KAYAKING BAJA’S WILD EDGES

Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. . . .

A moment, please. I’m counting eel vertebrae here.

One hundred and ten. . . . Altogether, sitting here in the shell-rich sand with this skeleton lying at my feet like a big sun-bleached question mark, I count a chain of 125 links, give or take. Meanwhile, a dozen cardon cacti throw monumental shadows down the dry hillside behind me. At the water’s edge, near where our kayaks are beached, a quiet tide slowly grinds a million seashells into a billion bits of sand.

This is either the Gulf of California or the Sea of Cortez, depending on whether your allegiance falls with the National Geographic Society or John Steinbeck. The idea here is a remote, rustic, inexpensive week of paddling, camping, hiking and snorkeling, self-contained around Baja’s wild edges.

We reached this spot by driving about 25 miles north of Loreto, then veering off the blacktop and covering 10 miles of soft dirt road, winding through a rock-shaded, cactus-crowded valley. That got us to the empty beach of San Juanico, where the scavenged-wood furnishings of an idle fishermen’s camp stood splintering in the sun. But we weren’t quite done yet. Next we loaded up the kayaks, launched and paddled about four miles south along the coast, and finally pulled up onto an irresistible beach that, I pray, no car will ever reach. Now our tents are up, dinner is a few hours off, and there’s not much to do but soak up details of this raw patch of sun, sea, cactus, stones and bones.

Unless you count the yacht anchored about a mile north, we share this place with no one. Los Angeles is about 850 miles to the north. Hundreds of gray whales and whale-watchers--both species gather yearly from January through March--are about 100 miles to the southeast in Magdalena Bay on the peninsula’s Pacific side. Whales turn up in the gulf waters fairly often too--blue and fin whales usually. But for most kayakers along this side of the peninsula, whales really aren’t the point.

Between paddle strokes, we’ve seen leaping dolphins, sleeping sea lions (they float with fins awkwardly pointed skyward), virgin dunes, cormorants, boobies, herons, vultures and too many brown pelicans to count. It’s easy to take pelicans for granted, by the way, if you’re standing on a pier. But slide into a kayak, take paddle in hand, then watch a brown pelican glide for 30 yards, six inches above the same watery surface that slows your paddle, and your appreciation multiplies.

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There are other ways to commune with Baja’s sea life--by cruise ship, by four-wheel-drive rental car, by fishing boat--but unless you’re driving 800 miles south and stringing up your own tent on the beach, most of them cost more. Even other kayak trips frequently cost more. Unlike many kayak-camping outfitters, the small company I’ve chosen, Sea Kayak Adventures, doesn’t use motorized support vessels to lug food and camping supplies or ferry customers out to officially designated whale-rich waters. SKA co-owner Terry Prichard describes that as “sort of like going backpacking with motorcycles.”

(Most Baja kayak trips, including SKA’s, welcome beginners. But for would-be kayakers who highly value their creature comforts, the motorized-support question is a key one to raise with an outfitter.)

Instead, we face Baja relatively unplugged.

Having paid about $825, plus $220 in air fare between LAX and Loreto, for a seven-night trip, I arrive in late January. I eat dinner in downtown Loreto, a town of about 10,000 that is dominated by its 1697 mission and the tourism industries of sportfishing and kayak-tripping. Then I come back to the pleasant Villas de Loreto (a hotel that specializes in kayakers) and start stuffing my gear in waterproof bags. The next morning finds me bumping along in a westbound van, a trailer full of kayaks in tow, on a four-hour drive to a barrier island north of Magdalena Bay.

Most kayak outfitters offer either to take you to the Pacific Coast (usually starting in La Paz and pursuing a whale-intensive itinerary), or take you to the Gulf of California, often starting in Loreto and paddling among the gulf’s many uninhabitied islands and along the peninsular coastline. But I wanted a glimpse of both, so I abandoned my usual anonymity, disclosed my intentions, and tagged along on a bicoastal guide-training trip where I was the only paying customer.

At the van’s wheel was the wiry 6-foot-4-inch Prichard, trained as a geologist but now a veteran of nearly a decade guiding river raft and kayak trips, including the last several winters in Baja. Wedged into the van behind Prichard with a mountain of waterproof bags, we are an odd amalgam: guides Martha Garfield of Maine; Jacqueline Holmes of Canada’s Queen Charlotte Islands; Analilia Moreno, Manuel Murillo and Adan Hernandez, all of Baja California Sur; myself, and Blaise and Leslie, who have come from Maine to hang out for a few days with their longtime friend Martha.

Inside the van, kayak tales and Baja fables are told, and conversation occasionally dips from English into Spanish. Outside, dust flies and a paved road gives way to a single-track dirt road, which dwindles off into an uncertain desert distance that looks like a leftover establishing shot from “Lawrence of Arabia.” Dry for miles.

Then we cross a rise, and there, abruptly, is the Pacific. We load up our kayaks, lock the van and glide out into a world that is half cloudless sky and half glassy sea. Dipping paddles, we head for the shifting sands of the barrier island Santo Domingo.

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In its essential elements, this is a standard trip. Our Southwind K-2 two-person kayaks, 21 feet long and 105 pounds when empty, are stuffed full of sleeping bags, tents, snorkels, bags of fresh water, a portable toilet, first-aid kits, modest supplies of tequila and rum, and many pounds of food. Our legs are wedged into the kayaks beneath spray skirts that keep splashing seas out. With so much ballast, my kayak feels far more stable than the single sit-on-tops I’ve paddled before. And with two people aboard, the paddling isn’t particularly difficult.

As on most outfitters’ weeklong Baja kayak trips, we’ll spend more time out of the water than in it--never more than four hours paddling in a day, no more than two hours at a stretch. Like most groups of beginning and intermediate kayakers, we cover about three knots. This leaves plenty of time for the guides to practice safety maneuvers, brush up on names of plants and animals, investigate the first-aid devices in the bag marked WOUND MANAGEMENT and, eventually, to fire up the propane stove and cook for me. Hey, there’s no sense being a fanatic about this unplugged business.

On my end, there’s time to wander the beach, to pick my way past cactus on desert mini-hikes, or to flop in a fold-up camp chair and dip into a little light beach reading: “The Perfect Storm,” Sebastian Junger’s 1997 nonfiction book about death at sea amid 100-foot swells and 100-knot winds in the Atlantic off New England. Periodically, I look up to be sure our swells are still six inches, our winds still 5 knots.

For two nights we camp on Isla Santo Domingo, which protects a lagoon and the peninsula from the pounding Pacific. At dawn, the peninsula’s mountain spine stands out sharply on the horizon under a deepening yellow sky. At night, the stars are dazzling. In the afternoon, we wander from the sheltered side, where mangroves huddle, to the exposed Pacific side, where breakers thunder against a broad, empty shore. Under constant revision by wind and tide, the island changes shape constantly.

Not all of our animal sightings would fit in a souvenir brochure. Along with scores of healthy beasts on land and in water, we encounter sea lions, pelicans, sea turtles and a dolphin--perhaps a dozen animals in all--lying dead or dying on lonely beaches. Later, I call two marine experts, and they note that sea lions all along California’s coast have been starving, their diets disrupted by El Nino, and that this winter’s storms were also very hard on pelicans. Sea turtles, they say, are more likely to be victims of offshore fishing boats. But a lot of what I see, the scientists remind me, is merely pitiless nature doing business as usual.

On the brighter side, the January weather is benevolent, and the food’s good. Though nights are nippy, daytime highs are in the 70s. Though the guides (some veterans, some novices) are just learning their way around these particular recipes, the results are commendable, beginning with our first dinner of fish over rice with tomatoes and onions, and a pineapple upside-down cake (cooked in a Dutch oven) for dessert. This is better than anyone could hope for on a dune-and-mangrove island.

And certainly, our camp is exactly what the coyotes have been hoping for. They draw nearer and nearer at dinner time, and while they regard us, the guides tell of how, driven by thirst, the coyotes will return later to lick the dew from our tents. Each night, after reading by flashlight and before sleep, I strain in my tent to hear tiny tongue-on-tent sounds. I never do, but each morning I rise to find my tent surrounded by telltale paw prints.

With no wood to burn for a campfire, we circle around a propane lantern, and shuffle off to our sandy sleeping bags by 10 p.m.--”Baja midnight,” as Prichard puts it.

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On the third day, we pack up, paddle back from the barrier island to the mainland, ease the van and trailer out through the soft sand on the road, and head east to the gulf, where the 10-mile dirt road, the private beach and the eel skeleton await. It’s a more varied landscape, with more hiking possibilities than on the Pacific side.

The next three days dissolve into a pleasant blur. Yellow dawns, purple dusks. Tuna salad lunches and quesadilla breakfasts with onions, tomatoes, chiles and orange sections. A grand afternoon of snorkeling amid the tall rocks at Punta Mercedarios, with urchins, sea slugs, fish of various stripes and a ray sighting. We take a brief nature hike to practice identifying cacti. (There are 120 types in Baja, one reference book in the waterproof LIBRARY bag says, and most of them seem to lurk within 500 yards of our campsite.)

One day, a school of about 50 mullet bursts six inches above the water’s surface, just a few feet in front of my kayak. In three days, we see one other kayaker, a handful of pangas (Mexican fishing boats), a couple of yachts in the distance and the glint of three cars on another beach.

We take our kayaks out when the water is calm and the wind is down. El viento (the wind) from the north can be strong and unpredictable on the gulf, and when it shifts, your life changes: You change paddling routes. You snorkel on the far side of the rocks instead of the near side. You move your campfire behind a protruding cliff that blocks the wind, and dig a deep pit. And if you’re sleeping under the stars, you probably drag your bag over near the fire pit.

Because we have less time than most groups, we stay along the peninsula’s coast. Most weeklong gulf tour itineraries include crossings to nearby islands--a little more paddling, but perhaps a deeper sense of discovery and accomplishment. Among the favorite stops: Isla del Carmen (19 miles long, directly off Loreto and Puerto Escondido); Isla Danzante (small and stark neighbor to Carmen), Isla San Jose (mangrove estuaries, snorkeling at south and north ends), Isla Espiritu Santo (near La Paz; many caves and coves) and Isla Catalina (big barrel cacti). None of those trips, the experts warn, should be undertaken without a compass and someone who knows his (or her) way around a kayak and understands local tidal patterns and geography.

I suppose I should be a little disappointed about not getting out to those islands this time. But the sun is low, dinner is underway, and there’s tequila and Tang waiting on the camp table. I scramble up the hillside and end up just perching there on a slope of loose rocks, with the sea, the desert and (looking rather tiny there on the beach) our fleet spread before me. The wind is cool, the colors deepening, and civilization is far away.

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The best ways, places to see migrating whales in Baja. But no guarantees. L9

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GUIDEBOOK

Boating in Baja

Baja kayak tours: More than a dozen outfitters offer trips in Baja, including Baja Expeditions (see accompanying story on whale-watching), San Diego-based Southwest Sea Kayaks (telephone [619] 222-3616, Web site https://www.swkayak.com), San Francisco-based Blue Waters Kayaking (tel. [415] 669-2600, fax [415] 669-7835, Web site https:// www.bwkayak.com) and Seattle-based Outdoor Odysseys (tel. [800] 647-4621 or [206] 361-0717). More companies and information are found at the outdoor recreation Web site https://www.gorp.com.

I signed on with Sea Kayak Adventures (tel. [800] 616-1943 or [208] 765-3116, fax [208] 765-5254, Web site https://www.gorp.com/ska), based in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Founded in 1993, the company offers whale-oriented trips in February and early March, then general itineraries on the Gulf of California from mid-March to early May. A seven-day trip (two hotel nights, five camping nights and all camp meals included) runs $825. (Single supplement is $50.)

Where to stay: Villas de Loreto (Apartado Postal 132, Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico 23880; tel. and fax 011-52-113-50586), a Canadian-owned waterfront hotel and RV park a 10-minute walk from Loreto’s main drag. Specializes in kayakers. Most of the 10 rooms are arrayed around a pleasant swimming pool and grassy yard. Rates: $50-$60 per room per night, double occupancy, light breakfast and free bicycle use included. Hotel rents out kayaks to guests at $27.50 per person per day.

What to read: Maps, advice and descriptions of 15 popular itineraries are found in “Sea Kayaking in Baja” (Wilderness Press, $13.95) by Andromeda Romano-Lax.