I didn’t feel the need to get out of my boat at the break and explored a bank of something dark drifting in the shallows. Instead of finding algae floating in the water I found a school of tiny little fish huddling close to shore to avoid predators. There where so many of them they blocked all light and made the water look dark. But if I came too close or stuck my paddle into their masses, they would move out of the way and the water would change from black to a murky yellow as the sandy bottom was exposed. If I clinked my paddle on a rock on the bottom, they would jump out of the water in their haste to get away from the source of the noise.
The only maps of this island are very low resolution and have 50 or 100 meter topographic lines. So a lot of interesting topology can not show up at all. The east shore is shown as being low and uninteresting and this is generally true. However, as we approached Punta Ast Ah Keem (a Seri Indian name) we came to a couple of very interesting bluffs on the shoreline. These were not tall enough to show up in the topographic lines but once we knew where to look we saw little bumps in the outline of the shoreline on the map. We stopped at the first of these and discovered it was a very interesting place. The bump on the map was caused by a large offshore knoll that was connected by a gravel spit to the shore. This spit had shallow areas that we figured were under water at high tide, and higher areas only under water during storms. These higher areas were ideal for us to camp in. Even though it was only noon, we decided to camp here for the night.
But before the night we had plenty of time to explore. I climbed up to the top of the knoll to take pictures of our camp and the bay to our south. The bay was full of a dozen or more shrimp boats that were anchored for the day. In the middle of the night they all pulled up anchor and motored away. We guessed that they fish at night with lights to attract the shrimp. Lucy O’Brien, John and I went snorkeling and John managed to spear a few small fish for dinner. He was wearing a farmer john wetsuit and a long sleeved shirt. Because of the neoprene he needed a weight belt and used a rock belt. He still seemed overly buoyant to me. I dove wearing just my dive skin, plus mask, snorkel and travel fins that convert my Teva sandles into flippers. The water temperature was 78F and as long as I was active I stayed warm enough. Without a buoyant wetsuit I was able to dive pretty deep and look around, finding one small scallop resting on the sandy bottom between rocks. There was a rocky reef that extended around the knoll that dropped down into the water with deep fissures in it which were interesting to explore. I would dive down and look up to see John enthusiastically poking his spear at fish above me. I became concerned that he would get carried away and spear me in his haste!
When I entered the water my hand brushed something that stung strongly. I guessed that this was a jellyfish, although I never saw one. Later I caught a stinging thread on my fingers and decided that the stings came from brushing one of these thread shaped animals. Both John and Lucy O’Brien ran into these things, Lucy getting a welt that lasted for days.
Late in the evening we started hearing the diesel generator running on the shrimp boats. I feared that in the quiet of the night this sound would get offensive. However I quickly fell asleep and don’t recall hearing them after dark. I do recall waking up to hear coyotes yipping in the distance at one point. Generally I slept so soundly that when the shrimp fleet left I didn’t even hear their Diesel motors starting.