November 2, 2004 - Day Two (Monday)
But it was not to be. During the night the sound of lapping waves
increased steadily and grew into rolling surf, while our tents bent and
shuddered in the rising wind. By morning the wind was scouring the sand
off the beach at 25 to 30 knots. Outside and above our sheltered area,
the wind was 10 knots higher. North beyond the mouth of the bay was a
panorama of whitecaps extending to the horizon.

In blowing sand we loaded the boats hurriedly because Werner was
loading his. But we were all anxious about having to paddle into the
maelstrom outside the mouth of the bay. Over the wind Andreas said to
me: "I'm going to sit here and watch the more experienced paddlers
go out into this before I try it. This doesn't look paddleable to
me." Andreas had developed excellent kayak skills in a short time
and, unlike me, could reliably roll his boat. So I took him seriously.

When the boats were loaded Werner hiked to the top of the hill to the
west of the bay. He did not hurry back and his body language
telegraphed his decision. "We can't go out there," he told us.
"Outside of this bay it's crankin' 40 knots. Even if we could
paddle it, it's 15 miles to the next decent landing, and I don't
think we could make it." So we waited. At first, we stayed near camp
not far from the boats, hoping the wind would die, or at least diminish
so that we could launch and try to make up the lost time. But
eventually small parties began to wander off when it became clear we
would spend another night at this camp.

Mark and I set out east on the cobble spit toward Isla Estanque, just
for something to do. Others followed. The cobbles formed a high berm 75
yards wide. Although our bay was mostly free of signs of man, this berm
was not. In addition to driftwood, fish skeletons, dolphin and pelican
carcasses, we passed shoes, bottles, beams, cans, rigging, and all
other manner of sea litter. The loose, smooth rounded stones shifted
under our weight making each step a chore.

"Here the beach was piled with debris: the huge vertebrae of whales
scattered about and piles of broken weed and skeletons of fishes and
birds. On top of some low bushes which edged the beach there were great
nests three to four feet in diameter, pelican nests perhaps, for there
were pieces of fish bone in them, but all the nests were
deserted-whether they were old or it was out of season we do not
know."
From The Log of the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck

The wind made it difficult to talk without shouting, so we dropped down
the south side to a large, shallow pond about a half mile long and 300
yards wide. The pond is below sea level and protected by the berm.
Occasionally the wind would carry a sheet of spray from the crashing
surf all the way over the berm. Mark noted that the calm shallow water
of the pond looked suitable for wind surfing. All around the edge in a
few inches of water was a three or four foot wide mat of blue-green
algae. At the pond's west end is a large expanse of Yerba Reuma of
the Frankenia family, one of the few plants able to tolerate such
extreme salinity of the soil. We walked along the shore and were
careful not to disturb the ancient algal mat.

Near the eastern shore of the island, and just short of the summit of a
rocky ridge above the eastern shore, we found two large signs
describing the wildlife and pleading with visitors in Spanish and
English to be careful with the fragile ecosystem, to minimize impact
and litter, and warning against importing non-native species like rats
and cockroaches.

We were surprised to learn from these signs that the island has no
native rodents, but our experience bore this out. No food we left out
was ever disturbed, except by the ravens. We never saw any evidence of
mice or rats, or any other terrestrial mammals for that matter. There
were lots of shore birds, a few ravens and ospreys, rattlesnakes, small
lizards, chuckwallas, and of course, spiders, ants, no-see-ums and
scorpions. But every mammal we saw had fins.

Later Andreas, Mark, and Jim set off on a long hike to the west side of
the island to fish. They hoped the water would be calmer there on the
lee side while El Norte (what the fisherman called the malevolent north
wind) bore down on the east. Werner went with them for three or four
miles to a point about 800 vertical feet above the western shore, then
returned to camp alone. Andreas, Mark and Jim went down to the water
and caught and brought back fish, a tremendous expenditure of energy
for which the entire group was grateful. Their efforts spared us from
having to eat the canned stew, the only non-fish meal Werner planned.

On his way back, Werner saw a large Isla Angel de la Guarda Rattlesnake
resting in a crevice above the sandy floor of a wash. Like the Cedros
Island Rattlesnake, this species was isolated from its relatives on the
mainland by continental drift. Faults separated the islands from the
mainland and marooned the island snakes for so long that they are now
genetically distinct.

"The general correspondence of flora and fauna confirms the fact that
they were a part of the peninsula not so very long ago. On the other
hand, there is known to be a sub-species of snake found on one island
but on no other . . . . All this must mean, of course, that recent as
the isolation of the islands may be, it is not so recent that variation
has not begun and that what you have is a very minor parallel to the
case of the Galapagos where the presence of a unique species presented
the puzzle which Darwin was to solve."
From The Forgotten Peninsula, by Joseph Wood Krutch

With no mammal predators to compete with, and a good supply of fat
chuckwallas to eat, Crotalus angelenis has done exceedingly well on its
island in the Gulf. It commonly grows to a length of seven feet, over
twice as long as its mainland progenitor, Crotalus mitchelli, the
Speckled Rattlesnake. Another distinctive difference is that the rattle
of the angelenis is much smaller than the mitchelli. It may be that
without coyotes, goats, burros, horses, cattle, and other potentially
dangerous mammals stalking and stomping the island, the warning
function of the rattle is now superfluous.

In the afternoon I looked for another tent site. The sites near the
boats had become undesirable by the blasting wind and blowing sand. The
knoll on the east side of the bay provided some shelter, but even in
the dirt I could not get my tent stakes to bite well enough to resist
the strong wind. I decided to sleep in the open in my bivvy sack on the
shoulder of a sandy hill near the kitchen we set up at the base of the
hill.

Tonight when everyone else was going to bed, I walked along the shore
of the bay. The tide was very low. The water's edge was twinkling
with bioluminescence. Moments later the moon popped up over the eastern
bluff and lit the western part of the bay. I thought about
Steinbeck's log, and Ed Ricketts collecting specimens decades ago
when this place was truly no man's land, and about the eons over
which this island ecosystem developed, and countless transits of the
moon over the dome of the sky, its pull on the earth, the rhythm of the
tides, and its influence on every living thing.

"We have often thought of this mass of sea-memory, or sea-thought,
which lives deep in the mind. If one ask for a description of the
unconscious, even the answer-symbol will usually be in terms of a dark
water into which the light descends only a short distance. And we have
thought how the human fetus has, at one stage of its development,
vestigial gill-slits. If the gills are a component of the developing
human, it is not unreasonable to suppose a parallel or concurrent mind
or psyche development. If there be a life-memory strong enough to leave
its symbol in vestigial gills, the preponderantly aquatic symbols in
the individual unconscious might well be indications of a group
psyche-memory which is the foundation of the whole unconscious. And
what things must be there, what monsters, what enemies, what fear of
dark and pressure, and of prey! . . . . Perhaps, next to that of the
sea, the strongest memory in us is that of the moon."
From The Log of the Sea of Cortez

November 3, 2004 - Day Three
Day Three. We dubbed this place Scorpion Bay after a critter who lived
under a rock in our kitchen. On the first full day we had set up our
folding chairs in the sand at the base of the rocky, volcanic bluff
east of the bay to escape the blasting wind. In the hill's southern
lee we had good shelter and some rocks to put the stove and other items
upon. John H. sat for a good part of the day within inches of a rock
that Werner later moved to make a platform for cooking. A five-inch
scorpion the color of fresh cut lime scurried for cover in a crevice
where we could get a good look. We made it the camp mascot.

This morning we didn't even go through the ritual of loading the
boats. The wind continued unabated, or stronger, driving the rollers
and whitecaps down the 200 mile fetch to the north. Dumping waves
hammered the steep cobble beach to the east. From my seat in the
kitchen I had a view to the east down the spine of the cobble berm all
the way to Estanque. Backlit by the rising sun, the spray from the
thundering surf billowed over the berm like smoke.

After breakfast Andreas unloaded his boat and paddled out into the surf
of Scorpion Bay while some of us watched from shore. He made good
progress, slowing and accelerating to avoid the closely spaced breaking
waves, keeping his boat aligned perpendicularly to the swells. As he
approached the mouth of the bay, he slowed to a stop. We wondered aloud
if he could turn without capsizing, but he did not try. Instead, he
maintained his perpendicular alignment, and let the oncoming water push
him back into the bay. He spent over an hour maneuvering around the
inside of the bay, playing with the waves and eddies, and eventually
working up to turning around and paddling in with the waves.

Andreas's display of boat handling skill encouraged Werner to try it
too. Werner made it out a little further, but still not into the
violent water and unhindered wind outside the bay. He executed a turn,
and brought his boat back through the surf expertly to a soft landing
on the beach. He told us that it was still way too big to paddle
outside of the bay, and that we would not be leaving this camp for at
least another day. That left us free to plan other adventures.

Andy wanted to explore the interior and was interested in seeing the
other side of the island. I wanted to try to find the Isla Angel de la
Guarda rattlesnake Werner had spotted on his way back to camp
yesterday. Andy persuaded Steve, Dave, and John to come also, and we
set out for the abandoned fish camp a mile or two to the west.

The ruins of this failed enterprise are an enigma. A large concrete
slab lies just above the beach and near the concrete remnants of a
pier. It was suggested that this was once processing plant. But smaller
slabs lie scattered over a hundred acres, along with remnants of two
wheel track roads, and lots of litter. It looks like the builders had a
community in mind, with several small dwellings spaced several hundred
yards apart.

We followed a two wheel track for over a mile, wondering how they got a
motorized vehicle here. The road wound back through the smaller
outlying slabs, and climbed up the gentle incline of an alluvial fan.
The fan was cut by two arroyos filled with creosote, mesquite,
ironwood, cardon, elephant trees and palo adan. The plateau above the
arroyos was covered with low dry grass, and a few scattered creosote,
brittlebush and small cacti.

"The difficulties of exploration of the island might be very great, but
there is a drawing power about its very forbidding aspect-a Golden
Fleece, and the inevitable dragon, in this case rattlesnakes, to guard
it. The mountains which are the backbone of the island rise to more
than four thousand feet in some places, sullen and desolate at the tops
but with heavy brush on the skirts."
From The Log of the Sea of Cortez

As we hiked further up the alluvial fan, I told the others about the
species of rattlesnake native to the island, and the need to be
extremely careful, especially on rocky south-facing slopes. The Isla
Angel de la Guarda Rattlesnake is one of the three largest in North
America. In the U.S. only the Western diamondback, which also grows to
seven feet, and the Eastern diamondback, which grows to eight feet,
grow so large. To be envenomated by a large rattlesnake on this island,
in weather conditions that would prohibit a rescue by panga for days
(we had a satellite phone), would almost certainly mean death, or if
you survived, severely debilitating injury to tissue and organs, and
months of painful recovery in a hospital.

We carefully clambered down a south facing slope picking our way around
the larger rocks that might provide a warm den for snakes, and eyeing
the ground before every step. We crossed the arroyo and stopped in the
shade of a big ironwood for a drink. The air was still and warm in the
arroyo bottom, and the sun was hot. We could hear flies and bees
buzzing, and bird songs. The shade was welcome, but even more a relief
was the quiet stillness in contrast to the relentless sensory assault
of the wind.

"The very air here is miraculous, and outlines of reality change with
the moment. The sky sucks up the land and disgorges it. A dream lays
over the whole region, a brooding kind of hallucination."
From The Log of the Sea of Cortez

We followed the winding wash upstream for another three quarters of a
mile until the twists and turns became too tight and choked with
prickly acacia branches to efficiently follow. There we struck out
directly up slope toward a saddle we hoped would provide us with a view
of the mainland. Approaching the saddle summit, the wind buffeted us
more intensely with every upward step.

At the summit we found a huge flat area, and a view of distant
mountains on the Baja Peninsula, but no view yet of the water. We
walked south on the flat away from the exposed saddle, and stopped for
lunch by a large elephant tree where the wind was calm. Nearby was a
palo adan, similar to the ocotillo, but smaller, with green, yellow and
purple branches. We enjoyed the shade and the light breeze, a welcome
change from the barrage of blowing sand back at camp. Here we compared
the growing collection of red welts on each other's legs, and
discussed our predicament. Every hour spent not paddling made it more
unlikely we could continue north to complete the circumnavigation. We
had over eighty miles of paddling ahead of us, and had lost two days.

After lunch we headed further southwest to a view of the Canal las
Ballenas and the mainland 20+ miles away. We hiked to a cardon above a
steep slope. The channel looked calm from our vantage a half a mile
away and 800 feet above sea level. Even from that distance we could
tell it was much calmer on the west side than on the east. The skies
were hazier to the west than the east, but everywhere, cloudless. The
barometer had been hovering above 30 for two days. Rather than
continuing downslope toward the western shore, we turned around.

On the way back, I saw sign of the party from the day before. We
decided to follow their course more directly back to the camp. This
took us down a ridge line and then east into another arroyo, wider and
flatter than the one we had come up, which made for easy hiking. Little
whiptail lizards with alternating black and beige tail bands scampered
over sand and gravel for cover at our approach, and we found the dried
carcass of a chuckwalla about 18 inches long. We climbed a steep
embankment out of the broad wash bottom.

After crossing a broad, flat plain with scattered head-high brush and
towering cardon, we came to an area barren of vegetation and littered
with red and black volcanic rock with bizarre shapes, probably the
result of molten rock being blown into the air at high speed. Our path
took us over a few rocky low saddles and into another narrow arroyo
with high steep walls of loose red rock and filled with large, bushy
ironwoods and other lush, green vegetation. After only a few hundred
yards this opened up to the salt flat directly behind our camp at
Scorpion Bay.

In the afternoon Werner was motivated to find fish, but the heavy surf
along the north facing coast just outside the bay prohibited diving. He
tapped me to go with him to the east side, to the shore south of Isla
Estanque, where we hoped to find calmer, clearer water, and a few rocks
to provide good hunting. We reached the rocky beach and walked south to
a cliff. The water was turbulent, murky and not too promising. We
gathered up our gear and headed inland again briefly, then south around
a steep, high knoll. Andreas, Dave and Steve were a quarter of a mile
behind us and changed course to follow our lead.

South of the knoll were some crumbling cliffs above a black cobble
beach facing east-southeast. We found a spot to get down the cliff and
onto the cobble beach, and walked south a bit more to some large rocks.
Five minutes after going in, Werner speared his first cabrilla. Dave
and Steve hurried to get into the water. Andreas walked a bit further
south and with his pole casted from shore. Soon Dave speared a fish,
then Steve. Werner got a few more, the last one about five pounds. Each
time a diver speared a fish, he swam close to shore, got some purchase
on the slippery rocks, and heaved the fish above the waterline for me
to retrieve.

Out of the water the guys were shivering as they stripped off their
wetsuits. The storm had stirred up the deeper, colder water and dropped
the temperature several degrees from the balmy 70+ we had on the first
day. I took the bag of fish and walked north a few hundred yards to
where the sun was still flooding the rocky shore. The others followed,
and soon Werner and Andreas were cleaning fish in the afternoon sun.

We had another fine fish feast that night, and drank another half
gallon of margaritas, along with some private reserve tequila others
had brought along. Jim let us sample an unusual smoky flavored, high
proof alcohol. Werner whooped in appreciation. None of us could
identify it, and Jim decided to keep it a mystery for a while.

JKVawter