Ensenada Alcatraz (Playa Algodon)

March 1st, we packed up and left Patchen's cabin headed southeast and back to the Sea of Cortez.  Highway 1 in Mexico is an interesting road.  Its about as wide as a good alley, with zero shoulder... I mean there is nothing.  In a lot of places if you throw a tire across the line it will drop off enough to take your vehicle into the ditch, and you may not be able to get back on the road for miles.  On top of that you will see semis pulling three trailers going faster then you are! 

Then there is the local flavor...

I'm really just impressed with the packing skills.

We made it into the Bay of LA to get some gas, supplies, beer etc.  I tried to get fish tacos, but they were only serving breakfast at the restaurant we stopped at, so I settled for some tasty machaca and eggs instead.  One thing I've learned to this point is how freaking good the flour tortillas are here.  They don't skimp on the lard when they are preparing them.  Even store bought torts will leave your hands greasier then a McDonald's fry cook, but they are like candy!  Got a nice view of the bay on the descent into town.

After gasing and gearing up we back tracked a bit up Hwy 1 to a large dry lake bed to the east.  We turned off here and floored it across the lake bed headed for the sea.

We were ultimately aiming to cross between those mountains, which back right into the water.

(not bad for snapping a pic at 60 miles per hour off road)

After winding our way through a really nice canyon, and carefully across a salt flat (just what we need is to sink a truck axle deep in a marsh) we arrive at one of my favorite camps of the whole trip, Ensenada Alcatraz!  I have found my happy place!

About now we decided that since today being the day that it is..., this beach should be renamed Playa Algodon.  With no one around the oppose the vote, the motion passed 3:0.  That night we brought out the fireworks!  We found a washed up sea lion skeleton that became our mascot of sorts (it was an interesting night), and shot off the bottle rockets, large professional sized rockets, roman candles, and even blew up the hand grenade sized bomb we had purchased. 

It didn't take long to determine that whoever built Mexican fireworks did not quite understand the point of the fuse... the small bottle rockets often didn't even leave the ground before exploding... gotta be quick with the lighter!  If you want to produce cheap explosives, I guess you have to save costs somewhere.

The next morning, the temp was pleasant, and the ever present wind to this point completely disappeared.  The sea was like glass!  Up at the crack of daylight we pushed the kayaks in for the first paddle of the trip.

We paddled out to an island to Southeast of camp. There was a shallow reef between the point at the edge of our cove and the island.  At low tide the water was only a couple feet deep.  Lots of fish and birds were cruising over the reef.  Not that you couldn't see the fish at 20+ feet either.  It was like paddling on my own private aquarium.  We had seen some bird activity on the island so we pulled the yaks up and checked it out.

Osprey

Royal Tern



Nice view from the top of the island.

Chuck beat me back to the yaks, and was about a quarter mile in front of me paddling across the cove towards a small rocky out cropping.  I was trying to catch up when he called me over our radios and told me there was a group of sea lions in front of him and a dolphin.

I caught up and found this group of eight or so sea lions just floating on their backs, fins in the air soaking up the morning rays.  Kind of odd looking group. 

Not a care in the world.



To top that off there was one solitary dolphin circling them just doing it's own thing. He would even breach out of the water just for his own amusement.  It was like they were all just enjoying the first decent morning weather for quite some time. Chuck was a little wary of getting to close to the sea lions, I think he had seen too many when animals attack videos.  But I pulled the long lens out and paddled close enough to snap off those pictures.

I was living through my view finder when I started to notice I was drifting closer to the group.  That's fine, I'm going to get good photos and not spook them with my paddling....

Crap! busted.....

and they're coming right for me!

About this time Chuck is on the radio, "put your camera away, put your camera away, put your camera away." Realizing his point, I shove my camera in my dry bag.  The whole group started porpoising toward me then dove right under my kayak swimming just a few feet below me checking me out.  The whole time I'm sitting on the surface reminding them I'm the superior species... "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go, I'm sorry!"

Once they had looked me over they swam back over to where the dolphin had been circling and started to hunt down a school of fish, I took this as a good time to paddle back to camp.

That afternoon I tried to take a swim in the sea and get some exercise.  Holy crap was it cold!  The cold front and unusually cold winter was cooling the currents up north and it hadn't warmed by the time it reached us.  I was only in the water for about 20 minutes when I could no longer feel the cold.  I stood up and walked up the beach and I couldn't even feel the sun on me!  My core temp had dropped pretty low. I made it back to camp got on some dry clothes and jumped in my sleeping bag, in the sun, in the middle of the afternoon.  It still took me like 15 minutes to get warm.  Ya, I think the water is cool.

We stayed a second night on the beach, since it's so ugly and all...

During the night some octopus fisherman stumbled up onto the beach, assuming that we were friends of theirs.  They got quite a surprise when chuck spotlighted them.  Nice guys, they made their way down the point where it looked like they had camped before.  No lights or anything, just slept in their panga, and were up before us working their traps in the morning.

The next morning was just as calm as the last (the weather was finally starting to cooperate!), so after a quick paddle we packed up camp and headed back towards HWY 1.

On the way south we made a detour towards a rocky bluff in the middle of a nice canyon.  This spot is known for petroglyphs, and we took some time to wander around.

ancient basketball?

There were paintings all over the rocks, but the other reason we stopped was we knew this was a good location to see Short Nosed Rock Lizards, an extremely colorful species I really wanted to see.  The rocks were getting hot so I figured I might get lucky and spot one.  After an hour of searching I finally spotted one briefly before he tucked back in his rocky crevice.  I waited patiently... he popped out for half a second, saw me, then whipped back in his crack.  Enough peek a boo! I got out my camera and sat in ambush hoping to at least get a picture...  I was out smarted tho and he found a ledge I couldn't reach where he could still get some sun.  First the sea lions, now the lizards. I'm not doing well with the wildlife.

This was the best picture I got... lil punk



Beaten, I moped back to the truck.  We had a lot of of ground to cover today, we were heading south but ultimately wanting to cross the peninsula and head for the Pacific Side and our camp to see the Grey Whales.