( special thanks to Caliente for title suggestion) My brother and I had just spent most of the day In San Felipe, Baja California eating fish tacos and drinking cervesa on the beach and ended up putting in late for our planned paddle out to some beaches we had seen 5 or 6 miles north of Punta San Felipe where we would camp. We had packed all our gear in our tandem 17ft sea kayak and had been waiting for the incoming tide to assist our paddle around the point and northward ( we thought)... Well, the tides, we found out much later, were to have been some of the greatest in 50 yrs and It was ultimately the tide that was the main factor in putting us so far off shore that night. It took hours of exhausting paddling just to get out of the bay (the tide had created a rip along the north shore that fought us relentlessly) and by the time we made the point, the sun was setting at our backs. The scene was so beautiful, I think it induced a kind of weird rapture in both my brother and I. We paddled until it was completely dark without saying a word to each other...( later that week we actually met this couple that said they took a photo of us rounding the point at sunset. They even took my address promising to send a copy... they never did.) (I should also mention here that there are no visible lights on shore, north of the point, and there were no other boats are on the water that night.) Now this is where shit got intense. We had been paddling for quite a while now and the moon had not yet risen, but our incoming tide was now beginning to ebb and what had been a gently rippling sea was slowly turning to glass. With the water reflecting all stars of the cloudless sky, we notice that the smoother and glassier the water became, the less we were able to delineate the sky from the water! Now the sea was like a perfect mirror and looking down at the water was exactly like looking up into space! An even more intense "rapture" begins to take hold of me...I feel like a disembodied spirit floating through space and in a single profound instant, I feel as if I am witnessing infinity itself... and it is terrifying! No pathetic LSD trip I had ever taken was anywhere near as intense or powerful as this vision of terrific beauty now before me! I'm having trouble controlling my intense vertigo as my eyes and brain struggle to orient with something ... anything! All I've got is the fluid in my ears to tell me what direction's up and my eyes don't believe it! The feeling of the paddle pulling through the water becomes my only umbilical, a tenuous link to the physical world... Anyway, we are still paddling rhythmically along and I'm feeling as if the sound of the paddling is the only thing keeping me from loosing my mind, when suddenly I hear this big SMACK! and my brother yells" EAhhh! shit!" He was paddling the stern that day and he jostled the boat enough to cause me to do a quick slap-brace with my paddle. I say "WTF!?" and he says "A fucking fish or something just hit me in the head!" I laugh and he says "No, its not funny, a BIG goddamn fish just jumped out of the water and hit me in the face...!" I don't know how long we paddled until finally the moon made it's appearance. It was huge and full like the biggest harvest moon you've ever seen! We thought this would be of some relief but we were wrong. The tide had turned and now the rippling of the outgoing tide is reflecting the moonlight in a way that is indescribably mesmerizing. long silver knives of light stretching along the tops of the waves... We can't really see anything but the moonlight on the waves, but we can hear the distinct lapping of waves, as if on a shore. We soon realize the outgoing tide is beginning to reveal the tops of large sandbars and since we can't see them the only way we know where they are is by hearing the waves lapping against them. To avoid them we have to keep heading further and further out to sea. We planned to keep heading out until the tide would turn again, but since we had been paddling now for over 8 hours solid, we did not have the energy, so turning the boat 90 degrees to port, we squinted through the dark in the direction of dry land and paddled until we ran aground. It would still be many hours till we would be dry by a fire, belly's full, recounting our days thoughts over a smoldering Delicado! Continued... Part 2 By the grace of mother nature...http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=386048&f=26 Thanks for reading! ZW
Nice, I was in awe over the infinite you sighted and literally laughed out loud in the next minute about the fish to the head. I have a brother and have been through many crazy things with that guy. Did this actually happen?
No flashlight, no nautical chart, no compass, no tide tables... I don't suppose you had PFDs either? I assume your kayak had floatation pockets making it difficult to sink unless you come up on some really jagged rock. Any lessons learned?
