortillas and an oval tin of sardines was lunch for all. But we all ate equally and nobody complained.

In their defense, they were from Estonia and never had to provision from a Mexican grocery store before. At least they bought lots of tortillas.

Fishing proved fruitless. On day 3, they admitted they hadn’t brought enough food, and went in search of other options. A team came back with 5 small crabs, my friends the Sally Lightfoot, about which I had mixed feelings because I was hungry too. We boiled them and ate them hot out of the water, legs, body meat, and some even crunched on the thin shells.

A sight we made—10 figures huddled over a small pile of brightly colored shells crunching, chewing, twisting, and bashing the joints between rocks. Among the camp detritus of mismatched bowls, half-empty water jugs, and whittled tools, we could have been a primitive tribe sitting on our haunches on the rocks, intent on the minute bits of white meat lodged in a crevice of shell.

The next night was a repeat, but we ate later, after dark. With no fires allowed in the park, our primitive tribe huddled together with our backs to the night and our hands lit by the beams from each other’s foreheads.

The tortillas had begun to mold, so we decided to heat and eat them. We had nothing else to put on them, and everyone was eating their crab directly from the shell, so the random bottle of BBQ sauce that no-one knew what to do with became the spread for our moldy tortillas. It was one of those memorable nights for which the concept of perspective was designed.

We weren’t desperation dining on moldy staples and the only critters we could catch; we luxuriated under the starry Baja sky with friends sharing fresh crab and warm tortillas and memories of a good day’s paddling, complete with dolphins, leaping manta rays, and a humpback whale.

Just in Time

It was one of those trips that fills the soul. Sometimes an ephemeral magic happens that connects people in a certain place at a certain time in a special way.

A 7-day circumnavigation of Isla Espiritu Santo near La Paz, run by BOA and led by Rafael and myself. Seven clients, including one teen, came together from Ontario Canada, and 4 more, including 2 teens, randomly came from the same town. One gal came from my home state of Washington.

Kayaking in a commercial trip along a desert island is a unique blend of opposites. Wildlife and plants. The populous, wiggly marine life juxtaposes sparse, stoic plants. The geology tells of coming together and ripping apart; of layers building on layers, pink smooth sandstone, red volcanic flows, round brown rocks impossibly holding formation up a cliff. It tells of pushing, tilting, and slowly eroding, making its way into the sea. White sand beaches nuzzle into deep red coves. White sand coming from coral and shells—pieces of the sea washing onto the land.

People. A kayak trip usually self-selects hands-on, outdoorsy, active people. Independent, yet willing to participate in a group and hire leaders.

Anthropology. The ancients left paint on the cliffs, shell piles on the hills, hollows ground into flat rocks, and rock enclosures in the bays. They lived on what they found here. Whole lives. We carry an obscene amount of food and luxury for just 7 days, and get resupplied halfway through. But through some alchemy of grace, we can walk their trails and feel their presence.

It is the balance of opposites that holds tension on the thread on which we spin.

Guides. Rafa likes to sleep late, set no times, and siesta after lunch. He doesn’t mind launching at 4pm and making dinner in the dark. Anytime we get somewhere, we are “just in time”. When will we go? When we are ready. When will we be ready? After we eat and clean up and pack the boats. When will lunch be? When we’re done making it. There is sound logic in this.

I’m a sunrise connoisseur. A pack-in-the-action kind of person. I’d rather chop veggies than sit and watch somebody else do it. I really get excited if somebody wants to learn something like kayaking, stars, plants. I’ll go all day without sitting once.

It is the straining of opposites that frays the thread until it breaks and the spinning beads go bouncing between the floorboards. This did not happen. A light finger on that thread knows when to release its tug and preserve the singing tension. Just in time. Through it all, that ephemeral magic played, and filled my soul.

Wild, Wild Life

There were sea monsters last night in my dreams. But they weren’t dreams. The moon was more than halfway through its night’s journey and flirting with clouds. The sea, almost still. I lay in my truck on the beach with the back open, awakened by something from the depths. I listened.

PWWWWFT! An explosion of breath, followed by a great gasp. Whale! A big whale, within a mile of shore. Then a smaller breath. Was it the blue whale mom and calf pair? There are now two of those roaming the National Marine Park, according to a number of researchers who are out there daily. We saw one pair cruise by our lunch beach last week, the kayak-long crescent of the baby’s back arcing over the water, and the gigantic mottled grey flank of its mother.

Again a pair of breaths, and a big splash. A splash? It sounded like something very big falling in the water, more than something flat slapping it. A breach? Was there a humpback pair in the area? I hadn’t heard of one. They’re more prone to breaching, and blues are not officially supposed to fling their enormous mass skyward. The biggest animals on the planet should be more sedate.

However, one boat of researchers watched a blue mom and baby blue do just that a couple of weeks ago. The whales had been lounging near the panga motorboat for some time, then suddenly took off speed swimming along the surface, throwing up big wakes, toward another distant blue whale. When the 3 met a few miles away, enormous splashing ensued. Through binoculars, the researchers could see whale bodies launching partway out of the sea and falling back, throwing out great walls of water. It was too late in the day and too far away to clearly document the activity, so the whales got away with their unofficial breaching. Ah, there is much we don’t know about these magnificent sea monsters.

Tonight as well. They are silent, gliding through their underwater world. The next set of breaths is further off, and I can’t hear the inhaling gasp. Again there is a huge splash near the end of the cycle of breathing. They go silent again, making short work of this 4-mile bay. The next breaths are further yet. I am about to let them go from my nighttime thoughts and resume sleep, when I hear a much more impressive splash. Like somebody dropped a house in the water. It’s the longest splash I’ve ever heard in my life. And what followed was even better. A loud and distinct VVVVRRRRR, like something got jammed in the vacuum cleaner. As if the other whale were cheering. It’s the first whale vocalization I’ve ever heard, and it made me tingle.

A guide friend told me once of camping on a beach in western Canada and hearing blues vocalize as they passed close by. The ground vibrated. The next morning, everybody in her group reported feeling and hearing it. Tonight these whales must be about 3 miles off, and the sound is impressive.

I’m talking ‘bout good vibrations, yeah they’re coming from those cetaceans!

Speaking of vibrations, on my way to the out “house” this morning, I crossed 5 snake trails. It’s not uncommon to see one, but 5 is a lot, even for a place called Rattlesnake Beach. After a few weeks of unseasonably warm weather, the snakes are on the move early this year.

In 12 years of guiding, I’ve seen 2 or 3 rattlesnakes on the islands during the kayak season, but last week’s trip doubled that number. Four of us were walking up the plant hike to the overlook on Danzate Island’s southern end. Client Ruedi was in the lead when he screamed and jumped 4 feet into the air. I heard the rattling before he came back down. He had stumbled into not 1 but 2 intertwined snakes. As we watched, they appeared to be competing rather than mating. I’ve since learned that if 2 males encounter a female at the same time, they will engage in a “combat dance” where the male who manages to stand up the tallest for the longest or pin the other to the ground, will win the affections of the watching female. It is rare to actually get to watch this.

We never saw the female in the thick brush, but we didn’t look, either. For a half a hour, the males posed and tumbled down the trail in a ritual both graceful and primal. Sometimes slow and weaving, sometimes reaching too high and falling over, sometimes lightning fast spinning maneuvers. The snakes were 4-5’ long, and one had 12 rattles. They stood at times about 2’ high.

We left them still posing, though not as tall as initially, and one appeared to have taken the upper, uh, tongue? Still the other wouldn’t give up. Client hunger drove us back to the beach and we left the snakes to their rituals.

Rock and spirit

The weighty, slow transience of rocks. The airy permanence of spirit.

A gull preens on the waves in front of camp. Bobs, dips, shakes. Wades shoreward to stand in knee deep breakers on yellow pencil legs. Its triangle feet fold with each step as it walks to a standing place, face into the wind.

A hole in the busy-ness. Not a lack of things on the never-ending list, but something I’ve dug for myself today. How shallow it seems for all the “have to do” I’ve piled around it. Of course they are all choices.

This morning whitecaps tumble by 100yds offshore, but don’t come in. Not a leaf trembles in the mangle dulce bushes. Castle mountains rise almost vertical in the west, reaching for a setting, waning moon. Cold night air pours down their striped and fluted walls, meets the incoming wind, and holds it off the beach. They hold each other in a tender sunrise balance broken finally by the warmth of the sun. Breezes sputter to the shore and start to play with my camp things. I sit and watch it happen.

Another morning I launch alone just before 6am. The crescent moon rises fuzzy behind eastern clouds. Arcturus, Spika, and Antares disappear behind a veil. Bioluminescence glows in my bow wake and around each paddle stroke. Sometimes the blade of my Greenland stick comes out of the water entirely glowing. I hear a big splash behind me and a snort; a sea lion follows for a few minutes.

Clouds have a hint of light behind them as I pass the southern end of Danzante Island about 7am. A small ray leaps out of the water as if to check on the progress of sunrise. Pelicans cover Submarine Rock and somebody fishes out of a skiff nearby as I head out for Carmen Island. There is no wind and only the most subtle swell. Below clouds, Isla Santa Cruz is clear on the distant horizon. A far boat trails black smoke as it passes between Monserrate and Santa Catalina Islands.

Somehow the names are a comfort. I know where I am because I know what the map says that island is. I have a place in the universe because I know what other people call that star. Blue footed boobies and brown boobies in groups of 2 or 3, circle overhead before moving along. Trying to figure out a name for me, this funny yellow island with the windmill in the middle. But they probably don’t need names to feel at home.

I take a 15 minute break on Punta Baja, scolded by two pairs of yellow legged gulls, then push off for the northern tip of Danzante Island. A kayak group awakes to breakfast on park beach CN27, put I pass far offshore. A light breeze ripples the water. The sun never really rose; it slipped unnoticed over the horizon and is walking about wearing clouds today. Despite a slight NW breeze, an opposing current pushes me gently into it, and I drift north.
Around the northern tip of Danzante, rafts of little grebes float together. Another small ray leaps. This kind is called a mobula. Thousands of them flock together just below the surface around the whole NW end of the island and into Honeymoon Cove. I drift and watch them flap slowly. An undulating carpet. Wingtips break the surface here and there.

Like little peeks into a dimension where it all becomes clear. Like I sit in the shade of a mesquite, squinting at my computer screen, wondering which is the purpose of what, or if it’s all just about being present wherever now happens to be. How to stay in that mindset and run a kayak company, or any other endeavor that requires forethought?

It’s all a matter of perspective, really. Again I slide towards the eastern horizon which is still as dark as the whole circle of sky. The Mountain Man is hard to discern this morning. He’s a cartoonish character with his round head tilted back, a bulbous nose, and a wide open mouth. He aligns with Bird Poop Rock when I’m halfway to the southern tip of Danzante Island. Today Bird Poop Rock is more of a looming feeling than a visual clue. A low bright star east of Crux slides along the southern horizon as I paddle. Nearer and nearer to the Mountain Man comes the star.

“I’ll feed you a star,” I proclaim.

“AHHHHH,” he replies

I paddle faster until the star aligns with his open mouth. It all feels so close in the darkness. The Mountain Man is family. The star could be the song just sung, lingering as a perfect point of light. It could be a golden-red apple ready to fall into the maw.

“Eat it!” I say. Nothing. The star slides onward. “Get it! Gulp it!”

Mountain Man yawns passively at the sky as the star slides up his nose.

Isla Santa Catalina

Once in a while a journey comes along that shows us what we’re made of. My solo paddle to Isla Santa Catalina February 2009 was one of those trips. The most remote island in the Bay of Loreto National Marine Park, its specter on the horizon has long haunted me, but I’ve lacked the time and fortitude to make the double crossing out to it, with Monserrate Island as a midway point in what would otherwise be a 24-mile crossing.

Opportunity arose this week: time and a reasonable weather window. I also just caught a good cold from my business partner, but that would have to wait for later on my schedule, because I had decided to go to Catalina.

I did errands by day, packed in the evening, and launched from my camp on Rattlesnake Beach at about 9pm. Night paddling is one of my favorite things. The tranquility, the focus, the simple profundity that those points of light up there are distant suns, and all the potential that opens. The way the water moves and you feel it through the boat, and other senses that awaken with the limiting of sight. The citrus scent of torote on the cool breeze that comes off a hillside.

By 11pm I’d moved out of home turf to Puertecitos, a coastal beach I’d visited a handful of times. I could camp here or push on to Monserrate Island. Fighting a sore throat and unsure if I’d make it there before the moon set, I opted to camp on the coast.

I landed and lugged the heavy boat up the beach by picking up one end and pivoting it uphill, then switching ends until I’d walked the boat above the high tide line. After stomping the small cobbles beside it until they were relatively flat, I fell asleep until 4:30. There’s something about an adventure that wakes me up in the morning ready to go. With some spoonfuls of mango yogurt, an orange, and a pre-boiled egg in the gas tank, the yellow kayak and I pushed off into the darkness. The moon had set and bioluminescence sparkled spectacularly with each paddle stroke. A whale breathed somewhere behind me. Scorpius looped its great tail into the glowing heart of the milky way. Oh, beautiful world, I’m on my way to the islands! Paddling under cover of dark feels like you’re getting away with something. The sun is sleeping, and when it wakes up and finds you, look how far you’ve come!

By the time the yachters’ net crackled on the radio at 8, I’d been circled by a huge manta ray and was within spitting distance of Monserrate. I kept paddling to the east side to make the next crossing as short as possible. On a half-shaded beach I kept the veggies in the boat cool while drying my wet clothes and self in the sun. Naked and barefoot on the firm wet sands of Monserrate, eating mango yogurt with the sun on my back. Not a bad way to live.

Two hours later, I pushed off for the Promised Land. Paddle an hour, stretch, snack, resume. Calm seas and gentle swell, light breeze. To the north, a panga and a blue whale. Tall column of grey against a pale horizon, count to 4, then a detonation—the delayed exhale of the biggest animal on the planet. Just me, a distant boat, a whale, and a whole lot of water. It’s amazing how much water is out here.

Monserrate wouldn’t go away. I paddled for an hour and it was still there, just behind me. The dissonance between insecurity of leaving it, and frustration at how slowly it faded. I guess it’s like anything—to find a distant shore you must leave one behind, with all the excitement and hesitation that conjures.

Watching distant islands crawl across the horizon. Making up songs, singing loud. The euphoria of being more than halfway! Then the eternal last hour. Catalina was right there, I just couldn’t reach it.

Touchdown 2:40pm, 20 mins ahead of projected time, and a couple miles south of anticipated landing. The current was pushing me that way, and a north wind picked up, so I went with them. I picked a beach, landed, and immediately fell in love with the clean granite cobbles at the shore. This speckled salt and pepper stone is different from the other islands. Cooing doves welcomed me to the place.

Wet clothes drying on the beach, I marched up the closest hillside with sandals, camera, and a bamboo pole I found on the beach so I could fend off the endemic rattle-less rattlesnakes that hide under every shrub on Catalina. I never did find even one. Giant barrel cacti are another endemic, more visible to your everyday nakedkayaker tromping enthusiastically about on a new island. I tried to pose with one. I set the timer, left the camera on a rock, and thought I’d run behind the cactus, stick my arms out to the sides and peek over the top. The first attempt showed a just a cactus with a crescent moon off to one side.

A black plastic crate conveniently washed up on the beach to become my cooking table. I arranged it in front of the perfect sitting rock and presto—a kitchen! Top chefs for miles about clamored for just such a spread.

Triangulation and a chart based on 1800s datum placed me in the middle of the west side of the island, and I felt sure I was further south. Circumnavigation the next day would prove my hunch right; this beach was within 2 miles of the south end of the 10-mile island. Paddling the next day would put me literally into uncharted territory, as the island has just dashed lines indicating no solid data for the east side; just a coastline there somewhere. The research vessel that did the charting and soundings had made one pass between Monserrate and Catalina Islands, about in the middle of the 12MN gap. Two hundred forty-nine fathoms deep where I crossed is darn deep, and kept my mind occupied for some time during the crossing trying to figure out in my head how many feet that would be. Sometimes being slow at math is a bonus. I also looked for the numbers in the water as a milestone, but saw nothing but peaceful green water with little tiny krill swimming in the vastness.

Little mouse in the night, are you one of the Catalina endemics? Trotting lightly across my shoulder, munching in the organic trash bag on the kayak deck? I see your brown backside as you scamper away. You’re bigger than the mice I’ve seen on Danzante and Carmen Islands.

Doves heralded sunrise, and were welcome. Sinus pain and difficulty breathing plagued my night and I finally resorted to the detested childhood remedy—gargling with hot salt water. It’s always an indication of how bad I’m feeling if I’ll actually do it. Indeed, I got out of the warm sleeping bag, reassembled the stove, unpacked the pot and mug, and brought them all back to my nest to prepare the remedy. Now, where to find some salt water?

No radio reception on the water from Catalina, so I didn’t catch the daily yachters’ net. I began a clockwise circumnavigation at 8am, tucking into each cove to inspect beaches, poke into sea caves, and savor the shade of cliffs. Three whales breathed in the distance near another panga as I climbed the NW corner. Lines of pelicans cruised by, usually in odd numbers. Do they count? “Hey, we need another bird for this formation before we’re cleared for takeoff!” Twice, the formation included 11 pelicans and a brown booby. Flight inspector?

Around the north tip, the sea was calm enough to shoot through the rocks, between preening pelicans who didn’t even look up at my passage. Three male sea lions snoozed in the water, hoisting their flippers in the air as dive flags. Three more males lounged on a rock. All the frigates I saw are females. I caught up to a leisurely pod of dolphins as we were both rounding the odd fan of gray cobble on the NE side. They continued on as I stopped for a lunch break of pre-rolled bean burritos.

I picked a tiny beach with just enough shade to sit up in, and this time it’s me I’m keeping cool. Let the veggies roast. The bobos found me immediately. Where did they come from? There’s nothing here but rock. The little bugs don’t bite, but they walk with remarkably heavy feet over every inch of skin, showing preference for facial features. Choices are to accept them, or to go nuts. Or to leave the beach, which I wasn’t ready to do yet. I ate the burritos with one hand and waved them off with the other. Finally, I leaned back into my rock alcove, resigned to accepting the buggars. With a protective arm across my eyes, I let them have their way. The bobos had carnivals, they procreated, they ran marathons, they had sing-alongs. They hosted revival meetings and danced in circles. I wonder if it tickles the earth this much when we walk around?

Dolphins again, coming back towards me once I’m on the water. Animated this time, leaping, tail slapping. One cruises close enough to see it in the water. Along the SE edge of Catalina, the sea caves were marvelous. One had a blow-hole that would consistently go off 4 times in quick succession, then pause. I paddled around the south end where I’d expected to camp, but didn’t feel like it. Low tide left big slimy cobbles along the shore, and the beaches just didn’t feel right. A few minutes around the corner and back up the west side, the perfect beach slid into sight—sand even at low tide! Small cobbles up higher for camping! A cliff that provided all-day shade! A great arroyo for hiking! Looks like home.

While looking for a fresh camera battery in the morning, I discovered I’d packed the hand-crank radio-flashlight in the extra battery bag. Not a bad idea since both my headlamps are on the fritz. I cranked it up and scrolled through the am stations. There actually were some. Music, too. Ode to Joy, of all songs. I often play this one at sunrise on my flute as a wake-up call. I didn’t know it had words. And I didn’t know the words were in Spanish! How appropriate—Ode to Joy for sunrise on Catalina Island, on a trip I’d not brought my flute on, but the music found me anyway.

What I did pack for this trip was 11 days worth of food and water, which makes a remarkably heavy boat. 34 liters (3 per day) of water, 12 raw eggs, 6 boiled eggs, a variety of veggies that keep well, and bags of dry food. The trip ended up only taking 4 days, plus the night paddle before and the morning I didn’t want to leave Danzante to go home and clean up. But with the uncertain February winds, having the means to stay put and wait them out was my safety plan. Five days of wind too strong to paddle a long crossing in isn’t unheard of around here.

I climbed the nearby ridge to try the radio at 8am, and actually got reception! More surprising, was somebody heard me, too, and relayed my data. I felt connected. Voices from home. How nostalgic a person can get with 2 days and a lot of seawater under the hull. I wandered about photographing cacti, and eyed a good hike up to a peak. I carried my trusty snake stick, camera, and tied my water bottle around my neck. This was probably the riskiest activity of the whole trip—wandering about in steep terrain over loose rocks in cactus and rattlesnake country—wearing sandals. Eleven ravens circled about, following my progress, chortling, swooping, glistening in the sun. I had to admit they were worthier beings, and more adapted to this terrain than I.

The summit offered rewarding views of the whole south end of the island, plus tempting other islands as well. When I returned to the beach, the north wind was up to about 12kts, and I didn’t feel like fighting it. Tide was going negative, and the waterfront cobbles were bound to be slippery at most other beaches, so I delayed the plan to move up the island, and read a book, “Almost an Island”. At low tide I crabbed my way around the rocky headland just to have a look.

Eventually the tide began to fill in and the wind began to lay down a little. I scrambled some eggs for dinner, packed up, and paddled into the choppy waves until sunset when I found a beach that had the right feel to it and would make for a shorter crossing in the morning. I hopped around on the cobbles taking photos as the sun went down, then set up camp for sleeping. The smallest cobbles were fist-sized, but they must have been comfortable enough, for I was asleep in moments.

I awoke at 3:30. Clouds were sparse enough to use moonlight for paddling, and the wind was still down enough to give it a shot. However, the wind had turned west in the night, and it didn’t take long for it to begin building. I was headed straight into it. Whitecaps started to hiss around me. The moon shied in and out of clouds. In a much less graceful pattern, my kayak plunged into and through waves. This wave plunging tends to slow a boat down. Every few strokes it felt like I had to get the whole thing moving again, and there was no glide to the action. I leaned hard onto the paddle.

I followed the moon until it set. Leo was the next constellation poised over the western horizon, so I followed Leo for a while. It just happened to be midway between the lighthouse on the south tip of Isla Monserrate, which I could see once I was a couple miles off Catalina, and the glow from the lights of Loreto, which I was dismayed to see soon thereafter. Afterglow of the moon dissipated and the night grew deliciously black. Scorpius hooked his tail into the milky way behind me. Saturn followed Leo down towards home. Waves grew to 2-3feet. In their breaking hiss, bioluminescence sparkled by about head high. As the boat plunged through waves, sea sparkles washed over the deck and onto my skirt. So enchanted was I, that even though I was singing songs like, “The sun will come out…tomorrow”, I didn’t want it to break the spell of lights cavorting in the darkness.

The horizon did begin to glow, and the dimmer stars faded. I found myself worrying, in a strange twist of logic, how I would know where I was going if I couldn’t see Leo.

The sun did come up. I saw Monserrate Island in front of me, and a giant manta ray thrashing around on the surface. Slowly I limped towards the island, having tweaked an old muscle injury over my right ribs by powering through the night waves. I would discover later when I looked at my hands, that despite the fact that I paddle for a living and have been working out by paddling lately, I also earned 5 blisters on that crossing.

Eight o’clock and I was still plugging away. A down & dirty triangulation lining up land forms and relating them to the chart put me at about 2 miles off the NE tip of Monserrate. I turned my radio on for the yachters net and held it in my teeth as I kept paddling. “And that’s all on the tides” was the first snippet I heard, which meant I’d missed check-ins and the weather. I keyed the radio and called in “Kayak Baja” sure nobody would hear me. Somebody did. They relayed my message and said the weather looked good for today. After that exchange, I only caught snippets, but it was still comforting to hear voices from home.

I passed the first landings by a couple of miles and pushed on to the NW tip of Monserrate. I’m a chronic “do it now and get it over with” person, but probably should have stopped at the first beach and rested. By the time I got where I was headed, 14.5miles upwind from my early morning launch, I’d completely lost my sense of humor. Autopilot made cheese and avocado burritos, shoved them in my mouth, and then fell fast asleep on the hard sand.

I woke 30 mins later, still sniffly and coughing with my cold, but feeling significantly better. I even forgave the wind a little bit. After which it relaxed somewhat. I switched back to the Greenland paddle and made myself promise to go slow and easy. Whales in the distance helped pull my spirits along. I was enjoying being on the sea, and Danzante looked reassuringly far away. The wind died and left gently undulating water. Then a breeze picked up from the other direction, as if too much wind had accidently blown that way and had to come back. A churning line of white in the new upwind direction worried me until I saw the black crescents of dolphins leaping out of them. A churning wall of dolphins! I turned north, then back west to see them better. A hundred or more on what looked like a joyous pilgrimage. Ah, life!

Some time later, I turned south to investigate another wall of white, thinking it to be dolphins or rays, but it was a line of strong wind, and I got stuck in it. Once I was there, I couldn’t make it out because the wind line moved with me at the same speed. Tricked! I resigned myself to a slow and bouncy trip.

I don’t know why speed has to matter so much, as if I always need to prove myself. The point is to enjoy being out there. I have food and water and a warm jacket at hand. I can stop and stretch and rest. I can crawl out of the boat to pee and climb back in through really any conditions I’d remotely want to be caught paddling in. I am happy paddling after dark. The moon will be up tonight. I know well the beaches where I’m headed and have found my destination before even without a moon. So what’s the hurry? Still it frustrates me to be slowed by the wind. At least this time my sense of humor doesn’t retire utterly. It strikes me that I’m enjoying the privilege of paddling in the only wind in sight. All around and just out of reach is a light blue slick line where the boat would glide willingly along and fail to build any character at all in the process.

On the water, time and distance become each other’s measure. Sun, moon, and tides hold the schedule between them. Wind runs around with the megaphone and directs the scene. And clouds can pull the plug on the moon. It’s good to be connected with these things, and even humbled by them from time to time.

In the cyclical way of things, this week just before the full moon of February happened to be the time 11 years ago that I was inspired to spend the night solo on the Pacific ocean south of Todos Santos. A huge step, probably not well advised from a risk management standpoint, but a proving ground for faith and fortitude.

The trip to Isla Catalina being another one of those journeys that shows you what you’re made of, I’d have to say this time it’s Bimbo brand strawberry bran-fruit bars, for that is what I most often reached for during those short on-water breaks.

Suddenly Danzante Island was beside me. Submarine rock on the other side. Ahead, calm water, and 4 miles away at the base of the mountains, home camp. Just an hour away. Fresh water for cleaning up. A bucket shower. The flat padded bed of my truck to sleep in. Neighbors to greet. Emails, and computer work. I decided to camp out on Danzante for the night and wander in around noon tomorrow.

After paddling 83 miles in 4 days, exploring a partly uncharted island, and answering to my own inner taskmaster, it was delicious to wake up late. To roll over and munch peanuts and of course strawberry Bimbo bars out of my day hatch while still in my sleeping bag, and watch the morning get on without me.

Kayaking to Cedros Island

We wandered tired and dusty through the remote, pirate-descended Baja town of Bahia Tortugas until we happened upon a smiling shopkeeper. He stood by a freshly painted white wall and a young man hand-lettering “Aborro…” with a red brush. The sun was low, the primitive road long with us. We wanted a place to camp. The shopkeeper directed us to Ruben, at the end of the road, past the barren dirt hills, past the cemetery.

Ruben sells diesel to yachters cruising the coast. This very evening, he happens to be welcoming some favorite customers. Within two hours, we are fed fresh lobster from the bay, a local ranch’s cheese drizzled with olive oil and crumbled oregano, and some of the family’s wine from their northern Baja vineyard, and Axel is bitten on the leg by a dog. Then we are regaled with traditional Mexican ranchero music sung by the yacht delivery captain and his first mate. I never realized so many Mexican songs involve lighthouses.

The wine bottle is empty, tequila half gone, the captain and crew on their way, and a fire burns in the 55-gallon drum by the Diesel sign. Ruben stands close under the night sky and tells me his dreams for the place: a cement floor decorated with shells in the shape of a star. A real Pemex gasoline station here. Friends and customers coming by to spend time on that cement courtyard overlooking the mouth of the bay. Evenings much like tonight. He smiles. I can’t help but like Ruben and his sincere face. Even with his dirt floor…especially with his dirt floor. We’ve all got to dream.

In the morning, Ruben and his wife return from their house in town to see us off. He gives me names of friends in all the places we are hoping to pass by: Punta Eugenia, Isla Cedros, Isla Natividad, Bahia Asuncion. Axel and I hope to paddle our kayaks in some of the most remote places on the northwest tip of the Viscaino Peninsula, itself an out-of-the way piece of Baja. Ruben’s friends will be some of the most gracious people we meet.

Everyone has warned us about currents here, from the Baja cruising guides to knowledgeable captains. “Curientes muy fuerte” usually accompanied with a gesture of power. What we can’t get out of anyone, though, is when and what direction those infamous currents run. “Just watch the lobster buoys,” said the singing captain after a few tequilas.

What we learn about Cedros’ currents through the week, piece by piece, follows.

1. Isla Cedros area has one tide cycle per day.
2. If you ask a seasoned local fisherman about currents, he’ll usually ask somebody else.
3. You sometimes get conflicting information about tides from the same person, but part of it is bound to be right.
4. During neap tides (the weaker ones), the currents weren’t stronger than 2 knots, and that just at a small tide race around a headland.
5. All local boaters carry GPS, and consult them if you ask when the tide will change and which direction it will run. That information isn’t always accurate.
6. We deduced that the current ebbs both north and south around the island from the east side (the splitting point probably changes through the daily tidal cycle and the monthly lunar cycle). Visible points of land and underwater topography have the effect of creating eddies both great and small. The captain of the water delivery boat confirmed this for us, but couldn’t tell us what the tides would do the next day.

Despite all the head scratching and complaining we did about our given information, we guessed the currents well enough after 5 days that we had tidal assist all day on day 6 for 3 miles of coastal paddling, 11 miles of crossing, and 9 miles of circumnavigating Isla Natividad. And we guessed the direction of current correctly for the final crossing the next day, even though we underestimated its strength. This could, of course, be pure luck.

Our journey to Cedros and Natividad Islands launched at 11:45 from Punta Eugenia. We first started towards Natividad. The weather was so calm, and forecast for more of the same, that we took the slack in ebb current as an excuse to head directly for Cedros. We landed after five hours near the salt works through sizeable dumping surf.

Guerrero Negro produces a large percentage of the world’s salt from seawater in giant lagoons on the north shore of the Viscaino Peninsula. Due to the shallow and treacherous entrances to the lagoons, they barge the salt to Cedros Island where it is loaded on freighters in a surprisingly industrial patch of wilderness. We landed next to it. Panga driver Nacho drove his motor boat up to tell us there was better camping up the island and he could give us a lift. We thanked him and decided to paddle there. A boy on the beach and his sister collected 5 caracoles, turban snails, for us from the tide line, and gave them to us to eat. The boy recommended bashing them open with a rock and eating them in crema, which is how we prepared them that night, with garlic from home. Chewy, they were, but not bad. We camped in the arroyo at the south end of the town of Cedros, known locally as el pueblo. The village.

The second day we got on the water just after sunrise and leisurely paddled north. And kept paddling. Rocks passed. A few palm trees passed. Panga boats with lobstermen passed. Pelicans and terns and gulls and cormorants passed. We took short breaks, ate, and kept paddling. By late afternoon, the end of the island was in view. As we approached, a ruckus grew in volume. Near the lobstermen’s outpost of Punta Norte, sea lion and elephant seal rookeries lined the shore. When elephant seals move, an impressive wave of blubber goes caterpillaring along the beach. When they bellow at each other, they sound like a diesel boat motor not quite firing properly. Sea lions vocalize in many different ways, the most important quality of sea lion song being that it not stop. A curious sea lion pup sniffed the bows of our kayaks as if asking who we were, a greeting they do often with each other.

At Punta Norte, four young men worked in the shade of a few trees. They clipped and crimped and tied together green coated metal mesh to build lobster pots. We asked for information on the currents at the north end, and conditions on the other side, and where we could camp. We were shown to 2 vacant rooms in the fish camp dorms for the night. Mine had a half sheet of plywood so thin I almost went to the floor when I leaned on it, so I had a good night’s sleep on the floor. Axel’s was close to the generator so he ended up sleeping outside on the other end of camp.

We had access to water, a toilet, and a week-old internet forecast which called for 9’ west swell mixed with a lingering south swell. According to the best information we could get this far, there were no sufficiently protected harbors on the other side of the island to count on a landing place for perhaps 30 nautical miles. Strength and direction of current were still unknown. The general agreement among lobstermen and vigilantes in the outpost was that the other side of the island would be muy feo tomorrow. Neither of us felt up to that.

Before bedding down in my private Punta Norte accommodations, I visited with the women of the camp who were gathered beneath the trees chatting. They were enjoying a weekend with the dads and kids before taking the youngsters back to el pueblo for school. Lots of questions we answered for each other. Ani shared a Hershey’s chocolate bar with me. In any language, this is a gesture of friendship.

A crew of vigilancia headed out in a panga into the darkness. They patrol all night to keep poachers off the lobster pots. While we visited, a voice came over the VHF broadcasting from a speaker on a post in the middle of camp. Everyone listened a moment. Ani explained that they caught somebody at one of their pots. I never quite understood what they do with those folks, but I did see a rifle get hustled through camp, a rare possession among Mexican civilians.

Morning in Punta Norte found the tide in and the NW swell up. The surge rose and swirled and broke on to the landing. It washed nearly the entire beach, then retreated, exposing almost 30’ of sloped rocky shore. A crew of vigilancia in a panga came near shore to be handed a fresh can of fuel, and both the crew and the man on shore danced with the waves for ten minutes before there came a moment of calm long enough to make the hand-off.

The women were still in their dorms with the kids, but several men watched our launch with interest. Per our usual routine, Axel and I carried my boat to the upper reaches of the water, then together launched his on a smaller surge in between the sets. Once he was safely in deeper water getting settled in his boat, I returned to mine. It was parked next to a dinghy on the cement ramp to the gasoline storage hut at the highest point on the landing. A big surge came in, and I grabbed the seaward end and lifted it clear of the wave, gambling that the water wouldn’t also float the inland end, which it didn’t. The dinghy floated and shifted on its short tether.

By the next surge, I had reached the inland end, the bow. When the surge floated the stern, I walked my kayak up the ramp to the metal door of the hut, matching the speed of the wave and keeping control of my heavily laden boat. I waited there a few more waves, hoping they didn’t get bigger because I was up against the door with nowhere else to go, and the dinghy, animated by the waves, was threatening to get intimate with my kayak.

The energy of the waves began to abate. As a surge retreated, I floated the kayak seaward. On a carefully chosen surge, I pulled the kayak down to meet the water, swung a leg across as the cockpit passed my standing place, sat astride, and paddled backwards into deep water where I finished climbing in and skirting up. I got the feeling the audience was disappointed not to see some carnage.

Around the north end we paddled, planning on a peek at the western side and a retreat back down the eastern side. Swells were much bigger on that side and smashed impressively on the cliffs. The spirit of adventure was on us. It was tough to turn back, but we believed our decision to be a sound one, and turn back we did, enjoying a tailwind and a following sea.

It was early afternoon before we saw el Gran Canyon, our destination for the day. It was the low spot on a mountainous island, the most likely hike across. The beach had a hut and a tree. As we approached from the north, a fishing boat, apparently a shrimper, approached from the south, and anchored off the beach. We waved to each other. As two marineros in a dinghy worked at mooring the stern of the boat to a buoy, I paddled up to the boat.

“De donde vienen?” they always ask, and seem impressed that we paddled from Punta Eugenia. Like many people we meet on the trip, they also seem slightly surprised and quite happy that I speak some Spanish. They are eager to chat, answer our questions, and ask plenty of their own.

They are the water delivery boat for the islands. The hut on the beach is a water storage tank, filling via a tube that runs several miles inland to a spring. Every 3 or 4 days, this boat fills and does its deliveries. In an hour and a half they take on 60 tons of water. They offer us watermelon rounds with lime and chili, then invite us on board for a filling lunch of quesadillas, beans, and fried spam.

The cook plays the Eagles over a classy sound system while we eat. He’s a musician, so he thrives on good music, he explains. In halting English, he proudly introduces himself, “My name is Juan.” Captain Alfredo wears a baseball cap with an A on it. He is a soft-spoken man while we’re there, to whom the crew responds to promptly. Nacho, the young marinero who offered us a panga ride from our first beach on Cedros, was among the crew. So was a 12-year old boy, the son of one of the sailors. He showed us how to dive off the rail of the boat and climb back through the tethered dinghy and up the side of the boat.

The boat was a well painted royal blue with a 6’ tall spool of hose on the back deck. Its dinghy was a different story. If it had a color, I forgot what. Several inches of water sloshed about the floor through a maze of fat, fraying lines joined together at a metal ring. This attached to the hoist when it was brought on board the big boat. Seats were bare wood worn so thin that the back one had completely collapsed and the front one threatened to. The little boat served its purpose, though.

As the dinghy brought in the end of the water tube, we prepared to return to our kayaks, having been well fed and generously hosted. The boat motored off under a puff of dark smoke, and we paddled to the rocky beach to explore. Throughout the afternoon, a few pangas motored south, carrying the moms & kids from Punta Norte back to el pueblo. They all waved as they passed.

The following morning, in the light of the orange horizon and the tiniest sliver of moon, we set out up the Gran Canyon of Cedros Island. Two and a half hours up, we allowed, and hustled. For an island only about 6 miles across, this canyon seems impossibly broad and long. The walking is fairly easy since the occasional waters scoured nice walkways bare. On the north side of some high peaks, dark patches of juniper trees grew. These trees once covered more of the islands and were the reason behind the name Cedros Island, since the Spaniards thought they were cedars.

The canyon narrows and finally we climb a ridge to see Isla San Benito and on the west, and the hazy mountains of the Baja peninsula 60 miles east. It’s our only peek at the west side of Cedros Island. We descend, rest a bit, and resume paddling south to el pueblo for the night, arriving to the frolicking of dolphins.

We leave our beach at el pueblo as sunrise starts to show her colors. The abandoned shacks south of town look like their story should be told in a faded old paperback with the back cover torn half off. Mismatched panels of old plywood, rusty corrugated roofing, and unidentified scraps comprise the walls of windowless huts whose black doorless openings swallow the predawn light.

Low barren ridges of earth embrace the lifeless village. Hills fold upon more hills away from the old memories, pale, then tan, then brown, retreating back to the red mountain before any living thing appears.

The sun rises beyond a freighter anchored near the salt works. Barges with ridges of purest white salt await unloading. Gulls perch on the salt crest, adding their own whitener. The current starts strong on our crossing from Cedros to Natividad, then slacks. We paddle over kelp forests. Looking down through the clear water at the leaning underwater trees, I feel like I’m flying.

Around Natividad we paddle, admiring reef breaks and sea lion colonies, and shriveling our noses at the fragrance of sea bird guano that covers the rocks.

At Punta Arena on Natividad Island, northwest swell and south swell both wrap around and find just the right bottom contour to make two perfectly rideable surf waves in front of our camp. We eat the last delicata squash from my home garden, and watch blue throated lizards devour flies. The view is a perfect overview of both Cedros Island where we came from, and Punta Eugenia, where we paddle the next morning into the rising sun.

Snapshot

Five colorful kayaks plunge through choppy seas along Carmen Island’s rocky coast. Yellow Tempest, Blue Tempest, and Red Romany frolic in the waves. Sea Green Romany (that’s me) parallels Yellow Explorer, trying to encourage and keep him off the rocks. The dark sea is studded with whitecaps

I see something floating in the waves, olive green or brown, about 18” across. Perhaps a mat of sargassum, a prickly seaweed. Wavelets distort my brief glimpses. Then it rises on a crest, a sea turtle, backlit in the water. Round body, long front flippers, stubby back flippers, little round head in the air. A perfect silhouette--a tiny island of tranquility in a turbulent sea.

“This beach sucks!” announces Ryan of the Yellow Tempest. We’ve landed at the first available beach after Yellow Explorer capsized in the wind. It was the first potential landing spot in half an hour of paddling after the rescue, but it’s sloped, rocky, and exposed. The coastline is about to turn into an even more exposed direction.

We hunker in the little dry watercourse, or arroyo, out of the wind for lunch, and consider our options. I check the landing at the next beach over, and it’s not feasible with loaded boats, 3’ dumping waves, and dog-sized rocks in the surf. Yellow Explorer is not going any further. Indeed, the Port Captain would come out the next morning to pick him up in a motor boat. He has overestimated his skill, and is not interested in continuing with a forecast of building wind.

I declare that we’re staying at “Sucky Beach” for the night. Campers can start excavating their sleeping hollows. There are still waves to be played in, however. I go ride some in the little break off our beach, then stay close to the cell phone to organize pick-up logistics. Ryan, who is the other guide and organizer of this trip, goes with the other two wave-frolickers to explore the coast for the rest of their afternoon. I don’t want to know if there’s a perfect beach just around the corner.

Of course the boys return with reports of just that beach. It’s the most perfect in all the world. Sandy landing, glowing golden in the sun, dancing girls (and one handsome guy, they note), angels sliding down sunbeams, turning into masseuses when they touch the ground, beach music playing from the cactus-tops, cold beer flowing from the cactus tap.

“Sure, whatever,” I say. “Just don’t tell me there’s a clean point break at one side of it.”

“Yeah, there is! That’s the best part of it! We surfed it for hours.”

I groan and go flatten a little sleeping nest beside my kayak for the night. Where would we be without imagination?