WORDS: VICKY BARLOW

PHOTOS: PETE CATTER ALL

We’d found some relatively reasonable flights to Loreto and sorted sea kayak hire with Ramon, a local sea kayak guide with a fleet of hire boats. Ramon was a fountain of useful information, offering some great advice as we were prepping for the trip, and also sorting our drop off and pick up, plus a resupply of water mid-trip. Every trip needs a Ramon.

Our plan was to circumnavigate Isla Carmen, one of 5 uninhabited islands which sit within Loreto Bay National Park. The National Park was established in 1996 and is managed by the community, who are keen to protect what has been described as ‘the aquarium of the world’. Not only is there abundant sea life: dolphins, sea lions, sea turtles, rays and tropical fish, but also humpback, grey and blue whales, which migrate through the area in the winter months. This is what we’d come to see! To help manage and protect the area, there is a fee to enter the National Park and you must provide your trip itinerary. This includes the beaches you’ll be camping on. The Park has a strict ‘leave-no-trace’ policy, which includes packing out all your waste.

It was the ‘leave-no-trace’ policy that found us on our launch beach having our ‘en-suite’ facilities explained to us by Ramon. As there is very little rainfall on the island burying poop is not an option, so the recommended system is to bury it at sea.

Ramon handed us a small square of tarp with a long length of line attached. Instructions as follows. Set it up at camp like a litter tray, using sand/pebbles as the litter. Next morning wrap it up like Christmas pudding. Paddle a few hundred metres offshore and drop it in the sea. Then paddled for 10 minutes to allow the sea to clean the tarp, pull it back up and it’s ready for the next camp. This system was quickly named the ‘tarpoodo’. Honestly, it’s the best method I’ve used so far. Not sure how it would stand up to rainy conditions of N Wales though. With our tarpoodo stowed along with 40 litres of water, and with the latest weather forecast (scorching and breezy) and intel on where whales had been spotted, it was time to smear every inch of exposed skin in sunscreen and set off into the Sea of Cortez!

DAY 1

24C, light winds, blue skies and warm seas. A good start to the trip. First stop is Isla Danzante, a small island halfway between the mainland and Isla Carmen. A nice spot for lunch, with pelicans and cormorants for company, whilst vultures soar overhead (not sure what the vultures are hoping for …). Then it’s across to Isla Carmen. Our first camp is on Punta Baja – a beautiful sandy beach.

Squadrons of pelicans cruise low over the water, heading to their roost for the night. As the sun sets, we see whales breaching across the bay. Missed them by a couple of hours. Sigh.

DAY 2

Woken by the pelican squadron returning from their roost. Bit like bees – they look like they shouldn’t be able to fly, yet somehow, they do. Flat calm conditions for paddling, which make the manta rays leaping out of the water even more spectacular. I didn’t know they leap out of the water. They do. A lot. But not quite when Pete has his camera ready. Which becomes a fun game of ‘miss-the-ray’. And between the rays are sea turtles, heads bobbing above the water. And then dolphins, big pods hunting along the coastline. Also a carcass of a whale calf being eaten by vultures. Now we know why they were circling. Nice.

DAY 3

Despite factor 30 and sunblock we’re both looking a little ‘rosey’, so time to break out the sun tops – long sleeves and hoods, with baseball caps for additional shade. Just what you need when it’s nearly 30C. The skin on my keyboard-soft hands is also suffering, and I have an impressive array of blisters. Compeed to the rescue. It’s flat calm on the water, perfect for watching rays and turtles.

We have an unexpectedly close encounter with a huge ‘fever’ of rays – they surface in the water around us, mouths at the surface, making a strange clicking sound. Then one launches from the water right in front of – a huge flash of silver before disappearing back into the sea again with a loud, wet slap. Paparazzi Pete misses the shot again. We finish the day at a beautiful camp in a circular cove, ringed with a white sandy beach. Scorching hot in the sun, too hot even for the mosquitoes. But when the sun sets they come out with a vengeance. We retreat to the tent and watch the hordes of ravenous vampire insects bouncing off the fly sheet.

DAY 4

A guest joins us for breakfast – a black and white kingfisher! It sits on a nearby branch, diving into the water after a fishy snack. Today is the startof the north coast, and as we paddle along the coastline the limestone and white sandy beaches give way to wind-sculpted, red, volcanic rock. The swell picks up too … offering a tricky surf landing onto what we think is our next camp spot. We revisit the maps … it’s the wrong beach *huge sigh of relief from me*. Ours is round a small headland, which protects it from the swell, and it’s an idyllic sandy cove with a huge sand dune behind. Must be about 30m high, and brilliant white sand. Our guest for dinner is a hummingbird, which flits around the cliffs and dunes, whilst a kingfisher and a pair of pelicans dive into the rising tide. Speaking of dinner – tonight is Firepot’s porcini risotto. Possibly the best exped meal I’ve had. Pete doesn’t believe me. He doesn’t like mushrooms and is convinced I’m trying to poison him. I tell him not to worry. I won’t poison him. I’ll feed him to the vultures when the time comes.

DAY 5

Resupply day! Ramon’s intern brings us 50 litres of water, fresh tortillas and avocados (top notch lunch), and bonus items of beers and cookies. We like Ramon. Weather forecast is for the wind to change direction and we need to get ahead of it. Which means putting in a long day – 30km+. The north coast delivers stunning scenery, rock spires, sea stacks and twisted rock strata The coastline is busy with the usual suspects; crows, pelicans and vultures, all crowded together on the low-lying rocks. Then there’s a new kid in town – blue footed boobies. A flock of about 50 bird circling low overhead. By 1.30 we only have 6km across an open bay to finish the day. But I’m pretty broken. A quick pit stop and then it’s head down and paddle on. Highlight is a flying fish. Low point is Pete’s rudder snapping. Fortunately, he muscles through it to the other side of the bay, and manages to do a ‘hope-it-will-last’ repair. Another lovely camp spot – we spend the evening watching a pod of dolphins circling in the bay and an osprey hunting over the water.

DAY 6

Despite finishing the previous day pretty broken, I’m feeling strong on the water this morning, and am setting a good pace. Which Pete confirms by shouting ‘we’re doing 7kmh and we’re only dabbing along!’ Dabbbing? Seriously?? I thought I was paddling quite hard. I momentarily consider burying him at sea. Fortunately the geology saves him as I’m distracted by the bright-white, low limestone cliffs that are ahead of us. It looks like the underside of them is carpeted in seaweed that’s swaying with the current. Nope, it’s carpeted in crabs. Hundreds of crabs for hundred of metres, busy scurrying around the rocks. The sight of them is mesmerising (unless you don’t like crabs, in which case it would be terrifying). We round a corner and see a white sandy cove, its limestone walls layered with fossil beds, 30m deep in places. It’s breathtakingly, so we stop to explore, spending an hour scrambling around, marvelling at the fossils.

DAY 7

Silky-smooth seas and a light breeze. Still scorching hot. We’re aiming for Punta Baja – which means we’ve completed our circumnavigation of the island. Arriving at lunch and still feeling fresh we decide to push on and make the crossing back to Isla Danzante. There have been reports of whales in the area, so we think it’s worth pushing on, to spend a couple of easy days on whale watch. Silky-smooth seas give a silky-smooth crossing, until we come out of the shelter of a distant headland, which has been protecting us from a 1m swell. I go from ‘dabbing’ (thanks Pete), to lazer-focused paddling in a couple of strokes. As I pull through the biggest swell I see a huge shadow rise up under the bow of my boat. Easily 5m across (although my panicvision may have magnified this). A huge manta ray! I’m guessing it is as shocked as I am, as it quickly disappears back into the depths of the sea. ‘Ray!’ I shout to a bewildered looking Pete. He thinks I’m shouting ‘Wave!’ and am playing some sort of idiot eye spy with him. Camp for the night is in a beautiful rocky cove – which is home to a large swarm of bees who seem very keen on damp, sweaty, paddling kit. Particularly Pete’s boating shorts. There is no rational explanation for this. Unless they are attempting a collective effort to carry them off and dump them out to sea. Those shorts are pretty ripe.

DAY 8

Up early and a quick getaway before the bees wake up. Easy paddle up the coast, keeping an eye out for whales … but we find dolphins instead. A mega pod cruising between 2 bays. We pull ashore and spend an hour watching them swimming circuits of the bay. They leap out of the water and swim so close to the shore that we can see the calves with their mothers. Amazing. We reluctantly launch back onto the water, not wanting to move on, and are immediately surrounded by the dolphins, diving under our boats and spiralling out of the water in front of us. Double amazing.

DAY 9

We’re woken at 4am by a fishing boat shining a torch on our tent. We stagger out to work out what is going on. Turns out our Garmin inReach has sent Ramon an incorrect location – some 50km into mainland Mexico. Despite our paddling prowess he isn’t convinced this is correct, so has tasked a local fishing boat to check the beach we should be camped on, hence the torch and waving. Having given Ramon’s scout the ‘all clear’ we take advantage of the early morning wake up call to watch a specular sunrise. As the sun rises, so does the temperature. So we wade out for a snorkel, get lightly stung by a couple of jellyfish, swim with a trumpet fish then return to the beach to pack up for the last time. We have one final crossing to the mainland and our pick-up point.

Along with the wildlife, scenery and geology an additional highlight has been the remoteness – the only person we’ve made contact with is Ramon’s fisherman. Other than that, it has only been a few yachts or fishing boats in the distance. Which is nice because Pete seems to spend his life bumping into people he knows. And people he doesn’t know. And by the time he’s asked ‘how you doing?’ (as a polite enquiry, not as a chat up line), I know he’ll have found out the first kayak they paddled and where they took their first swim. So, when we spot some kayakers in the distance, it’s no surprise it comes with a questioning shout of ‘Pete?’. It’s Kevin from Jersey with a group from a canoe club, and some news. A humpback breached next to them about an hour ago. As we paddle away from them we see it, a series of huge splashes across the bay. It has to be a whale. We go into sprint mode, heads-down, hoping to catch sight of the whale. When we go there it has gone. No sign of it. Nada.

We spot Ramon on the beach and head over, unpacking the boats and loading our kit into his truck. I apologise for the fact that we both smell quite fragrant after 9 days of washing in salt water and only 1 change of board shorts. He smiles politely saying it’s not a problem. The speed at which he rolls down the windows of the truck says otherwise. It’s a 45-minute drive, I scope out the truck to see how easy it would be to take over the driving if Ramon is overcome by our toxic fumes and passes out at the wheel. Fortunately, it doesn’t come to that. He tells us that the whales have migrated a little earlier this year, which is why we’ve missed them. Like I said to see whales from a sea kayak requires a bit of planning, potentially some overseas travel and a dose of good luck. And we seem to have run short on the luck front. On the plus side it has given us a reason for a return visit …