Starting on a remote beach on the Baja side of the sea of Cortez, about halfway down. You wake just as the sun is rising over Mainland Mexico across the Gulf. When you poke your head out of the tent the air is a little bit nippy but the sky is cloudless and looks like it will be another beautiful warm day. When you look across the beach and see the sleek double kayak loaded with a weeks worth of food you are excited and ready to begin the first days paddling. After a little bit of gently coaxing and persuasion (perhaps a little tickling or a few more minutes of snuggling) your partner is also awake and ready to go. Leaving the beach the first thing you hear is the breath of whales surfacing in the distance. The air is beginning to warm up and thee water is glassy calm as you gently paddle your kayak through it. Seabirds are beginning their daily routines around you, loons are softly calling to each other across the water, seagulls are trying to steal fish from pelicans and bickering about their lack of success, frigate birds are wheeling and diving as if they are trying to out do each other in an aerobatic display. Occasionally schools of fat little fish will simultaneously leap out of the water around you, sounding like raindrops. Having no particular destination you are free to stop anywhere on the miles of deserted beaches. You have a week...
Day one
God...what have I gotten myself into?? I never was one for camping but I have to admit, camping was never like this in all the other times I went. Having someone else handle all the minutia of the journey, leaving one free to just enjoy it might be the way to go. We pulled in late last night...unloaded the kayak and set up a shelter...well...let me rephrase that. I sat and watched while he did everything. The only thing I had to do was climb into the warm covers and wait for him to finish up with the camp. As he dimmed the light and crawled in with me, I pulled his cold body against me. We lie there together just listening to the surf...with an occasional night call of some invisible bird. I hadn't ever experienced such a quiet kind of peace. Even though I was a little trepidatious about the trip, the start of it had been incredible. I didn't even realize I had nodded off in his arms until I woke up the next morning, just in time to catch the sunrise over the horizon. I peeked my head out of the tent and was a little struck with the sense of isolation...never in my life had I been as secluded as we were now. It wasn't long before the chilly air drove me back under the covers and I think it was my cold nose against his side that woke him. I kissed his bare skin...and felt him stretch against me. Did he think I felt as wonderful as he did against me? He opened his eyes and his smile told me my answer.