What's so special about San Felipe
kayaking? Well, kayakers are normally not sailors, yachters
or speedboat freaks. They cultivate nothing of the float-gloat
vanity evident in other maritime cliques. Kayakers are
usually quiet, solitary figures who glide through ecosystems
without leaving any fingerprints, without waving any
flags. Their kayak is an extension of themselves and
its movement follows their unconscious thoughts just
like an arm or a leg. The rhythm of the paddle sweeps
across distances much as a conductor's baton stirs up
a symphonic wave of sound from the empty air in front
of him.
Except the kayak wends through Nature's composition
--the cyclic palaver of waves rolling across damp sand;
the wild collapses of pelicans engulfing their afternoon
cuisine; the bark of curious seals and the knifing dorsal
fins of patrolling porpoises; seagulls squawking and
tangling over fishing boats; scamper of lizards across
granite outcroppings.
San Felipe has some of the largest tidal
bores in the world. Sometimes the water recedes so far
you have to change postal codes just to get your feet
wet. And winter winds can be sudden and unpredictable.
Given these conditions, planning a leisurely day in
your kayak can be a bit of a logistic challenge. A tide
chart easily tames the uncertainties of the dry-well
syndrome. And keeping your journey close to shore will
ensure you don't loose any battles with a fierce headwind.
Below, Ann Clizer of Idaho describes
one of her own local kayaking experiences:
The Sea of Cortez is royal
blue today, stretching east as far as I can see. Under
a bright March sun, horizon blends with sky, and I paddle
my turquoise kayak toward that nebulous line, pulling
against the tide-drag as it rolls in. My arm muscles
rally to the task. Behind the boat a small wake ripples
into a V-shape. On the white-sand beach, Carla shapes
grainy hills over the prone body of her boyfriend while
he naps. Nance and Maya lounge on beach towels, eyes
closed under dark glasses. Two other kayaks rest above
the high-tide line, but the others have already flirted
with paddling, splashing and laughing, tipping off the
open decks into the warm sea, swimming and pulling their
boats back up onto shore. Now I am on my own. A light
sea breeze lifts my hair, and I draw deep breaths, matching
the rhythm of my strokes.
The beach crowd shrinks
behind me. I focus on the flat sea ahead, settling into
the easypaddle-sweep: right, left, right, left. My power
is centered squarely between my shoulder blades, my
forward motion smooth and strong.
I push east, toward mainland
Mexico, so far away I cannot see the shoreline. As I
pull away from our beach camp, I think of my North Idaho
home, nearly two thousand miles away.
Greeting
the spring season at this mellow latitude and skipping
the mud and rain up north each year brings a special
flavor to the pattern of my life. For me, any sacrifice
is worth the pleasure of launching my boat on this southern
shore as the ice only begins to melt on massive Lake
Pend Oreille at home. In this part of the Sea of Cortez,
the beaches are smooth and sandy, the nearest rockoutcrops
lie nearly ten miles away. More than twenty miles out,
maybe halfway across the finger of water reaching between
Baja and Sonora, a lone island points to the sky. From
land, Isla
Consag changes shape and color with the light and
times of day. Sometimes it resembles a tall mushroom,
dark and looming. Other times, the island's frosting
of bird droppings transform its appearance into the
thrusting spires of a fantasy castle. I know from other
outings that the island isn't visible from water level,
but before I've paddled five minutes, I can see dark
dots ahead. I wonder if they are distant fishing boats
or jet skis. They are so far away, I can't tell. I paddle
faster.
Long minutes pass and I
make out triangular shapes. I know this is not shark
country, yet a thrill of fear thumps in my chest, mingling
with the steady whomp-whomp of my paddle-pushed heart.
Hoping the fins belong to a pod of dolphins, I push
on.
I can count the triangles
now --seven dorsal fins. If I angle north, I might intersect
with them. I have never seen dolphins up close, but
I've heard they are as curious as we are, friendly and
unafraid of contact. Some say they have helped people
who were lost or drowning. I've only observed the antics
of dolphins in video footage, but even that second-hand
view always left me with a distinctly uplifting impression,
one of good cheer and a passionate love of life. As
these thoughts ran through my mind, I've already angled
my kayak to intersect their path without making a conscious
decision.
Before I reach the pod,
they slow their pace and turn toward me. Anticipation
swells my chest, and I wonder one last time if I am
wrong. If I were more knowledgeable in marine wildlife,
I could probably tell for sure what creatures I'm approaching
by now. I paddle harder with the fresh adrenaline, because
I know there is no turning back. My kayak feels feather-light
as it skims over the swells, and I draw deeply of the
salt air, relishing its clean feel in my lungs.
The pod breaks and four
fins go south, three north. I lift my paddle, lay it
across my lap and the kayak loses speed. In seconds
I see the unmistakable shape of a dolphin alongside
the open deck of my fourteen-foot ocean kayak. Then
the animal launches out of the water in an effortless
leap, startling me. My body shakes with the shock and
I turn my head to watch it slice back into the Sea of
Cortez. Dolphins circle my kayak, leaping in turn, up
and down, around and around, counter-clockwise. Sea-spray
from the dolphins' passage splashes my bare skin.
My throat grows thick with
emotion. Tears run down my cheeks as the boat rocks
in their turbulent arena, but my fear is gone. I open
my mouth, and laughter comes out. The dolphins are silent.
Or are they?
There are no chattering
noises, no shrill calls, no curious looks. The seven
dolphins circle, jump, and dive. But the silence is
full. I can't tell what it's full of, but it is not
empty. I laugh again, letting go of the need to understand
and giving myself over to the joy of the moment. Peering
into the water, I trace their paths with my eyes. The
sea is a rich green at this deep place so far from shore,
and I can see the animals clearly except at the low
point of their dives. The dolphins are dark grey, and
their supple skins glint in the sun with each arc above
the water. Their snouts part the water neatly as they
slide downward from their leaps. I trail my hand in
the sea and feel its texture, imagine it as a conductor,
a connection between me and the dolphins.
The air around me feels
charged with energy of a sort entirely new to me. My
arm hairs stand up in the breeze. It occurs to me I
might slip off my open deck and cavort in the water
with my new friends. Surely the energy would be even
more powerful, more accessible to me if I immersed myself
in the sea. And suddenly I crave that connection with
every cell.
I lean sideways, still holding
my paddle. But in that moment, one dolphin quits the
circle and continues north. In seconds, they are gone.
Seven dorsal fins cut north through the mild chop, and
my encounter is over. Tears dry on my face as I stare
at the triangular markers growing smaller by the second.
The boat bobs and over the next few minutes, the air
around me returns to normal and my heart rate drops.
I sit still in the March sun, watching until I can no
longer see the pod.
When I glance back at the beach, I see I have come farther
than I realized, maybe a mile of water lies between
me and the shore. I've never been out this far alone,
but I feel no concern.
The dolphins have moved
on, but their brief presence leaves me awash in a delicious
mixture of joy and serenity more penetrating than any
I've experienced on the water before. Still, the beach
is my inevitable destination, and I angle my boat toward
it, tossing a last look north at the horizon. It is
flat.
I paddle west, wrapping
myself around those blissful moments with the
dolphins, tucking the essence of our confluence
inside for closer inspection when I'm back on
land. The Sea of Cortez stretches to the sand,
at some point making the transition from green
to royal blue. I push and pull, right, left,
right, left.
My
friends on the beach grow larger as I approach.
Somehow, I 've grown larger too.
|
Ann
Clizer lives in the mountains northeast of Sandpoint,
Idaho. She spends her springs on the Sea of Cortez
near San Felipe, Baja California Norte, Mexico. |
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