After a few hours we stopped for a break. Andrea Wolf had a problem with her rash guard giving her a rash (hence the name) and landed for a break even though conditions were not to her liking. Everyone successfully “surf” landed and then launched later. But the break lasted longer than some of us liked. Kate DesLauriers wanted to paddle in the morning while conditions were reasonably calm and was horrified to watch the wind and swell pick up while we sat around wasting time on a long break early in the day. Apparently the forecast was wrong and we were in for another day of north wind.
Although the wind was not as strong as the last few days, Kate had apparently been very uncomfortable in the windy conditions. She kept saying things like “I want to land right now!” and “I’m never getting back in my kayak again!” We took this to be hyperbole and cajoled her to go around “one more point”. But Kate’s discomfort had apparently grown into panic attacks on every wave. She felt like jumping out of her kayak and was hating every second of her vacation. We cajoled her around one last point to a fish camp that appeared on the map as a town near the road. Andrea had heard a rumor that a resort had been built here and Kate said that she would quit the trip and stay in the resort. But it turned out the rumor was not true and there were only trashy fish-camp shacks. Andrea also mentioned that her husband was in La Paz and might be able pick up Kate up here. Kate assumed that this was a done deal while Andrea still thought that Kate’s exclamations were hyperbole. Andrea assumed that Kate would be continuing the trip when she saw the calm conditions in the morning.
While we were at the fishc-amp Andrea talked to some of the pescaderos and arranged to have them cook fish tacos for our lunch/dinner. This turned out to be a disaster on several accounts. It took the pescaderos hours to get organized to cook. And then after we ate they charged us $100 pesos each for lunch. More than a fancy restaurant in La Paz. I started referring to them afterwards as the Piratos (Pirates). The tacos were good, although they had no sauce for them and didn’t give us enough tortillas. We discovered later that Andrea’s husband Toby had been two miles away and if we had not waited for the Piratos to cook for us and then rob us, we would have found him nearby.
We told Kate if she got into her kayak “one more time” we would just move around the corner and camp away from the smell of the fish camp. The spot around the corner was awfully messy and close to the road, so we kept going for a few miles, much to Kate’s horror. We picked a campsite on a spit far from the main road, but it turned out to be close to a side road with noisy mining trucks that ran all night long. A pack of dogs came by in the middle of the night and barked at our tents. A dock for the mine nearby lit up the sky all night with its lights. This beach was a contender for the worst campsite ever.
Kate and Andrea talked but Andrea still didn’t understand what was going on. Kate Will Not Get Into The Kayak Again. She didn’t care that this was a big logistical problem for the rest of us. We were far from the road, but this was not her idea, we lied to her get her here. And we never listened to what she was saying. As far as Kate was concerned we had been lying to her for days. Lying about the weather, lying about the conditions around the “next point”, lying about the distance still to travel, lying about the resort, lying about camping around the next corner. Why should she believe anything we say now? Not Getting Back In The Kayak. The message finally got through to Andrea who started working her cell phone, which didn’t connect at first. Hours later she managed to call La Paz but had to leave a message. And finally Andrea’s husband Toby called us back. He will pick up Kate and Andrea the next morning at a public beach near the mining pier.