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On Sale Now!
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February 2006 - Essay
By Roger Schumann
Photos by Christopher Manchester except where noted. |
“OUTSIDE!” CHRIS HOLLERED AS WE APPROACHED THE SURF zone, warning that a
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One of the few landing spots along the
first section of the expedition.
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set of big waves was on the way. We were approaching the middle of a 20-mile stretch of deserted and unnamed beach, somewhere in the middle of nowhere between San Hipólito and La Bocana on the shore of the Vizcaíno Peninsula on Baja’s Pacific coast. Even in this modern age, the coastline is remote and, for the most part, still untouched. I imagine that this is what Sebastián Vizcaíno, leader of Spain’s last expedition to explore the California coast, saw when he first laid eyes on this coastline in 1602. It would have looked much the same—sun-baked and wind-parched. And hemmed in by waves.
Big, wide Pacific Ocean waves rolled in with some 17 seconds or so between swells and demanded our full attention if we were to make it back ashore in one piece. Pancho pointed. “There!” he shouted over the thunder of surf. “That’s our beach!”
Although it looked little different from the rest of the shoreline here—wide, flat white-sand beach backed by low, scrub-scattered dunes—Chris and I nodded our assent, for Francisco “Pancho” Mayoral knows this coast well. The son of a fisherman, he grew up here, plying these wave-beaten shores in a panga—the small, open skiff common to these waters—for the better part of his 34 years.
Our kayaking trip down Baja’s Pacific coast had been Pancho’s idea. He had worked his way from fisherman to kayak instructor to being the coordinator of a Baja sea-kayaking program. Pancho, along with fellow instructor Chris Manchester, wanted to scout this coast for locations for future courses. They’d told me about the trip, and I jumped at the chance to join them. The vast majority of Baja paddlers shun the wave-swept Pacific side and head in droves for the calmer, more forgiving shores of the Sea of Cortez. We were here precisely because of the waves.
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Paddling into the breakers.
Photo by Roger Schumann |
I surveyed the latest set of rolling mountains of swell that were avalanching onto the endless swath of deserted sand before us. “Outside!” Chris hollered again. We back-paddled over the series of a half-dozen or so six- to eight-foot swells, and watched slack-jawed as each one in turn doubled its height when it hit the sandbar, pitched forward in a sudden and complete close-out and collapsed in a thunderous explosion of spray. We could even see sand blasted into the air by the force of the fallen wave crest. We reached into our cockpits to pull out our helmets for the landing.
We were on the fourth day of our nine-day expedition from Bahía Tortugas, just south of Punta Eugenia (a giant geologic “fishhook” sticking out of the middle of Baja’s Pacific coast), to San Ignacio Lagoon, 150 miles to the southeast. We had decided to pass by the easy, protected landing in the lee of Punta San Hipólito in favor of the wide open, wild shore beyond mid-bay. But with a good swell running, this was no friendly shoreline for kayakers. For most of this stretch of coastline, there are five to 15 miles or more between rocky points, and in between lie miles of cliffs in the north and exposed, wave-pounded sand in the south. In the lee of every point of any consequence lie fishing villages, such as Punta Prieta, La Bocana, Punta Abreojos. Throughout the duration of our trip, we passed a total of only nine settlements big enough to warrant names.
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Chris Manchester and Pancho Mayoral safely on the beach after a long, windy day down the coast. |
Every time we landed in a fishing village, it seemed somebody knew Pancho. During the first four nights of the expedition, Pancho’s extended family and fisher friends had fed us all-you-can-eat helpings of handmade tortillas, fresh fish and frijoles. Nearly halfway through our expedition, we’d yet to sleep outside. On our third night, we had slept in the small, two-room fish-processing plant in Punta Prieta, spreading our sleeping bags on plastic picnic tables flanked with piles of 50-pound bags of rock salt. Members of the local fishing cooperative, which included Pancho’s uncle, had offered the digs—politely insisted would be more accurate. Apparently, in their minds, no one’s relatives, nor friends of theirs, should be sleeping outside in tents on such a windy night as that. We’d spent the afternoon sipping cans of Pacifico with Pancho’s uncle, Tio Vincente, and his cousin, also named Vincente.
A slow but steady flow of friendly, curious fishermen had stopped by to check us out. A man in his late 20s sauntered up, sporting pricey sneakers, new jeans, a heavy black Oakland Raiders parka and a NY Yankees cap. He nodded at Pancho and asked, “¿Que onda, wey?” literally, What wave, dude? or Wazzup, man? We heard this common, hip-slang greeting over and again throughout our travels. To Chris and me he ventured a tentative, “How are ju?” “Muy bien,” I responded.
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An early launch greets us with big waves for breakfast. |
“Fine,” said Chris, then added “wey,” getting a laugh from the group. Encouraged, the visitor introduced himself in English as Ignacio or “Nacho,” taking advantage of the opportunity to practice English with a couple of real live gringos. He is one of several Nachos we met along the way—San Ignacio was apparently a popular saint in these parts. We talked about the weather, the wind in particular—“Mucho viento, wey”—and exchanged niceties in bent English and broken Spanish before he turned to Pancho and switched to the way-fast and way-slang-ridden local lingo that I tried way hard to follow.
“¿De donde vienen, wey?” they all wanted to know, Where have you come from? Pancho answered casually, “Bahia Tortugas.” Speechless, their eyebrows raised as they calculated the miles and miles of cliffy, rugged coastline between here and Tortugas, perhaps recalling some of their own ventures there. They squinted at the tiny kayaks, then out at the big surf crashing wildly onto the shallow reefs off the low, jagged black finger of the aptly named Punta Prieta (dark point) just north of the village, and finally into Pancho’s unflinching eyes with what Chris and I called their “No way, wey” look. Finally their eyebrows dropped again into a squint accompanied by pursed lips that seemed to suggest a blend of disdain (“You must be loco, wey”) and respect (“¡Que huevos!”).
Everyone there knew the sea and had come to fear it at one time or another. So loco or not, they understood that the trip from Tortugas was no insignificant feat of seafaring in such tiny boats without motors. We asked if they’d like to try out a kayak. They stepped back as if from a snake.
The three of us tried not to laugh, thinking of the man Pancho and Chris had met a couple days earlier before I had joined them. They’d been caught out along a cliffy section with no landings possible for several miles in growing winds and 10-foot seas. They were finally able to dodge into a rocky, ill-protected cove that Chris—a tattooed former dirt-bike racer who seems to thrive on all things sketchy—described to me later as “pretty sketch’, dude.” |
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