Without Sid and his gear, my truck was not as loaded down, was easier to pack, and more comfortable with only two people in it. We headed off sort of early in the morning and went down Highway 101. This isn’t the best route to get to San Diego, but it gave me a chance to stop at my sister Margie’s house to deliver some Christmas presents around lunch time. Hidden in the pile of presents for my family were a few packages with John’s name on them! One of them contained a cheep plastic Virgin.
Years ago I had attended a BASK meeting where the speakers were three guys who had paddled a great stretch of the Baja coast of the Sea of Cortez. Most of the shoreline is uninhabited and the few fisher folk that you meet are wonderful people. Even when you cannot speak their language they will bend over backwards to give you food, water, shelter, a ride or help to dig your car out of the sand if you need any of these things. Most of the people of Baja are generous and trustworthy. But as you get closer to the tourist areas you will run into people who prey upon the tourists. (Probably imports from mainland Mexico). These three guys paddling down the coast had gotten used to leaving their kayaks on the beach without worrying about theft. When they landed at Loreto, they left their boats on the sand and went into town to have a big dinner at a restaurant. When they returned, two of the kayaks had been ransacked. The cameras and everything else of re-salable value had been taken. Our heroes were puzzled and asked the locals why one of the kayaks had not been broken into. The answer was “Oh! THAT boat is under the protection of The Virgin”.
It turns out the owner of THAT boat had found a promotional statuette of Princes Leah from the Star Wars movie floating in the water. He had duct-taped her to the bow of his boat. The locals and the thieves had mistaken it for A Statue Of The Virgin Mary. Personally, I think the people of Mexico are a little nuts about that woman. And I’ll bet that if you asked the cardinals in the Vatican they would agree that the Central and South American fascination with that woman is dangerously close to tipping the balance into idolatry. When you hear them talk about HER you can hear the capitol letter in the word “Virgin”. Nobody even bothers with the extra verbiage of saying long phrases like “A statue of The Virgin Mary”, they just say “a Virgin” and you are supposed to know what they are talking about. And, as these three guys found out, if you even have something that only vaguely resembles A Virgin on the bow of your boat, even thieves will honor her and leave you alone.
Ever since I heard that story I have wanted to acquire a little statue of The Virgin for when I go to Baja. Finally this year, I found one in the Archie McPhee catalog (“The Rubber Chicken People”). They sell cheep glow-in-the-dark magnetic Virgins in packages of four. I reserved one for the dash of my truck, one for the bow of my boat, one spare (for Sid who missed out), and one wrapped as a Christmas present for John to put on the bow of his boat.
We drove down to San Diego and stayed at the condominium of Albert Wang. Albert is a BASK member who owns this unit in San Diego and was going to be in town for a few weeks to clean his apartment up and try to rent it out. Before he left he broadcast a message to everyone in the club offering to put people up for a few days of partying and kayaking in the San Diego area. A bunch of people decided to take him up on his offer, so many that he began to worry that there would not be enough floor space for all the sleeping bags! John and I arrived the same day Albert did, so we were there before the crowd and had our pick of patches of wall-to-wall carpeting to sleep on. But this meant that we also missed the big party that apparently raged the next few days.
Apparently driving through the traffic around Los Angeles had burned off my saint-like-state-of-calm about the trip. I tossed and turned in my sleeping bag for hours worrying about gear. Was my tire repair kit still in the back of my truck? I didn’t recall seeing it lately. Would my sleeping gear be warm enough for Baja in the winter? Should we take the time to get tourist cards? Would we be able to find gasoline in Bahia de los Angeles? When I reported to John that I had lost the saint-like-state-of-calm he said that he suspected all along that it was a thin veneer of outer calm.
We couldn’t stay for partying and kayak surfing, we had to get going the next morning so we would have as much time as possible on the Sea of Cortez. Before we left, I gave Albert a Christmas present. A cheep plastic glow-in-the-dark magnetic Virgin wrapped in a festive red envelope. Albert did not open it until Christmas day and since he didn’t hear the story about what these were for, he probably wondered why we gave him such a thing.