We have arrived at our Goal--Cabo San Lucas Arches!!!!!

Sometimes you do things in life that you want to undertake, but aren't sure you can accomplish.  This trip was one of those things, and today we made it a reality by actually paddling up to the end of the point of Cabo San Lucas, paddled through the arch, and then pulled into the beach at Cabo and loaded the kayaks up onto the explorer!

We left Los Barriles on December 19th and paddled through familiar territory to Buena Vista where we were greeted by Rod and Barb on the beach in front of their beautiful home.  We said hello and visited for a few minutes, then we were off to Cabo Pulmo for the evening.  The day started off flat calm and beautiful, but little did we know that by the day's end we would be struggling against a stiff head wind that slowed progress down to a crawl.

From Cabo Pulmo on, we found that we were essentially out of the Sea of Cortez and into the Pacific Ocean as we had swells from the south which translated to surf on the beach which translated into tricky beach landings and takeoffs.   We both experienced our first total roll overs on the beach and got to experience what they call "garage sale" landings- where you scatter your stuff all over the neighborhood!  No damages or injuries, and the only lost item was one ball cap!

However, after experiencing that last crash landing, we pushed ahead for a 30 mile paddle and didn't stop until we came to the boat harbor at San Jose at 8 pm in the dark.  It is a good thing that it was winter solstice, and we had a full moon to boot!  It was an odd day however, as we crossed the Tropic of Cancer on Winter Solstice day, saw 2 Blue Whales, got close to a turtle, and both crashed that day as well!  Our fun filled day wasn't over until 12:10 the next morning when we were rudely awakened by three security guards at the marina that told us that we couldn't camp on the dock and had to pack up all of our stuff and leave- so we packed up, put all of our wet gear on, and moved 1/4 of a mile around the breakwater and crashed on the beach until we woke up to joggers and horseback riders!    We would have included a picture of our camp at the harbor, but unfortunately the only pictures were taken by the security guards, and they don't want to share them with us!  They weren't employed by Mexican people- this was a high end US corporation venture, so we don't want to blame the Mexican people that were just following the big US orders.  We are now in civilization!

The next morning as we got up and started paddling towards Cabo, you could tell that we were in the land of mass development and people.  What's up with all of these paddle boarders now a days- they are everywhere!  Anyway, we stopped at a nice beach without a big swell on the way to Cabo and tried to get a can of coke, but they wanted 13 bucks for two of them, so we decided that water out of a Nalgene Bottle was OK!  We camped for the night right on the beach in front of a 5  star hotel- but we were in a tent just on the beach in front of it with security guards watching us all night!  Mexican law allows us to camp within 20 meters of the HIgh Tide mark- Zofomat is the legal term, and we proved that it is still possible to accomplish a trip like this in today's age even though it might not seem that possible!  It seems weird that we have had no issues with camping at all during this entire trip even though at times we were camping in front of people's homes and they were welcoming us to do so!

Today we got up and headed for Cabo San Lucas- the actual Cabo and the arches that are associated with it.  We arrived there about 10 am and paddled in and out and around all of the small arches and rocks at the end of the cape.  We took a turn up the Pacific side for a few hundred yards, and then decided that we had come far enough and didn't need to go any further!  Cheryl rented a Panga and came our and took our pictures and brought us a cold beer!

We then came on into the harbor at Cabo San Lucas, hit the beach and took a dip in the ocean!  The locals were impressed with us as well as the tourists that were there as well, and we might add that we are also impressed!

We loaded up the kayaks and headed for Cabo Wabo to finish off the trip in grand fashion- a shot of tequila followed by a few more Cabo Wabo drinks!  It was a great day to end a great trip, and now the only paddling we need to do is in our minds for a while.  It was an awesome experience and one that we will never forget and hope that you all have enjoyed sharing in our journey as much as we have enjoyed sharing our experiences with you!

We would like to thank all of the people that helped us in our endeavor, and provided assistance and encouragement along the way.  We would especially like to thank all of the Mexican people along the way that were as friendly and helpful and considerate as you could ever imagine.  We have experienced nothing but great friendly people and encourage anyone to undertake a similar journey if they desire, as it  is a trip that you will never forget!

We have arrived in Los Barriles!!!

We pulled into Los Barriles this afternoon after paddlin south from La Paz, around Tecolote Beach, down the coast to La Ventana, and finally into Los Barriles.  We are now in familiar country with both of us having been here before.  Some of the area has changed and other areas have not changed that much.

Our next stop is Cabo Pulmo, and then we will essentially be at the bottom of the peninsula and will finally turn west and begin our final turn into Cabo San Lucas.  We are on a computer at a guy's trailer in  Martin Verdugo's campground so we need to write this  quick!  We will update as soon as we get down somewhere where we can get internet access!  If all goes well, we will be pulling into the arch at Cabo before Christmas!

Arrived in La Paz!

Wow - what a stretch!  We made it in about an hour ago.  Showered up and off to find a bite to eat (other than fish).  Stay tuned, more to come later.  Just thought we would update you on our arrival.  Stories and pictures to follow later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Thank you Rita for the great hospitality shown to us in Loreto!  You have a beautiful home and you really treated us well during our brief stay at your home.  Rita played an integral part in making this trip happen, between opening her home to us as well as arranging car transportation for us during our trip in Mexico.  Rita Westfall knew Mark and Sheila and their families back in Hood River, Oregon, and now she lives full time down in Loreto.  We would also like to thank Rita for the fantastic home grown grapefruit that was the start of many of our days on this leg of the journey.

Along the way between Loreto and La Paz we visited many interesting sights and small communities.  One of the most interesting places we visited was a natural hot tub that was basically in the middle of nowhere.  But....lo and behold we found some other kayakers from the Paddle South Kayak Company guided by Antonio.  We thought they had found the hot tub, but they were just as lost as we were.... but between us and them, we actually did find the hot tub.  We had a great time visiting with them and we made them listen to way too many stories as we hadn´t talked to other people for a long time!  Thanks to Antonio, Kerry, Inger-lise, and Mara-lisa for the great time!

Now for the fish stories....  Doug managed to catch and hang on to a Dorado that was caught in front of the tiny village of Timbabichi.  It may not have been the biggest Dorado, but it was sure tasty and made a great meal for the two of us!

Mark was able to find our first lobster, but although we know it was a lobster, some could mistake it for a crawdad.  It may not have made a complete meal, but we did eat it with a splash of lime right out of the shell.  Hopefully we now know what we are looking for and may do better on the last leg of the trip!

Mark also was able to catch our first Rooster Fish of the trip!  He caught it yesterday along the shoreline coming into La Paz bay and it was just too beautiful to kill, so he released it.  We don´t even know if they are good eating or not, but if we are hungry when the next one is caught..... we may find out!

Coming into La Paz was a little bit of a grind, as we cranked off two 30 mile days, and it didn´t look like we would see much more than sand beaches and sunshine- I know, real rough life!  But we were really rewarded well with a viewing of about 20 Whale Sharks and Manta Rays scattered in with them!  It made the trip into the bay so worthwhile, and we got tons of photographs.  Unfortunately most of them are blurry and not the best because we were blown away with just looking at them right beside our kayaks.  We will try and pick through them and find the best ones to post tomorrow.

We are very happy to be here in La Paz and to be staying at the Hotel La Perla where we have stayed with Cheryl and Sheila before.  The difference this time is that we dragged our two loaded down kayaks up the stairs and through the lobby for the night, and had to explain to the manager that we had come from San Felipe!  We are headed back out on the town to get things that we can´t get enough of on the water- ice drinks and ice cream!

 



We made it to Loreto- 3/4 of the way to Cabo!

We enjoyed our stay in the beautiful town of Mulege' but as the weather (wind) subsided we needed to continue on our expedition.  Many thanks go out to our unexpected hosts Mike & Rosalyn for taking us in and providing us with all kinds of information, opportunities, meals and outstanding hospitality!  Our early morning departure was once again greated with Rosalyn's generosity.  She was up early and prepared an unexpected bon voyage breakfast for us, coffee, breakfast sandwich and snacks!  Wow - you two have completely outdone yourselves!  We hope the see you again soon and hope we can repay your generosity toward two strangers from your river.

We found the run down the coast from Bahia Conception to Loreto to be one of the most beautiful and enjoyable stretches of the Sea of Cortez coastline.  There were many nice coves and beaches to pull into, the incredible paddle thru arches were a highlight for both of us, and our experience with Chico, who one pangaro described him as the owner of the "fruit of the soul".  Chico has an orchard up from the coast about 1 kilometer that was a private little oasis.  He had banana, orange, grapefruit, lime, avocado and other trees.  It was an undescribable and unforgetable experience we thoroughly enjoyed.  We believe Chico enjoyed the experience just as much as we did and an instant bond was created amongst amigos.

Our four day paddle to Loreto included fishing as ususual, but our catch never seems to be usual at all.  Every time we hook a fish, we never know what the fish will be as there is such a variety of species down here.  Doug caught a very interesting fish we have yet to figure out what it is.  It was in the billfish family, 3 feet long, 3 pounds and Doug's first billfish ever.  It was not a Blue or Striped Marlin but definately had a bill on it.  It was a small one, which was a good thing, given we are doing our fishing out of 17 foot kayaks and they become quite tippy when fighting a fish.   If anyone knows what it is please let us know.

Punta el Pulpito was an incredible point to not only paddle around but also to explore and enjoy the absolute enormity of the massive rock which was shear cliffs 400-500 feet tall and included two arches we were able to paddle through!

Our paddle yesterday brought us into Loreto.  We started out under calm seas and ended up surfing into the pass between Punta Bajo and Isla Coronado.  After crossing the shallow bar by Punta Bajo, things calmed down and we were able to utilize our WindPaddles to sail on into Loreto. 

After a few phone call back to John in Craig, Alaska where he could use Google Earth to direct us to our friend Rita's house, we were able to locate her magnificent place and Doug's car parked out back.  Rita treated us to a Super Burro Burrito, and we mean SUPER!  The tortilla alone was at least 2 feet in diameter and loaded with meat and cheese.  Another incredible experience of hospitality and generosity, thank you Rita. 

Arrived in Mulege' last night

We had a long day yesterday but a great one!  We paddled around Punta Chivato from our camp site 12 miles back to be surprised with a very nice community that included a 9-hole golf course in an arroy of sand.  Not your regular course but a course no less.  We met a couple from Riverside, CA that live down here in the winter and they directed us to the Clubhouse/Bar.

After walking across the airplane runway and golf corse we were greated by "Chivato Ron".  He had heard we were the kayakers from San Felipe and he wanted to buy us a beer.  We enjoyed our vistit with Ron and discovered he was a seasonal paver from Oregon that worked on roads 4-6 months out of the year and spent the rest of his time down here.  We also met a couple from Palmer, AK in the restaurant.  Doug's Nanooks shirt was the ice breaker with them, even though it is covered in probably 2 lbs. of salt.

We then started our 12 mile paddle across the entrance of the Bahia de Conception over to the entrance to Mulege, which is marked by a lighthouse- the only problem is that you can't tell from the map we had which side of the lighthouse we were supposed to enter from.  Mulege is an interesting town as it is the only town (we think) in Baja that is located up a river and not on the beach.  So, we rounded the lighthouse and started paddling up the river past pangas and homes on both shores, but it was pretty much right at dusk and we were both pretty whipped from paddling.

We made a decision to paddle up the river on the right side, because it looked deeper, but the campgrounds were probably on the left side- so we paddled right past them all.  We finally came to a stretch of homes with Christmas lights and a nice walkway in front of them, and we pulled over and asked where the nearest campground was.  Mike and Rosalyn, the owners of the place, looked at us all soaking wet with our kayaks way up the river, and said you can camp in our driveway if you want.  We took him up on it, and as we were setting up our tent and unloading our kayaks Rosalyn brought us out an 8 pack of  Pacifico- and then they brought us both a lasagna dinner with garlic bread and salad!  We have sure been making wrong turns turn into perfect times!

This morning we walked into town and found a great coffee shop with internet.  We are going to try and hitch a ride down into Bahia de Conception to check it out.

Mulege has mangroves along the water, palm trees everywhere, and lots of fresh water.

Three hurricanes in the past 3 years have caused lots of damage in this town.  There are broken palm trees and homes that were totally destroyed by a mud slide and high water- Mike said that the water level was 6 feet over his roof.  It is slowly rebuilding, and looks like an interesting town.  We picked our first "wild" orange today.


We visited the second oldest mission in all of Baja here in Mulege as well as the museum that was once a prison, but it was closed. 

Then we were waiting for a ride to get us down into the Bahia de Conception which didn't pan out, but instead Alexander, the guy driving our Explorer down from San Felipe drove by, and we caught a ride with him in our own car down about 30 miles to Coyote Beach down in the bay.  He continued on into Loreto with the old Explorer that is working just fine!  It even still had the Virgin Mary and the Rosary Beads Cheryl and Joni put on the dash for us!!!

At Coyote Beach, which is a big kayaking school area, we ran into Kate and George, our sailing friends from Whitehorse that we first met at San Francisquito's, and have subsequently run into at Santa Rosalia as well.

The Bahia de Conception is a beautiful bay with white sand beaches, protected inlets and coves, and very cool rock islands and islets.  There are homes and camp sites at most every beach, but the water is crystal clear, blue and green and very inviting.  We are glad we made the trip down by car as we probably wouldn't have paddled the 30 miles up only to turn around and paddle another 30 miles back out.  Our plan is to leave here tomorrow if the weather lets us and head the 80 miles to Loreto as the weather looks like it will give us a window to make that kind of distance.

Another Day in Santa Rosalia

We hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!   We enjoyed ours with a Chicken dinner including fixins of mashed potatoes, coleslaw, bread and our own cranberry sauce.  We also had a bit of salsa and calamari on the side as an appetizer.

Prior to dinner we ran into Stephen and Heidi from the S/V Narama.  They invited us in for a beer and converation.  We enjoyed sharing stories related to our travels from San Felipe to here.  They were able to not only see sperm whales and pilot whales but recorded some incredible hydrophonic recordings of the pilot whales they shared with us.  Most of you think our travels are a bit risky if not crazy, well they are traveling from B.C. to where we met them in San Felipe and ultimately going to Australia by way of the Gallopagos Islands!

Today has been a relaxing day as the weather has been a bit windy and the forecast doesn´t look to good for the near future.  We may be here another of couple of days if not more?  To tell you how long we have been here, we are starting to know all the taco stand owners/operators and also met an indiviual who pitched a 19 strikeout game in 1967.  He also claims to know Fernando Valenzuela.

We have seen a lot of baseball players, young and adult, walking around town in uniform.  We walked a few miles today trying to find a ball field, but could only find a soccer field and a donkey in a truck.  We did however run into two individuals that are biking south on Mex 1, originating in California.  One of the bicyclists plans to ride to Guatemala and the other to Nicaragua.  Again, this seems to confirm our idea and plans are not so wild, don´t you all agree?

Other notables for the day are we saw a parade of 5 dancing girls, one tarzan and 6 tigers!  We think they were part of an organized carni group planning on putting on a show in La Paz or Cabo San Lucas.

Although we are enjoying Santa Rosalia, we are missing being out on the water catching our fish for taco dinners.  We found a great fresh produce stand and we plan on doing it right this time.  We are going to load up on goodies to go with the fresh fish.  The picture below is a boon and crocket Cabrilla caught about 100 miles ago.

Thanksgiving In Santa Rosalia

We are in Santa Rosalia for Thanksgiving and very happy to be here as it is mucho viento-very windy-today.  Last night was pretty crazy for us as we have not had much interactiion with other people, and then it was kind of overload last night.  We witnessed a big band playing Mexican music down the street and then saw one of the candidates for Governor  of Baja CaliforniaSur, Mr. Marcos, making a speech to a large and excited crowd.  It was pretty wild seeing all of it, and we had to at least take it in and listen to what he had to say.  We have no idea what he exactly said, but it sounded good to us and we would vote for him!

Today we spent wandering around the town, eating breakfast at the Hotel Frances which is about 100 years old and build of wood from Oregon, and we had a great view of the surrounding water from there as well.  We visited the famous French bakery in town and had a baguette, and pretty much spent a heck of a lot of time trying to find a place that would serve us pavo-turkey for dinner.  We did find a grocery store that had a 22 pound rock hard frozen butterball turkey, but that was kind of out of our league with our little MSR stove and frying pan.  So......we are going to settle for eating at a restaurant called polloito´s tonight, and have a roasted chicken dinner- but we are going to bring our can of cranberries that were given to us up in LA Bay 140 miles ago, and bring it to dinner with us and open it with our Swiss army knife and have that as a side with our dinner!

We also were able to buy two stamps today so we could mail postcards back home, but it was much more difficult to get the actual post card.  We tried really hard to explain what a post card was to a couple of store vendors, but all they could come up with was either a post it note or an envelope.  We think postcards may be a thing of the past.

We had meet some people in the harbor in San Felipe on a sailboat on our very first day of paddling, and now we see their boat, the Narama, tied up in the harbor.  We are hoping to run into them tonight or tomorrow and visit with them.  We are also on the main line of Mex 1 right now, and so it is possible that our car could drive through the town at any time on its way to Loreto, as we have arranged to have a man, Alexander, to drive it there for us.  That would be very strange to see that if it happens.

We also have our tent pitched tonight next to a pool on the upper deck of the harbormaster building with a fine view of the ocean!  The price was right and we will have access to showers and won't have to look into the neighbors yard or hear them talking all night like last night at our 1 star hotel.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our followers and have an extra bite of turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie for both of us, as we can guarantee that we won't be having any of that- but at least we won't be eating fish tacos either!  Adios Amigos- more to come tomorrow!!!


































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