When we came out from behind the protection of the bluff we discovered that the wind had already started blowing in the morning when we expected calm. This wind plus the northwest swell quickly blew us seven miles south to the questionable beach we had considered going to the day before. I paddled closer to shore to see if it would have worked. I never quite decided pro or con but I did see a pod of large dolphins while I was looking.
The coastline from here on was a long sandy dumpy beach with sand dunes behind it. No good for landing on or interesting to paddle close to. We decided we had seen enough of the shore and headed straight for Isla San Martin. The wind was now blowing across our path from the west as we paddled south. Waves would break on my right side and splash cold water up my right underarm while my left sleeve became hard with dried salt spray. One thing that lightened my day was watching the volcanic cones ahead and to the left of our path. These cones surround Bahia San Quintin so they are spaced far apart. This means that the parallax, the relative position, of the cones changed as the day wore on and convinced me that we were making progress.
To our right was a wall of stormy-looking clouds. These included dark mushroom shaped thunderheads. The wind was coming from that direction so we worried that the clouds would overtake us while we paddled. They stayed in place offshore all day and we traveled the whole day in sunshine. Finally Isla San Martin drew close and started to blow past us. We had to turn and paddle into the wind to get behind the end of the natural breakwater on the west side of the island. Then we hugged the shore around the southeast corner looking for the entrance to a lagoon. This little cove closes out at low tide, which was arriving soon. We had to surf over rocks on two foot waves to get inside.
Inside the lagoon we saw harbor seals and elephant seals all over one beach. The harbor seals panicked at the site of us, jumped in the water and swam in a group towards the mouth of the lagoon. So many little bodies swimming together in a shallow body of water created a large wake, as if Nessie the Sea Monster was coming at us. We turned and landed on a smaller unoccupied beach where the waves from Nessie’s wake helped us pull our kayaks higher on the sand.
Behind our beach was a park-like camping area with tent-sized patches of sand between patches of plants. The only thorn in paradise here was cholla cacti everywhere. These nasty little cacti have segmented stalks that break off and stick to anything that brushes against them. The long spines have tiny barbs that hold on so that you carry the segment for some distance before it falls off to propagate the plant in a new location. The spines are so sharp and tenacious that they hold onto rubber soles, leather, fabric or flesh. Trying to remove them without metal tools only gets you stuck somewhere else. Rumor has it that the barbs will eventually work the spines through solid rubber. Months later they will arrive on the inside of your boots to stick you again or cause your truck tires to go flat. Because of this some people call them “Tire Punch Cacti”. I removed all the cholla plants in a large radius around my tent but still found segments stuck on my boots or pricking me in the calves later.
We settled down for the evening and listened to the sounds of the elephant seals. They make many different noises: grunting, snorting, trilling, barking and some exclamations that sound like a human voice. In the calm of the night it sounded like they were right next to our tents. Charles Harris joked that he wondered if one of the seals was coming over to lie on the foot of Gregg’s sleeping bag.