Going to Isla Angel de la Guarda from Isla Salsipuedes is not the route that most kayakers take. I had chosen to go this way for several reasons. One is that there were two small islands on the way that I had never been to. I simply wanted to see them up close! Another reason is that I do not like doing long crossings. Having something to look at and someplace to stop and rest at makes a crossing easier to do. If you count these as separate crossings then doing the trip this way meant that our longest crossing was only 8 miles, not 20. A third reason was that the weather generally comes from the north. If it turned very bad on us, it would blow us back in the direction of our trucks. If the weather was marginal, we could stop and camp on one of the little islands we would be passing.
It was noon by the time we had crossed only 6 miles to the first little island, Isla Rasa. Our day was half over but only one 6 mile crossing was behind us. This island is a bird sanctuary and there is a naturalist living there. Five years ago I was told that one of the naturalist’s jobs is telling people they cannot land there. I was also told that the naturalist gets lonely and might invite us to stop and stay for a visit. We ducked behind the island to get a little out of the wind and adjust some of our equipment. On the back of the island I saw two people standing on the shore! They turned out to be student volunteers helping the naturalist. One of them, Torr, spoke very good English and invited us to stay on the island. John Somers talked directly with the naturalist, Enriquetta by name, via VHF radio. She repeated the invitation. To her the condition of the sea looked terrible and she felt that for our safety we should land and stay on Isla Rasa. The waves were crashing into the north side of the island closing out the entrance to the lagoon, the only good landing spot. Enriquetta suggested that we land on the south side of the island and carry our kayaks across. Unfortunately Isla Rasa is little more than a pile of big rocks. Landing would be difficult anywhere and carrying loaded kayaks over the rocks would be miserable. I suggested that since we could still make progress into the wind, we should continue on to Isla Partida. It was only 5 more miles away. We could just paddle slowly, not stress ourselves and make it there in time to camp for the evening. Partida is a larger island with a south facing cove that we should be able to land in. We thanked Enriquetta over the VHF radio and continued on. But what nice people! I resolved to stop and thank them personally on the return trip.
After a short distance we hid in the wind shadow of an isolated rock. Just as we were leaving this haven, Doug Hamilton had one of his footpegs slip off. He and I returned to the shelter behind the rock before we were able to get it fixed. Then we finally started making slow and steady progress and made it to Isla Partida by 4:00 PM.
As the shape and direction of the island on the map suggested there was a large gravel beach to land on. There was a panga fish camp in the middle of this beach, so we landed north of them to look for our own space. There was no good place to camp right were we landed so everyone went off in different directions looking for a better spot. While exploring John Somers discovered something very strange. A sea turtle upside down and far from shore. At first he thought it was dead, but when it reacted to him he picked it up and carried it back to the sea. This task was initially difficult because it’s rear flippers had somehow gotten pinned under some rocks. John was physically struggling with carrying a large animal and mentally struggling with several theories to explain how it came to be so far from the water. Did it crawl up there? Was it blown up by a storm? The turtle did not react to being placed close to the water and at first we feared that it was too late to save it. But John moved it a few feet closer until a small wave broke over it’s head. Then it sprang into action, pulled itself into the water and took off swimming at an incredibly fast rate! We all cheered for joy!
Then Don Fleming and I explained to John that turtles are a much sought after delicacy and the answer to John’s questions was: the Mexicans in the nearby fish camp. But why did they put the turtle so far from their camp? And why didn’t they react to us taking dinner away from them and letting it escape? The answer is that even in Mexico sea turtles are protected now and it is a 20 year prison sentence for them to be caught with one. We wondered if they were secretly pissed at us. I joked that they would probably come by in the night and slash our tires. We ended up camping on the far south end of the beach and were not bothered by anyone, except some noisy nesting terns that seemed to scream all night long.