Tuesday, July 23

It is nice to be done working! I got up and found a book, ate breakfast, bought gas, read, cleaned, organized, and about 11:00am I took off to meet Mike in San Rafael. I got there about 12:30. I found Mike talking to a guy named Pancho who lives there and runs the llantera and whatever else anybody will pay for. It seems like mostly he hangs out and talks to people. Nice, interesting guy. He warned us about the orcas. He has two dogs and six cats. Three of the cats are adults – two orange males and a grey female. The other three are four day old kittens. Orange and grey. He said “The grey one is the mother. I don’t know who the father is. It may be this one. It may be that one. It may be me…” The big dog is named Vaquero or Cowboy. The dogs are friendly and want lots of attention. Pancho made us instant coffee and we hung out for a while. Then Mike told me he didn’t want to kayak alone anymore. After one day! I gave him a hard time about it, but he was sure, so we loaded up the truck and headed for Bahia de Los Angeles after giving Pancho Mike’s kayaking food. We went to Guermo’s and had lunch. While we were there a guy named Rick came and joined us. Mike had met him on the beach near Pancho’s. He reminded Mike of the character Dude in “The Big Lebowski.” He ate with us and we decided to camp together tonight. Mike and Rick went to the store for food, then we gassed up and headed out. Ten miles short of Mex 1 we found a little dirt road and camped. Rick and Mike made great carne tacos and we hung out and ate for a while in this pretty, pretty desert space. Rick lives in San Francisco and was down for two weeks of kayaking and fishing. He was to have had two friends with him, but they each had to cancel at the last minute. He is an interesting guy to hang out with.