San Francisquito Bay to Cala Mujeres December 26th 2001.

We got up late (for a kayaking holiday) and showed up at Alberto’s house for the 8:00 HAM radio weather report. Unfortunately, it was washed out by a Chinese station broadcasting on the same frequency! The wind was down to a mere 17 MPH according to John’s meter. Alberto had seen a weather channel report about the chance of a low approaching southern California that might make the wind die down a little bit in Baja. We decided to pack up our boats and paddle straight into the wind for a mere 5 kilometers to a pair of beaches, called the Cala Mujeres, that I had camped at last trip down here. The northern of these two beaches is often used as a fish camp, which made me think that it would be well protected from the wind. When I mused that out loud, Alberto agreed with me and recommended it as a place to stay out of the wind. By the time we had finished packing and parked our truck in Alberto’s yard, we managed to launch at 11:00 AM. A terribly late time to launch if you are worried about getting your kayaking done before the wind gets worse.

John did not believe that his heavily loaded boat would actually float, but it did! We also found paddling into the wind possible and slowly made progress out of the cove and across the bay. Going to Cala Mujeres meant that we could hug the shore the whole way and stay out of trouble in the open water where the tide is reputed to really rip through the narrows between the islands. We crossed several shallow shoals where the waves rose up steeply in our faces and broke across our bows. Nothing that a few wave warriors like us couldn’t easily handle! I had duct-taped my cheep plastic Virgin on the bow of my boat and worried that she might get washed away. I had put her there for secular protection against thieves. John seemed to be expecting supernatural protection from bad weather. Will dunking Her in salt water all afternoon make her angry at us and remove the protection from weather? The ductape held strong and The Virgin stayed firmly on my bow, which I took to be a good sign.

I saw the cove that I camped in with Penny Wells and others almost two years ago, but passed it up for the hoped for shelter of the fish camp. John stayed farther from shore but finally followed me into the fish camp. Here we found a warm sandy beach protected from most of the wind. Beautiful clear water turning electric blue over the bright white sand of the cove. We finally found the sunny beaches of Baja that we drove so far to camp on! John was under the impression that this beach was just a lunch stop and we had to paddle farther. But this was the goal for the day and we were at our camp for the night already. With a little extra time, we hiked up to the peak of the nearest point. We tried to contact Alberto on the VHF radio (he leaves a radio listening on the emergency frequency) but no luck. He must have been out for the afternoon. It seemed like we had only been paddling and hiking for a short while, but all of a sudden it was evening with inadequate time to prepare dinner. We forgot that it is the dead of winter and the sun sets at 4:30! And it disappears behind the peaks of the main Baja peninsula even earlier. We barely had time to cook dinner before dark!