A Dream Accomplished Kayaking in Sea of Cortez – Day 27 

I was awake off and on from about 1 AM thinking about finishing the trip and how to get back home.  In the dark with my flashlight, I sorted out all my stuff and figured out how to re-pack it to get it all securely below the deck.  I ended up with more than enough water, about 2 gallons, and I had three potatoes, three soups, 1/2 onion, and some tortillas.  It had been ten days since I left Bahia de Los Angeles where I last picked up my supplies, so I think I was lucky to end my kayaking in Sea of Cortez with any food at all.

I went back to a fitful sleep got up at about four in the morning and had coffee and tortillas.  I started re-packing and pushed the kayak into the water at about 5:40, just moments before sunrise.  As I slipped the kayak into the water and the first beams of sunlight came across the magnificent Sea of Cortez, I lifted the paddle with both hands high over my head and shouted my lungs out with joy for this sunrise and for this trip.  What an incredible feeling! It was a sunrise that would be hard to match the rest of my life.

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So much emotion. 

I had planned a daring adventure: a month-long solo sea kayaking trip from San Felipe to Santa Rosalia in the Sea of Cortez, spanning a treacherous and awe-inspiring 340 miles of the rugged Baja California coast.

As Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”. I had taken my first step early in the morning on the beach in San Felipe when I dipped my paddle into the water, rocking the kayak back and forth to test the balance of the kayak and finding that “It was good”. I tugged on the rope connected to my rudder and flipped it down into the water. I looked back at the beach several times to see my tracks in the sand leading down to the water.  I was on my way and the emotions were overwhelming.  

I found solace in the simplicity of my daily existence. With nothing but the sky and sea around me, my kayak became my home, and my paddle was my lifeline. It was almost like a dance, the constant dip and pull on the paddle, first on one side and then the other, a steady rhythm like a heartbeat. When I looked around at my world, I could see it consisted only of sky and the sea, split by a horizon, and the nearby shoreline, nothing more. 

I went days without seeing any person or evidence of humanity, I was one with Nature. As a biologist I felt privileged to be able to experience the Sea of Cortez, described so well by my biological heroes, Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck in “Log of the Sea of Cortez”, and Jacques Cousteau who from the deck of Calypso proclaimed that the Sea of Cortez is “the world’s aquarium.”

With a glass of cheap wine in Guillermo’s in Bahia de Los Angeles I learned that the journey was so much more than the destination. Traveling solo, I had just paddled a heavily loaded kayak almost 200 miles over sixteen days, chased coyotes making off with my clothes, and sparingly used my food and water so that I could make it to Bahia de Los Angeles. I landed in this wonderful place with only a single potato and one can of soup to spare. 

Paddling for hours and days on the vast but lonely expanse of the Sea of Cortez, I experienced how meditation could affect my body and mind. I noticed a sense of calm and focus that I had not experienced before, and it allowed me to view the world around me in a different way.

During the many hours of paddling, I could feel the closeness of the horizon and I was frequently curios about how far I could see while seated so low in the kayak. The distance to the horizon is available in tables for just about any height of an observer. From my position sitting low in the kayak my horizon was only visible out to less than 2 miles! I was always about 2 miles from the horizon, never getting any closer, but slowly revealing beaches, birds, floating objects, and everything that came into my limited field of view as I tried to overtake the horizon. 

Paddling, I could reach the edge of my visible horizon in about 40 minutes, and looking back, I could only see the water’s surface as far as my most recent 40 minutes of travel, all else was lost in the distance. 

My life on the Sea of Cortez was bounded by the horizon, ever so close but never overtaken. I think my journey on the Sea of Cortez is a metaphor for life itself, when compared to the immensity of the universe and the eternity of time. Our lives on Earth are like a journey on the Sea of Cortez in that we have a limited perspective and a limited amount of time to experience the world around us.

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Santa Rosalia

I paddled slowly for about two hours from where I camped on my last night on the Sea of Cortez to the center of Santa Rosalia. I landed first on a small beach just south of the marina at a place that I knew was near the bus station.  I pulled the kayak up on the rocky beach and walked over to the bus station, which was only a couple hundred yards away. I checked the bus schedule and found there was a 5:00 p.m. bus to Ensenada.  There was a small store nearby where I got a phone card to call ann. She says the grass is getting a lime green and needs fertilizer.  Today is Easter Sunday.  

I got back into the kayak and went into the marina because I had heard that there might be a place there to leave my kayak.  In the marina there were some Americans on a sailboat that had been here in the marina for about four months.  They had a key to the marina building where I could lock up my kayak while I went to San Felipe to retrieve my car.  I cleaned the kayak using fresh water from the hose on the dock, and I took a bath in the fresh water at the same time.  I gave the fellows on the boat my last three bottles of water.  So far, this part of my return plan has worked out well.

I walked downtown and ate some tacos, got some cash (1500 pesos), and found an Internet cafe.  I sent some e-mail messages to let people know that I was still alive and then walked back to the bus station to wait for the bus.  I had a minor setback at the bus station because they told me they were sold out.  This was a big travel weekend in Mexico, and everyone was heading home after a week of vacation.  After about an hour, the clerk said there was a no-show and he sold me a ticket to Ensenada, 443 pesos.  I boarded the overnight bus to Ensenada to begin my 2000-mile Baja trip up, down, and back up again to get home.

The Bus Trip Home

Well, this part of the plan for Kayaking in Sea of Cortez was working so far, too.  The bus had to be jump started but was semi-luxurious.  We left fifteen minutes late, but that’s OK because it will mean less time waiting on the other end for a connection in Ensenada.  We got underway and we passed by the spot on the beach where I stayed last night.  Then we headed into the mountains.  We passed by the Vulcan las Tres Virgines, one of the guideposts I used for the last week of my trip.

There were about eight bus stops along the way, each of about ten to fifteen minutes, plus three military inspection points, one with a drug-sniffing dog.  At each of these places everyone in the bus had to pile out to let the military inspect it.  I’m surprised at how generally clean and efficient the bus stations were, so far.  We arrived at Ensenada at about 4:30 in the morning, right on time. The transfer bus to San Felipe did not leave until 8:00.  The fee for the San Felipe leg was 160 pesos.  We were close to the Pacific Coast in Ensenada and because I was only in my shorts and T-shirt, it was very cool for me while waiting at the bus station.  Everyone else was bundled up like it was winter.  Sleeping was a little difficult on the bus in the cold and tight seating, despite the semi reclining chairs.  I had a window, so I had something to lean against.  I noticed the skin was peeling on my arms already, and I thought, “I’ll be as white as ever by the time I get home.”

The San Felipe bus left at 8:05.  There were only five people on this bus, but it picked up people as we moved through the town.  With a heavy overcast and dirty windows, I really couldn’t tell my directions very well.  I had to look for satellite dishes to point me to the south.

We got to San Felipe at about 11:30 AM. I walked about a mile from the bus station to the RV park, got my car, got gas and insurance, and headed out of town at about 12:00.  It took me 2 1/2 hours to get back to Ensenada. Going through Ensenada I put my cell phone on to see if it was working when I got a stray AT&T signal.  It beeped at two spots, but I couldn’t get a dial tone.  About 30 miles south of Ensenada, the phone was showing “Roam”, I dialed and got a Spanish operator. I hung up and tried the 001 code for the USA and it rang directly home and Ann answered.  She is off this week for Easter, and we talked about how long it would take me to get home.  

After passing through the military checkpoint south of Ensenada, I drove south on Highway 1, down to Catavena to my favorite run-down motel.  They turn the lights out at 9:00, it has room temperature water in the shower, and only cost me 220 pesos.  I arrived here at about 8:40 in the evening.  It is impossible for me to drive on the dark Baja roads at night because I am blinded by the lights of the oncoming cars.  And besides, it’s totally unsafe to drive at night because there are cows on the road that you can’t see because they are totally black and don’t reflect any light.  I took a quick shower in the Catavena motel and went to eat at the restaurant across the street from the “La Pinta” hotel.  The same place I always eat when I’m in Catavena. They have great carne asada.

I woke up in the Catavena motel at 3:15 and I was headed south on the road by 3:40 am.  I had coffee and a snack in Guerro Negro at about 6:30 AM. I arrived at Santa Rosalia about 8:30 AM.  I collected my kayak and went into town to get some tacos.  Now headed back north, I left town at about 9:30 AM and was back in Catavena at 2:50 pm.  It took me about eleven hours to get back to where I had started at 3:40 this morning.  I left Catavena at about 3:30 PM and I got home at midnight.

We did go to the baseball game.

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