Monday, May 13

North 27° 09.093'
West 112° 07.238'
Distance: 22.2 miles

I paddled 22.2 miles today in three runs. This has turned out to be a very hard day and not just because of the lack of coffee. I got up at 5:00 am to get out of the hole I was camped in last night. I paddled a half hour before I remembered the plug was out of the boat. Oops! I landed, emptied my boat, dried my things with a fire, and got going again. I wanted to make Santa Rosalia and find a phone before 10:00 am so I could talk to Heidi before she went to work. Santa Rosalia isn't especially friendly to kayakers. There isn't a really good beach to pull up to. I went just south of the marina and got a poor spot in the back yard of a restaurant. It was closed, so I moved on. All the public phones in the area use phone cards. I finally found a place to sell them, but they only come in 50 peso denominations. Calls to the US are 10 pesos per minute, so that means a card is only good for calls up to 5 minutes. I bought three. It was wonderful to talk to Heidi. She will be in Loreto in three weeks and a couple of days. I can't wait to see her. Then I went and got a meal and a couple of beers. Then I went shopping for food and got some ice cream. Yum! I tried to call Mike but he wasn't home. I called Gail and she was there. It was good to talk to her, but she had some very bad news for me. Mark Smitter, a friend from Blue Sky days, died a couple weeks ago alone in his house. He was only 43, but he had some health problems none of us knew about. I got back into my boat and started South looking for a camp. I heard from a guy I met in Santa Rosalia that San Bruno has everything, so I paddled thinking I might be able to make it. After a mile or so, lost in thought, I wandered close to the shore in heavy seas. A wave caught me sideways and flipped me over. I saw my shoes floating away and my boat upside down with the fishing pole in the pole holder running up on the rocks. I stood up and stepped right on a spiked something. I dropped back into the water. I again saw a wave taking my gear away, so I stood up again. Again I stepped on the spikes. I threw myself back down. A third time I stood up and stepped on it harder than ever. Again I splashed back into the water. This time I swam a ways in before I stood up. My feet hurt as I walked and each wave knocked me down, but in a couple minutes I was on shore. I caught my shoes and threw them up on the rocks and righted my kayak. Then I started hauling it up to shore. It was full of water, so I had to drain it to make it light enough to pull up. I had also lost my good fillet knife. This was a big loss and is probably not totally replaceable on this trip. Each step hurt, but I had to ignore that for a while. Once I got it up I dug out my medical kit and looked at my feet. The shore was a gravel bar just over the level of the low tide. The rocks were covered with pelican guano, so it was no place to stay. I used a scalpel blade, the needle from the sewing kit, and a pair of tweezers to clean the pieces out of my foot. It was a sea urchin I had stepped on and I had maybe 30 pieces buried in my feet. Most of them were in my right foot. Some were smaller, but there were at least 10 pieces over a quarter inch long to dig out. I would get leg cramps working on the bottoms of my feet, so I would cut one piece out and then rest for a few minutes. After a couple hours I had all or most of it out and I cleaned my wounds and started looking at my situation. The waves were rougher than ever, but the place I was in was no place to camp, so I gathered my courage and went back out at about 2:00 pm. About 4:30 I got to San Bruno after passing some nice beaches. No camp. No showers. No palapas. No restaurant. They had a tienda, so I bought water, cheese, and a cheap knife. The knife will do to cook with, but it is really garbage. I decided not to spend another night in a Mexican hovel. Too many trigger fish heads on the ground in the last few days. I want something clean and relaxing. Better to be on my own. At 6:00 pm - too late, really, I got back in the boat one more time. This area has seaweed everywhere and it collects in big buggy piles on the shore. It is not at all nice to land on or to camp near. A couple miles to the south I decided that with the sunset being over I needed to get to shore and camp. I picked a place with a dirt ramp up to a higher level. With much work I got my stuff up there. Most of my clothes are wet. My flashlight got wet and doesn't work now. I wish I had fresh AAA batteries for it! I hope Punta Chivato sells them. I am writing this with a citronella candle reflecting off the bottom of my stainless steel cooking pot. My mind and body are beaten from the past week and from today. I really hope I can get some comfort and relaxation in Punta Chivato which is at least two days away. I may stay here most of tomorrow to heal a little.

It is now morning. After I stopped writing last night I watched stars for an hour then went to sleep. The night was great. No wind, no bugs, no problems. I woke up a couple of times and just enjoyed the night wishing it could go on longer. This morning I woke up a little sick, but not too bad. I looked carefully at the map and I think I am no more than 15 miles from Punta Chivato. The wind is starting to come up and would be in my face if I were to try to go now. I will stay here till at least afternoon and maybe stay another night. I have five liters of water and can walk back to the store in San Bruno if I need more. I think it is about 3 miles and if I do I can get more flashlight batteries at the same time.