May 4th – La Bocanita, Baja.

An early morning surf session is in the makings, but not before our caffeinated nectar has been finished and natural deposits have been made. Chris is already paddling out on his Dewey Weber long board, showing us that with a few extra paddle strokes, he can master the waves. I’ve learned not to judge the ease of catching the waves by watching Chris or KC because they make any wave look easy, and the swell is mushy this morning.

Regardless of the water patterns, we’ve got this sweet cove, just north of La Bocana and through the town dump, to ourselves again today and only on occasion are we visited by the red Toyota truck dude, orange dirt bike hombre and the men in the passing maroon car.  I assume that each are driving to the point to check the waves, even though they linger a bit longer than I’d like.

While we surf, our fearless watch-dog Chloe, paces the beach, eats a few pieces of seaweed and then retires to the shade of the truck.  If she’s lucky, one of the doors has been left open, to which she helps herself inside for one of her many naps.  Her duty as watch-dog kicks in when the colorful variety of vehicles loudly motor by, yet the naps always seem to outweigh the need to investigate.

For the first time the flies, correctly said to be the size of seagulls, are beginning to form near our camp, but we’re packing up today, so we won’t be bothered as the swarms enlarge with the rising of the sun.  The reef and tide pools are home to langostas, endangered abalone, anemones and a whole host of hermit crabs.  As non-natives we aren’t supposed to catch the langostas and will be greatly fined, should we be caught with any abalone – but used rusted traps, from the natives, liter the beach.  Secretly we wouldn’t mind if a langosta just happened to wash up into our cooking pot, but we won’t pursue them.

The dolphins pass through the cove in pods of 2 and the friendly seal, who has been here since we arrived a few days ago, glances onto the beach, wondering what Chloe is snacking on.  Nellie is now out on her board and has already caught a few good waves.  It’s time for me to paddle out …