Sunday, June 9

North 24° 55.213’
West 110° 42.633’
Distance: 15.7 miles

We paddled 15.7 miles today. We are now 85.6 miles from Loreto and 498 from Pete’s Camp. Tomorrow we will cross the 500 mile line for our trip. Today we crossed the 25th parallel of latitude makes a total of seven which I have crossed. The place we camped last night was perfect. There was a little wind, but after the long push yesterday I certainly slept well. This morning we made coffee and oatmeal for breakfast and had a feast. The weather has been so perfect that I am tempted to just sit and enjoy it rather than do anything. Cool in the shade and still pretty good in the sun. About 12:45 we started going again. We saw two pods of dolphin today – the first I have seen in a long time. One of them gave us a show of jumping at least 12 feet out of the water just a hundred feet from us. Mike caught two fish – a bonito and something else. Neither was very good cooked, but the something else was pretty good raw. He was silver with blue/green stripes. Red meat. We saw a group of nice block houses and stopped to ask for information. The houses were interesting because they were by far the nicest we had seen in a fish camp and they were in a place where the block has to be brought in by boat. It seemed odd. He gave us directions to San Evaristo which has a store. We got juice, eggs, tortillas, bread, peanut butter, jelly, and cookies. We also met a group of guys from Solana Beach. We visited them for a while, but they didn’t seem to interested in company, so we left after a while. We were disappointed that the store didn’t have avocados, tomatoes, bananas, cheese, or beer. Still, we will be able to get water there tomorrow and we will be in La Paz in a few more days. They make salt here in San Evaristo and we camped next to the field where it is dried. We had to walk about a kilometer to the store. On the other side of the punta there is a harbor and the town. Tomorrow we will paddle over there to stock up our water and get more tortillas before we head out. As usual I like getting stuff but an anxious to get out of town. It is a warm night and the wind is dying down, so it might be pretty comfortable to camp here. The country around here has been as pretty as any I have seen. Certainly better than I imagined when I planned the trip. Much of it reminds me of Lake Powell in Utah, but much more remote and unspoiled. The best places are those with no road access. I see people camped in the worst places and wonder why till I remember that they just can’t get to the good places with all their gear. I guess that is good.