Saturday, April 27

North 29° 10.344'
West 113° 38.108'
Distance: >13.2 miles

We paddled 13.2 miles today. Last night I had a dream I heard a dog rattle its collar. As I awoke I thought I heard it run away, but I thought that must be part of my dream. Later I heard my compression sack with my clothes in it being drug away. I woke up immediately and saw a coyote pulling it. I chased him away. I guess my clothes must smell a little like something dead. In the morning my head lamp was gone. I finally found it about 15 feet away. I think that was my dog dream. I am really glad not to have lost the head lamp since it is now my only flashlight. Jay gave it to me when I had no other light. At first I thought it was unbelievably geeky, but after using it a couple of times I really like it. Especially for reading at night. I still wouldn't want anyone to see me wearing it, though! This morning we have cool weather with cloud cover. The tide doesn't turn till 2:17 pm or whatever the correction is from that figure for our latitude. We will depart around 12:30 and make maybe 12 miles or so. Jay wants to make Coronado island tomorrow which sounds pretty interesting to me. Stay there a day and then go to Bahia de Los Angeles. The wind was still this morning and is still pretty light as I write this. The sea is smooth but likely to kick up a bit before we depart.

We just made camp. We actually paddled quite a bit more than the 13.2 miles we made today. We started out with a couple hours of smooth, fast going. We stopped once to take a bath, then continued to the point where the land drops off into a hook shaped bay. From the point we decided to cut over to the other side. After a short stretch on the point we set out. Almost immediately the old wind kicked up. I was taking water over the bow with almost every wave and the spray was in my face. We were going directly into the wind. After about a mike Jay suggested we cut right and get to land. I guess he saw my struggles. He has the better boat for rough water and was doing fine. Once we got to shore we continued around the hook almost to the point we had originally made for. We found a nice sandy beach for a change with smooth, heavy, packed sand which will be nice for sleeping. Jay is making spaghetti for dinner tonight. That is sounding pretty good to me right now! When I landed I had about 4 gallons of water in the boat to drain out. Not too bad considering the weather. We have been within sight of Coronado island much of the afternoon and should have a nice short hop over there tomorrow. I think I will take advantage of all the wood here and have a nice little camp fire tonight.