October 12:
Actually we left the bay area on the 11th. We had decided to drive down to LA so that we could bring some of Kevin's fathers things back with us from the storage space. We had planned this nice daytime drive down to LA, but in true Rachel & Kevin fashion we had to finish up some last minute errands and didn't even leave until around 5. The drive was mostly uneventful; though some construction traffic caused us to take a detour, which was very rural and slow. However if anyone needs an extra toilet, I know a roadside where you might still find one. We arrived at Kevin's mother's house late, relaxed with her for a while and then went straight to bed.

The actual October 12th included a few more errands, some time in the storage space and then rushing off to the airport. You know how when you are packing for a trip, there is always something that you forgot, well during out drive to the airport we realized what we forgot. Our plane tickets!!

We have gotten so used to e-Tickets that while packing it didn't occur to us that, yes we had received a paper ticket in the mail and it was because Aero California doesn't do e-Tickets at all. We argued at the counter with the people for a while. They could see us in their computer, see how much we had paid and every detail, but they still refused to reprint the tickets we had already purchased. It was infuriating. We eventually filled out
a lost ticket form, bought new tickets and are now still waiting for the first tickets to be reimbursed. *sighs*

So finally the group is together. This is a small trip, Kevin, His cousin Steve, Steve's friend Carl and me, the one and only girl on the trip. It felt good. I have a tendency to have more male friends than female friends, however since moving to the Bay area that hasn't been as true. I miss the guys in my life. I mean I still have the friends I've had for years and who are very important to me, but they are scattered in the USA. It was nice to be around all guys.

Waiting for the plane to arrive, we noticed something odd was happening outside. A good dozen fire trucks, police cars, and emergency vehicles appeared and spread out near the runway. We all sat and watched out the window as a plane (presumably a cargo plane), came in for a landing completely missing its front hatch door. Our guess is that it wasn’t closed tight enough on take off and got blown right off. Really makes you want to fly. But off we went on a couple of short jumps, a detour through customs and then off to our beautiful hotel in La Paz Mexico.

I do mean beautiful hotel. I'm trying to remember the name, but I'll look it up and post it later. It was a tropical paradise and apart from one invader roach, we were pretty dang happy. Absent a guide to check in with us that night, we still enjoyed a good meal and then tried to hit the sack early.

October 13:
We were up early and eating breakfast when our guide found us. We repacked and off we went to get our kayaks, some snorkel gear and drive down to the tip of the peninsula to load up the motorboat and get on our way. Off the Baja peninsula there are a couple of islands, and that was our destination. The plan was to go all the way out to the farthest tip, enjoy our day, and then come back in a little bit to set up our first camp. And for the next few days, we would spend our time Kayaking back toward the mainland.

Our first stop was the small white capped rock is the home to many sea lions. We found a spot and dropped anchor. Changed into wetsuits (not to stay warm, the water was like bath water, the wet suits were to protect against jellyfish stings) and went snorkeling and swimming with the sea lions.

You can't go too close to the rock. The bull sea lion actually will swim a line about 9 feet out from the rock which we visitors are not allowed to cross. However if you try and swim like them, the sea lions will come to you to play. My one complaint about this day was the fact that the snorkel mask I was using was defective. Our guide later discovered it was really very bad, but as I told people I was having problems on this day, I just kept being told to do something different and that it was because I was new to snorkeling. It was hard to totally enjoy it when you had to empty your mask every two minutes or so, but it was still an amazing experience.

One sea lion took to me. I've named her Lola, and I love her. She really liked me for some reason and kept swimming around me and tagging my flipper. If she hadn't been so quick I could have reached out and touched her or even hugged her. She was cool. Kevin, having an easier time with his gear and more experience, got some great shots with our new underwater camera. I do have to say that I love the new Reefmaster 310. I already have plans for ways to get better pictures with it on our next trip. But I'm pretty happy with what we captured this time.

Back on the boat we took off to find a place to set up camp and eat some lunch. The first place we stopped had already been taken over by other campers. Really wanting a deserted island campsite to ourselves, we moved on and found a new beautiful beach to call home for the night. Finally on ground (it felt good), we unloaded the motorboat into our kayaks and walked our stuff to the beach. Unloading some of our stuff, our three guides (one guide and two trainee guides) set about making us lunch while we relaxed. I have to say these beaches were beautiful. Warm white sands, turquoise waters beautiful sky, it was picture perfect.

We rested most of the rest of this day. We did do a basic kayaking class. We watched a beautiful sunset complete with many pelican, stalked a blue heron set up our camp, and ate a lovely dinner while watching an invader attempt to get to our food. And then we hit the hay... or um.. sand... early so that we would be fresh for our first day of kayaking the next morning.

More Baja to come...
PS: there are more photos in that album than just the ones I liked too. Check them out.