Paddling south along the coast from Ligui

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Monday, April 1, 2013

The remaining Mexicans on the beach are pulling out this morning.  Grandfather Juan and his family are packing up.  Juan put the stove with a little striped canopy (like a little carnival stall) onto the back of his pickup, and drove into Ligui, with the canopy still up.  He must have left it there, for he soon returned.  I exchanged addresses with his daughter, and I took pictures of the whole family.

His granddaughter, Michelle, loved posing as a model, and she was rather creative with her poses.  She held up a dead mouse that their old poodle Kitty had caught, and she explained that it was a "raton" (mouse), but went on to explain that it was a certain type, because it had a tufted tail.  So we talked a little about biology, and I told her about the luminescent water.

I also waved to another family who was leaving, the ones who had given me oranges.

I was planning to paddle again south along the coast, to see more of the area.  In case I might want to camp or couldn’t get back, I took all my gear and extra water.  I shoved off relatively early, around 10:00, but already it was getting hot.  To make matters worse, the wind had shifted to the N or NW, and I was heading directly away from it at about the same speed, so for me, the air was still.  It’s not that the air is hot—the cool waters of the Sea of Cortez keep the air comfortable.  But the sun is very hot, so without moving air, you cook—and I did.  To make matters worse, I couldn’t find my sunscreen (it later turned up floating around the bilge in my kayak—after I had looked everywhere else).

After an hour, I was south of my paddle the night before, exploring new territory.  Here the Sierra la Giganta comes right down to the sea.  The highway turns inland, scaling the cliffs, just north of here, so quickly you’re into wilderness.  I didn’t see any other boats for several hours, except for a distant sailboat paralleling my course several miles out.

The lava cliffs and mountains here are just huge.  They are riddled with caves and veins of lava (dikes) of different color.  The geography of this part of the word is unique.  Baja is a part of North America that’s being ripped away from the rest of the continent by an unusual feature—a fault (the southward continuation of the San Andreas fault) separating two tectonic plates that crosses land.  Usually, the boundaries between tectonic plates are on the ocean floor.  As Baja was torn away from the rest of the continent and pushed south, the Sea of Cortez opened up.

These cliffs are the crumbling edge of a continent.  You can imagine that if you take something brittle like concrete, and apply an immense force to it, pushing one half of it north and the other half south, it’s going to grind and break into great chunks which are going to crumble and fall away in pieces—that’s the miniature version of what’s happening here.  The mountains, cliffs, and islands are those chunks and pieces.  And it’s all half-drowned by the Sea of Cortez, which is opening up as a great gash—filling with water--right in front of our eyes.

The cold water, paired with the hot desert, seems like something of a contradiction—but it’s not.  That’s because it’s desert here partly because of the cold water.  The cold means less moisture evaporates, and cold keeps thunderclouds from forming, which would spawn storms.  Anyway, I find the coolness appealing.  Without it, I couldn’t enjoy the desert as I do, because I hate the heat.  Kayaking is an especially good way to see the desert, since you are close to the cooling breezes, and you can always take a swim when you are tired of looking at cactus.

I stopped to stretch and rest in a little cove, and started to walk along the shore to a beach, but discovered that I was on a little island, and the beach was across a narrow channel to the mainland.  But later, this discovery of the island would come in handy.  I decided to push on, rather than get back into the kayak just to cross to the beach.

I had been passing a series of small beaches in coves, separated by little points.  But after the second hour, I passed two large beaches, each a mile or more long.  The view south along the coast was spectacular.  On my left, I had cleared Danzante and Del Carmen islands, and had a large new island several miles offshore.

The tailwind was picking up, so I decided to set my little sail shaped like a parachute.  It worked quite well, and I ate lunch and had a beer as I scooted along to the south.  I still didn’t have my skirt on, though the waves were building.  I decided to put on the skirt as soon as I finished my beer.  But suddenly, and large wave breaking to my rear splashed a lot of water into the cockpit, and then it happened again.  So I had to forget my now salty beer, put away the sail as fast as I could, bail, and put on my skirt.  It reminded me of how quickly things can get out of hand when you’re kayaking in the wilderness.

At the south end of the second large beach was a little knoll, with a thatched sun shelter on top.  It looked like an excellent place to stop and rest—since I’m always trying to solve the sun problem.  Also, I didn’t see much point in continuing further south, since to the south, the scenery looked much the same—and unless I had the good luck for the wind to change directions, I’d have to return against a strong headwind.  But with such a delectable and deserted cabana, and no one around, it seemed like a good place to read and while away the afternoon.  It was early afternoon, and I figured it was only three hours back, much of which I could do in the dark, if necessary.

The sunshade left much to be desired.  It was as big as a house, constructed with concrete pillars and even an iron horizontal spine, then thatched with palm leaves.  But no floor, no chairs, tables, or benches.  Just a dirt floor, strewn with dried manure from cattle that had been using it for shade, plus construction debris.  Still, it was shade, with a cool breeze, and a fabulous view.

I listened to music, took photos, did some beach combing,  then took a stroll up the broad dry wash that came down from the mountains.  It’s a substantial valley that opens up on the sea here.  The wash made an excellent route into the interior, and the vegetation was interesting.  Several trees and shrubs were flowering.  But it was hot, and after perhaps ¾ of a mile, I wasn’t seeing anything new, so I followed a trail made by cattle onto a sloping plain and foothills behind the beach.  In places undiscovered by cattle, the golden cover of dry grass and other dried forbs was spectacular.  But other places were trampled and eaten bare by the cattle.  The vegetation was a mix of the grassy cover, shrubs, cactus, small trees, and dried vines (a sort of beach burr) that in places covered and strangled everything.

Back in my chair on the knoll, I noticed the surf had increased a lot.  The wind direction was good to create a run of hundreds of miles for the waves, and I was downwind from a gap between the sheltering islands.  Packing my kayak, and looking at the big waves, I wondered how I was going to launch the kayak without getting extremely wet—maybe even swamping the kayak.

But the gravely beach was steep to the water, so I decided I could slide in.  I laid a little runway of driftwood, pushed the kayak closer till the bow just touched the waves, and climbed in.  I put on my skirt.  So far, so good.

Then I gave a shove with my paddle, and slid down the beach towards the waves.  Now that I was like a baby tucked into bed, with my skirt on, I figured the waves couldn’t affect me much.  I figured if I waited for a larger wave, it would float me, and pull me out.

That was a mistake, because the average waves were sufficient.  The big wave I selected for launching was bigger than I thought, and rolled over me.  Even though my skirt was on, my body above was completely drenched, and some water got in through a gap between my skirt and torso.  So I started out pretty wet, but at least the cockpit wasn’t swamped, and I didn’t have to bail.

Out on the water, the waves were at least 3’, and building.  But the wind wasn’t strong enough to slow me very much, and I made decent progress.  After about half an hour, though, I noticed that there was more water in the cockpit.  Sure enough, it was getting deeper.  Apparently, I had developed a leak in the hull.  This was a serious concern, if the leak was bad enough.  I wasn’t sure I dared to take the skirt off enough to bail—or I might ship more water than I could get out.  If the water inside got deep enough, it would make the kayak unstable, and I might capsize in the increasing waves.

I was always close enough to the shore to swim.  Here, it was still beach.  But further north, there were stretches of cliff where I couldn’t land safely while swimming.  And, if I had to exit the kayak, depending of where it happened, I could lose much of the gear I depended on for survival.   Carefully assessing the situation, I decided the leak was fairly slow, and would’t affect my progress that much.  I decided I wasn’t in a critical condition, although it did take some of the enjoyment off the paddle back.  My biggest concern was, that because I didn’t know the cause of the leak, it might suddenly become worse.

I decided that the island close to shore, where I had rested on my way south, would make a safe landing place to bail and inspect the leak, and that helped to calm my concerns.  Meanwhile, I carefully monitored the rise of the water inside.  Could I make it to the island before I lost stability?  I wasn’t sure just how far it was.  My progress to the north against the wind and waves, and now current also, seemed agonizingly slow, considering the race against the leak.  And I wasn’t sure I could land there, now that the waves were a lot larger.

Eventually, I made it to the island, and the water behind it was quite calm.  So I was able to bail the cockpit, using the pump, in only a few minutes.  Considering that I was able to keep up with the leak by bailing, I decided that landing to inspect the kayak wasn’t necessary.

And as I came out from behind the island, to continue my paddle back, I discovered the wind was abating.  Now things seemed much more under control.  The sun was low, so I could paddle in the welcome shade of the cliffs.   Looking up, I saw a couple on the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, looking down.  They must have hiked there from the hotel. 

The sun set quickly before I cleared the point—which indicates an hour back, past the hotel, to the trailer at Playa Ligui.  Paddling in the twilight was beautiful, with the sea heaving with waves still of substantial size.  But they weren’t any threat to me now.

Before it got dark, two small critters, about the size of doves, flew very fast in tight formation just past my kayak, a few feet above the water.  I had the impression—maybe wrong--that their wings were vibrating.  They a strange tail for a bird.  I didn’t get a very good view of them, but in the blink of an eye, they were gone into the water.  Thinking they might be the small grebes I had been seeing a lot of,  I waited for them to come up again, but they didn’t.  I was forced to conclude that they were flying fish, because they were too small for any marine bird I knew of in the area, and because any bird that approaches the surface horizontally lands, folds their wings, and then dives.  These just disappeared into the water in a wink.

A bit later, two more in tight formation flashed very low across my bow—and this time one collided with the kayak, with a loud whack!  Birds don’t collide with kayaks, so I’m sure I saw four flying fish.  Wow.  That’s a first for me.

Why do fish fly?  Think about escape.  You can go so much faster in air than the much denser medium of water.  Predators that don’t fly can’t follow.  So a flying fish temporarily disappears from the world of a predator, and when they do reappear, it’s in an unpredictable location far away.  Several other kinds of fish escape by jumping out of the water, or by essentially walking on the surface (although they can’t fly exactly). So several fish use the same aerial disappearing trick, though in different ways.  Squid disappear by making themselves invisible.

The luminescence started before it was even fully dark.  Suddenly, I noticed that my wake was on fire.

I had to land in total darkness, since the Mexicans were gone, and I didn’t want to bother to find my flashlight in the swamped cockpit.  But I found the trailer, and figured from the sound of waves where to land in the shelter of a little sandy spit.  The kayak was really heavy to drag onto the beach.  Once there, walking to the trailer, I found my boots were filled with water.  My hands were full of gear, so I had to thud ponderously along towards the trailer with 10 lbs of water in each boot.

The next day, on inspecting the kayak, I discovered the leak wasn’t serious, or a structural problem. It was easily patched with tape.  Still, it was a good experience, because it taught me to be cautious, carry repair materials, and always have a backup plan.