In the morning the north wind had moderated and we had calm water again. We all broke camp, packed up and headed out for our last day. We had heard reports that the shore here was not as interesting as the islands we had recently been on, but we found the coastline here spectacular and beautiful. That is until we got too close to Loreto and stared seeing more and more signs of development.
We paddled into a cove named Ensenada Blanca and saw cement trucks and resorts. The next day I talked to a realtor in Loreto about real estate in Mexico. All she wanted to talk about was shore-front lots. She still had two lots left for sale on Ensenada Blana for tens of thousands of dolares. Why would I want to by a small piece of land next to thousands of lots smushed right up against each other? Why would I want to build a house inches away from my neighbors? I can do that at home. We also wondered how this location could become such a hot real estate location when it was supposed to be in the middle of a national park in Mexico. I didn’t ask the real estate agent that question.
We paddled away from Encenada Blanca and stopped on a small offshore island, Isla las Islitas, for lunch. From there we could see that the next island north of us had a narrow spire of rock on it. At first everyone else was only interested in heading directly to our take-out at Rattlesnake Beach. But when I said that I HAD to see this spire up close everyone else went with me. It turns out this rock was surrounded by a flat-topped reef around it. When I told Don Fleming that I wanted him to land and have me take his picture trying to push the spire over, he took me seriously and landed there!
The next little Island, Islote Blanco, had one last cave for me to paddle into before heading for the final landing. I was hanging back and talking with Herb Howe but at one point I decided to catch up with Don and Doug Hamilton to ask them something. Unknown to me the two of them had decided to see how long they could paddle at 4 knots. I paddled at sprinting speed just to catch up and was amazed at how long that took. Then the three of us landed all at about the same time at Rattlesnake Beach, 15 minutes or more ahead of everyone else.
The drivers walked an extra hour in the desert to get to their cars and came back for the rest of us. We packed up and drove to Loreto. We moved into a hotel (charging exorbitant rates) for the evening. Kate and I could have stayed out on a beach somewhere for another night because we had to stay in the hotel for two nights before our flight left. Everyone else abandoned us in Loreto to start the drive north. Because it was such a long drive they planned to stop on the way and do have another kayak adventure for three days in Bahia de los Angeles. Kate and I spent a day and a half relaxing, shopping and hanging out in a wonderful bookstore, El Caballo Blanco, in down town Loreto. Then we caught our flight home and the trip was really over for us.