Thursday, June 6

North 25° 31.462’
West 111° 06.130’
Distance: 8.97 miles

We paddled 8.97 miles today. This has been a wonderful day in every regard except for distance. We camped in a place where we would be protected from the morning sun. We slept well and late. In the morning we took advantage of the shade to relax and cook banana pancakes. They were great and we stuffed ourselves. We are now out of pancake mix and I want to be sure we get some in La Paz. After breakfast we rested, read, and captured wasps in our mason jars. The wasps are a frequent visitor, but they are slow and stupid and don’t seem to sting. Mike caught two and I caught one. I also killed one with a towel while Mike cooked. We finally got moving at 1:00pm and went a few miles. Then we pulled up to a beach to rest. We left and paddled another 20 minutes till Mike noticed a couple boats coming toward us. He waved as they went by. A half hour later they came back and offered us a beer. Then they invited us to their house for cocktails. We accepted and asked where their house was. One of the guys pointed vaguely to a distant beach which looked deserted from where we were. When they left we followed them with our eyes and marked where they were headed. We pushed another two hours and with a little care and some lucky guessing we found it at around 4:00pm. It is a trailer under a palapa like so many of the homes down here. It is in a great location with a private bay and up against a cliff on the southeast. The mountain arm going into the water and the little island protect the bay and make a great location for their boat. They have several miles of white sand beach to the north. Lots of trees for shade and wind block. Their names are Fred and Rainey. They had about a dozen guests and made us feel at home. Beer and wine and cake and quiche. Then later a turkey dinner. We stayed up talking till about 1:00am and played darts and had crab races. Fred is an old co-worker of my uncle Chuck from his Convair days and has been living here for the last 15 years. He is also a 100 ton boat captain. Mike, another guy there, is a hardware geek and another mike is an ex-professional darts player. In all, it was an interesting bunch of people. We were invited to stay at their place in Loreto on the way home. We had a great time and will try to visit on the way home. This is all a wonderful area and I would like to return here for some camping.