Finally we reached the narrow channel between Isla San Lorenzo and Isla Las Animas. We crossed over to paddle up the back of this smaller island. From here we had views east to nearby Isla San Esteban, Isla Tiburon, and a chain of islands farther north that did not show on any maps or charts. These “islands” are actually mountains on the Mexican mainland! It looks reasonably easy to hop from island to island here and paddle all the way across the Sea of Cortez. One day I will have to come back and do exactly that! But we had only a short vacation and had to be satisfied with exploring the back side of Isla Las Animas, which was much rockier and steeper than the protected southwest side of Isla San Lorenzo. The northwest side of these islands takes the brunt of the bad weather from the north and the cliffs had been carved down to the bones, creating a few caves and arches for us to paddle through. I got my cave and rock gardening urges satisfied like the front side of Isla San Lorenzo had not done!
We reached the north point of Las Animas and made the short crossing to Isla Salsipuedes (I’m told this name means “Leave If You Can” in Spanish). We didn’t stop for lunch on Las Animas because John went to shore to read a new blue sign that warned everyone to stay off the island unless they had a permit. Isla Salsipuedes had the same blue sign on one cove, and two older beige signs in the fish camp cove. I landed to read the old signs (in Spanish and English) while John paddled on looking for other places to camp. The two beige signs earned my respect! Instead of ordering me around, these signs were full of advice. What times of year different birds nest. How far away you should stay to avoid disturbing nesting birds. The consequences of disturbing nesting birds (gulls dive in and eat their eggs or young). The damage done by pets or accidentally introduced pests. The best places to shit and what to do with the toilet paper. These signs asked me politely to avoid behavior that harms the island and gave me good reasons to do so. I respected these signs. John thinks that these signs have never worked, are now obsolete and that is why the new blue signs have been simplified. They just say KEEP OFF. This is too bad.
John Donahue had spent several days on this island trapped here by strong winds. He recommended the fish camp as being the best place sheltered from the wind. We set up camp there despite all the trash left everywhere by the ponga fishermen and drug runners. We had not finished lunch when a ponga roared around the corner of the island and headed towards the cove. John moaned “OH NO!” thinking that it was the government officials come to enforce the blue signs. For a second I though OH NO thinking they were drug runners, but these guys were wearing wet suits or waders and rain jackets. They looked like real fishermen to me and my next thought was “OH BOY! Lobster for dinner!” Our new neighbors turned out to be sea cucumber divers (a disgusting slug, exported to Asia). But they reached into huge bins and drums full of slimy slugs and pulled out large scallops! Apparently they collect a few scallops for themselves while diving for the cash slug crop. They offered us a huge handful of the scallops and taught me some new words in Spanish. The scallop is called “manos de lion” which means the hand of the lion because the shape of a scallop shell looks like the shape of the paw of a lion. We ate ours raw dipped in soy sauce with wasabe. Our hosts had theirs with picante sauce which we politely refused. They refused my offer of soy sauce, but I sort of wish we had convinced them to compare their picante with our wasabe! I suspect they would have respected the bite of the Japanese horseradish!
While we finished setting up our camp the divers hauled out a 20 gallon pot, burner and butane tank. They boiled water which gave us some renewed hope of lobster. But no, they spent the afternoon, evening and hours into the night boiling sea cucumbers and packing them in salt. Long after dark they packed up and left. My poor Spanish had given me the impression that they were not staying the night here but going someplace else that evening and returning home the next day. In the middle of the night, long after we had gone to sleep, they returned to the beach again. They had been fishing for fin fish of some sort and returned to catch a few hours of sleep. But we didn’t know this and worried that we might have less friendly visitors. We had heard stories about drug runners that drive pongas full of marijuana up the Sea of Cortez by night, camping by day on the islands to avoid the land-based army drug inspections. When I got up in the middle of the night to pee, I hoped that our neighbors had seen our tents and knew we were there. I didn’t want a paranoid drug runner to be surprised by me walking around in the night and start shooting at me.