Thursday, May 9

North 27° 59.082'
West 112° 45.726'
Distance: 16.2 miles

I paddled 16.2 miles today and am now 29.8 miles form San Francisquito and 252 miles form Pete's Camp. Also 423 miles from home in Ocean Beach. This puts me below the 28th parallel of latitude, into Baja California Sur and onto Mountain Time. This was quite an interesting day. After a short paddle around Cabo San Miguel I crossed the little semi-bay between Cabo San Miguel and Punta San Juan Bautista. This was some of the prettiest land I have seen in Mexico. There must be a source of water because the valleys are green with thousands cordon cactuses. There are several valleys well set back from the mountains leading to white sand beaches. I saw one truck on shore. It looked like it might be stuck in the sand, but since I was already a couple miles passed them and at least a mile from shore, I decided to let them also saw a whale surface a couple times. About ¾ of the way to the other shore I caught a spotted sand bass big enough for dinner. I put him on the stringer and once I got around the corner of Punta San Juan Bautista I pulled in and cleaned him. I cut up the filets, put them in a ziploc bag and added a cut up tomato and 1/3 of an onion. Then I added the juice of four limes and some Habanero sauce and closed the bag and set it on the deck. Then I cleaned up, packed up, and crossed Bahia San Juan Bautista. There is supposed to be (according to the AAA map) a fish camp on the punta, but I saw no sign of it. Bahia San Juan Bautista isn't as nice as the previous bay. Just passed the point after the bahia I found a nice sandy beach and decided to camp. I set up for the night then took some pictures to remember this as a typical solo camp. There is a rocky beach with softball sized rocks for maybe 15 feet. Then there is nice sand going back into the desert. The mountains are a mile or two back at this point and the cordon cactus is king here. Some of the m are huge with many branches. They must be very old. A half hour before I landed a large sea lion was floating in the water in my path. I saw him swim down then come up with a fish in his mouth. He gave me the evil eye so I quickly changed course and gave him some room. Today while I was doing dishes I cleaned out the empty honey jar to use for food storage. I want to be able to eat a half can of beans and save the other half. I drink coffee from a mason jar which came with pasta sauce a couple weeks ago. At home I would just throw them away and buy more beans when I wanted. Or if I were to save food I would just buy containers. It is an interesting application of economics: People tend to conserve what is costly or difficult to obtain and waste what is in abundance. At home I would throw food away and jealously guard my time spent looking at the ocean. Here I conserve cans of beans which I cannot replace before Santa Rosalia, but I will sit and read ignoring the beautiful view which I can and do see all day. The weather now couldn't be better. Cool in the mornings and evenings. Perfect in the middle of the day if you can find shade. The water is cool but no longer cold like it was near the islands. The fishing is good. Without much effort I can catch one every day. This is such a nice area that I am such a nice area that I am surprised and pleased that it has not been developed. It is now 6:24 pm or 7:24 pm if I start going by Mountain time. I took the ceviche and drained it. Then I squeezed two more limes onto it. Two because the first had no juice. I heated up a half a can of beans to go with it. Then habanero sauce liberally over the whole. What a feast! That may have been the best meal I have ever made. If only I'd had some avocados and tortillas and maybe una cervesa bien fria to go with it. If I hook up another good fish tomorrow I know what I will do with it. It is interesting to me how much time it took to catch, clean, and prepare that meal. And the beans were canned. The women cooking in the fish camps must spend their lives making food.