February 25th
Our last day out… we have decided to head back to La Paz today, which is fine – gives everyone lots of time to clean up, do laundry, shop for trinkets to take home! and enjoy La Paz some more. Today has been a lot of fun, starting with the Grand Adventure about 630-700 a.m., when Peter realized that I was indeed on the boat and not out kayaking.. so where was the kayak??? We had the rope but no kayak. We scanned the beach, but it was a long way away, and I figured that the way the wind blew etc it had to be inland… so with coffee, binoculars, radio, and camera in hand, and beach shoes, I kayaked to one end of the bay and proceeded to move from one end to the other. Of course there were rocks to explore, pictures to take, Pelicans to talk to…. goats to see… tide was just right for floating and kayaking along the beach without having to get out and walk. No kayak. I was almost all the way to the other side ( a LONG way away.. it’s a very big bay)… I happened to glance out and noticed that Northern Ranger was not where she had been. The sailboats were there… Sea Level was there.. but Northern Ranger was but a speck on the horizon. Luckily I had the radio! as I suspected immediately, they had spotted the errant kayak heading back to La Paz and had raised anchor to go hunt it down. I waited till they got closer and then paddled back. Breakfast for the weary me was toast from the bread I made yesterday ( yum) and then Cam came to pick us up for Adventure Number 2… walk to the beach on the other side. This was supposed to be around two miles worth of walk on a path and on the other side was another great long beautiful beach to explore. Walking shoes and camera and water in hand, we waded to shore from his dinghy and got ourselves ready while he collected the rest of the crew from Sea Level. Peter took off, and we didn’t see him again for two hours… we spent a lot of time head down and bums up taking pictures and looking at the flora fauna and assorted other goodies along the way. Cactus and spiny poky things seemed to be the most predominant , with a few flowers and birds thrown in, although rumour has it a jack rabbit and a rat were seen.
Several hours later, we finally (almost crawled) over the berm and came upon the beach finally, and Peter too…. it was worth the walk, but by this time we were too exhausted to walk either way and certainly weren’t about to head out into the surf to go swimming! More pictures, more looking at shells, and we headed back. This time we seemed to find a straighter route ( that was the problem before, it may have been two miles as the frigate bird flies but he’s not worried about huge spiny shrubs and massive cacti)… this time it only took one hour. Back to the boat, thanks to Sea Level’s marvellous dinghy… and it was lunch time. cleaned up, the numerous bees on our back deck (drawn to the bag of garbage I had put outside) dealt with (alcohol sprayed directly at them does seem to deter them)… we started the engine and upped the anchor and have left our last beautiful adventure spot.
indeed this is a sad day, but we packed enough into it already that I am not complaining..
we are home… back at La Paz… celebratory gin and tonic ( very small) and now we are all back to work!!!! but it is sort of sunny… and we are here…so all is good…