Sea Kayaking trip - Isla Espiritu Santo

Our sea kayaking & camping trip on Isla Espiritu Santo just off the shore from La Paz, Mexico on the Sea of Cortez got off to a slow start due to high winds. On our drive back south from our trip to Loreto I felt the high winds pushing on our rental car.  When we arrived to the hotel run by Mar y Aventuras the night before our trip was to leave they informed us that we might not be able to get to the island due to the high winds. La Paz closes the port when it's too windy.  The winds made it very cold as well in La Paz. Carol and I both were in similar outdoor gear to what we wear in Seattle most of the year- our heavyweight fleece jackets.

So it was no surprise but a bit disappointing that when we met the guide on the morning of December 24th that we were informed that we could not go out that day. Instead we would do a "land tour" :( We did get to visit the local cactus sanctuary and learned a great deal about cacti. While interesting, it was not what we signed up for. We were anxious to get out to the Island and spend our Christmas on the beach! 

...and we did depart on Christmas day. The winds were still pretty intense though. So we had a very bumpy wet ride to Isla de Espiritu in the tour company's panga (a motorboat) and it took about 3 hours to get out to our base camp. We were all delighted with our base camp on a fantastic sandy beach that was outfitted with nice spacious tents, a sheltered dining area, and an outdoor kitchen set up with our very own cook for our group of six of us.  We got settled into our tents, got a full tour of base camp and then were served a very nice lunch. We anxiously awaited our first sea kayak experience....waiting for the wind to die down continued to be a theme for our trip. We did get out on our kayaks but after fighting the winds we turned around and came back in pretty quickly. 

I was surprised to learn that we got a happy hour each night on the trip. The first night out they served us freshly made margaritas, and the second night we got pina coladas and popcorn!  We did have a well stocked kitchen and a good cook on our trip...which was essential if we were to wait around on the beach for the wind to die down.

Our second day on the island, we took a short hike in the morning and finally got to do some snorkeling in a nearby bay. The waters were still a bit rough. We were all cold and wet by the time we got to the bay that was a bit protected from the wind...due to splashing cold water from the boat ride. Despite the cold bumpy ride we were ready to do something other than wait for the wind to die down! We got our wetsuits on and all made our way into the water and found this to be a good snorkeling spot. Some of the highlights of fish we saw were: guinea fowl pufferfish, juvenile damsel fish, trumpetfish, adult damselfish, king angelfish, and butterfly fish.

We did get out on a longer kayak to another bay on that second day in addition to the snorkeling. Carol and I finally got the hang of synchronizing our paddling on that second kayaking day and found the first half of our trip with the wind quite nice and easy....and then we turned around to return to base camp and that was very tough to kayak into the wind. As we turned back into our bay, it felt like we were on a kayak treadmill rather than making any progress towards our return to base camp.  We persisted though and made it back just before sunset....which was a spectacular sunset! ...as posted in our previous blog post! 

So one lesson we learned is don't schedule a kayaking trip if you can help it when the north winds are blowing! 

On the final day....we got to swim with the sea lions again as Carol wrote about. While there were some challenges to this trip, we were still glad we did it. Next time though I think I will be booking this trip in February:)