Tuesday, April 9

North 29° 49.78'
West 114° 23.96'
Distance: 18.3 miles

We paddled 18.3 miles today. Last night we met two guys named Chris and Greg. Chris is a strange old guy who does underwater construction supervision a few months each summer. The rest of the time he lives here in a rock house he built which looks like a fort. Way out in the middle of nothing about 3 miles north of a place called Nacho's Camp or something like that. He is trying to help the owner of the land lease lots on the mesa. Pretty view, but not near anything and too far from the ocean for a short stroll. They want $400 per year for a lot. Greg is a gold miner. He was using a backhoe to dig a launch ramp and sunk it into the muck at low tide. He got Chris to help him get it out, then they both came down to see us. After they left we had a bit of tequila and then went to bed. We woke up to the prettiest morning we have seen yet. We had a little oatmeal and then got started at 6:40 am. We went 4.3 miles the first hour. Mike said he thought we should be able to do better each hour, but by hour 3 we had made just 13.5 miles. Mike suggested that we could make Bahia San Luis Gonzaga today if we tried. I agreed and we cut as straight a line as we could. Mike started having back troubles again, but I encouraged him with talk of beer and food. Our goal was to land at Papa Fernandez Camp because we new they have a café there. We finally stopped to ask directions and by accident had landed on a beach just a few hundred yards away at a place called Punta Willard. The owner is named Sirvando and has a relation working for him named Marco. We asked him about Papa Fernandez camp café and he said that it was a half kilometer away and that the food was expensive and bad, and he suggested we should go to Alphonsinos instead. We ignored him because we wanted to eat soon and because everyone else we have spoken to has recommended Papa Fernandez. It turns out Sirvando has a feud going with the Fernandez family. The beer was cold and the food was great. We ate 3 meals each and 7 beers each. We also met a pair of brothers named Kurt and Cory. Kurt had done the trip before and his friend jay had done it several times. They invited us to come to their mud house that night. We took a nap for a couple hours, followed by a shower at campo Punta Willard. Cold water, but it felt great. We walked over to the mud house and met Jay. He immediately offered us a beer and a tour of the house. What a great piece of work that was! The house is U shaped and the walls are straw and adobe. It is all nicely done. The guys are all caddies in Wisconsin. They work 7 months a year and live here the other 5 months. They are preparing to go home now, but have worked on the house five months a year for the last two years. They say they will finish it in another year and plan to sell it some time after that. We sat around the fire with them and an old guy from Long Beach named Joe. We are trying to talk Jay into doing the rest of the trip with us since he knows a lot about Baja California and Kayaks. We will be hanging out with them a bit the next few days. They know about Ocean Beach because they drive through on their way down or back each year. We hung out with them drinking beer and tequila till about 11:30, then went home. That is about 3 hours later than I have been awake any time in the past two weeks. The night was calm and pretty and I slept like a rock. I forgot to get my pad out, but the sand was soft and nice.