Tabor Canyon

Already written about in John Steinbeck's book The Log from the Sea of Cortez, Tabor Canyon is just up the road from Puerto Escondido, a scenic and very sheltered natural harbor. Sandra, Jolien and I arranged and negotiated a price for a taxi to get us there from Loreto.

I have hiked this canyon a few times before and that helps to find the route. I remember the two crux points, otherwise it is not so obvious how the route could ever continue in this very steep walled and rock blocked canyon. Very crumbly rocks, so hardly a rock climbers paradise. For instance, seeing a cairn on top of a big boulder patch with no clue how to get there...

The canyon has water year-round and some water pools that are deep enough to swim in (and a refreshing cool down). It has allways been a bit of a tricky route that requires scrambling along, over and through. The route has gotten more difficult to negotiate at the crux points or am I getting older? The most striking change is the 'chimney' that is now gone. It was relatively easy to wriggle oneselves up a hole through big bolders. Now that hole is clogged by debris and two dodgy UV-deteriorated ropes are hanging down. It was not easy to get up this, but we all made it to the higher ground and where the 'swimming pools' begin.

A refreshing swim and lunch and we headed down again. Going down a dangling rope is not so easy when one cannot see/feel any footholds. The first one down (longest legs, me) at least can direct the next one to trust that their foot is only 10 centimeters away from a 'secure' foothold (or wedged log) and go for it.

Carnaval Gigantes de los Mares

It is an interesting thought that a picturesque small town in Baja California Sur has the largest animals on the planet as a 'mascotte'. Our arrival coincides with the local carnival festival weekend, including a parade and buzzing fairground attractions and traditional music and dance performances.

Loreto is at the heart of the Loreto Bay National Marine Park. Blue, Finn, Humpback and Minke whales frequent the waters around the islands during this time of year. Together with an abundance of dolphins and other marine wildlife. OK, I know Blue Whales are big. But browsing through the National Park Whale brochure I only noticed with the Dolphin picture that the symbol next to it represented a swimmer to scale. The pictogram of the swimmer was not recognizable as such next to the Blue Whale picture.

It is a bit funny to see crush barriers in Loreto; along the sidewalk allowing the carnival parade a free route. Loreto has only one junction with traffic lights. And I noticed that the hands of time still have not moved on the clock on the local church, the oldest Mission in Baja California.

Without Borders

The day before yesterday I flew in to Loreto. From the air I could see it was blowing strongly from the North. Not nice for the paddlers out there. Maddie, SKBM's operational manager, kindly picked me up from the airport.

As soon I was at SKBM operational HQ, I set myself to help with the trip clean-up for a trip that Ginni led. It is nice to meet Ginni again. I could well have missed her as the SKBM calender in the office is full of overlapping activities. It is impressive to see how Ginni's business has grown and how the attention to quality, detail and personal attention have not changed; simply the best. Another group with Marcos returned yesterday. It is a group with Greg Paquin that made it around Carmen in a week with all strong northwesterlies.

Our 12-day trip starts Tuesday and I arrived early to acclimatize and help with the preparations; if needed. The preparations of the new trip start with the end of the previous.

Our aim is to paddle from Mulege to Coronados, get a resupply from Loreto and then cross to Carmen running down the east coast of Carmen and out near Puerto Escondido. Looking at my pictures taken from the plane, this plan is surely weather dependant. This route contains some very exposed headlands and a committing crossing. I am thrilled that Ramon is a guide on this trip. Ramon helped with preparations on my previous trips and it is nice to have him now also on the trip.

So now ready with clean-up of all the boats and 'our' boats have been assigned and helping Ramon with further preparations.

Paddling with Windmills

A beautiful October Sunday paddling.

GPS Track

Baja a Go

I just booked my flights to Baja! A magic place for scenery and wildlife!

Since 2008 I am organizing trips for Dutch paddlers out of Loreto using the logistics of Ginni Callahan's Sea Kayak Baja Mexico. From 9 until 20 Februari 2016 we will paddle from Mulege to Loreto including Isla Carmen.

This is the first year we have an international team and there are now only two spaces left on this trip. The maximum group size, including the two guides, is only 7-8 people.

This is an exposed coastal trip in the Sea of Cortez, and your paddling ability should be of BCU 3* Sea level or equivalent with sea kayak camping experience. More information is on the Sea Kayak Baja Mexico website, and/or contact me (or SKBM).

If you want to join us, please reserve your spot directly at Sea Kayak Baja Mexico.

In the latest Ocean Paddler Magazine (#48), Ginni Callahan writes about her Sea of Cortez trip last year with Justine Curgenven.

A selection of slideshows of my previous Baja trips:

• Collection (2008-2010)
• Loreto to La Paz (Feb 2014)
• Coronados, Carmen, Danzante & Montserrat (Feb / Mar 2011)
• Loreto to La Paz (Jan 2010)
• Grey Whales in Magdalena Bay (Feb / Mar 2011)

Sweet as

Inevitably I have to return home some day. Barry, Justine & Tara went surfing at Rhosneigr while I packed-up my stuff and loaded kayaks for the return journey. And drove-by Rhosneigr for these pictures.

Thank you Nigel (Sea Kayaking UK) for letting me borrow my old and trusted Explorer. Mike (Rockpool Kayaks) for making my Taran16 seat moveable. Barry, Justine & Tara for great company and paddling. Fred and Walter for joining me on the 'fluke' decision to just come over for a long weekend to go paddling in Anglesey. It was more than just good.

Skerries Ferry

From Cemlyn to Carmel Head and ferry to the Skerries for a lunch in the sun with Barry, Justine & Tara.

GPS Track

Happy Paddlers Waving

A great day at Penrhyn Mawr, North & South Stack races with Justine, Tara, Gary & Steve.

Black Hole

This evening I paddled with Justine and Stuart on the Swellies wave. Sharing it with quite a few playboaters.

I was totally oblivious to the holding power of the stopper forming behind it, only until I saw Stuart sideways in the stopper, partly engulfed in his sea kayak. On the pictures it still looks 'benign' for the light was too low to keep making pictures.

We stopped when it got too dark to see the black hole in the front and the other padders. It is difficult (for me) to stay on the wave with a 'long boat'. But I get better at it for it was an extra big spring tide; 10.4 meter (one of the biggest ever) today and I felt more comfortable then ever before here.

Bardsey Ferry

I have been to Bardsey only three times before and that was allways with others leading the way. I have only a black-and-white copy of a chart and no detailed information on the currents in the sound. We start out of Aberdaron.

We first paddle all the way up the eddy along the south coast of the Llyn Peninsula. Races are visible in and across the sound. We cross to Bardsey at 240 degrees. First we are 'unexpectedly' going southwest, only to be explained by the eddy current initially bouncing wide off the southwest corner of the Llyn. The visible 'race' off the southwest corner just being the strong eddy hitting and merging with the main ebb flow. But soon thereafter we are swept southeastwards.

As soon as we are near the northeast corner of Bardsey I am surfing standing waves; against a current; a tide-race in the eddy off Bardsey. Going wider to get into the main flow again.

Off the southeast corner a nice small but rough race gets us into the landing spot on Bardsey. A tour boat drops off and picks up visitors. After a nice walk to the lighthouse we start on our return journey.

It is still ebbing, but for exactly how long we do not know (in the Sound). With a steady 45 degrees on the compass at some point it looks like we will definitively drop too low; transits are moving. The spring-tide ebb aparently is quite strong still. Maybe 45 degrees was a bit over-ambitious.

But as soon as we are nearing the southeast corner of the Llyn an eddy current sweeps us north-west again, s-curving us precisely to the corner. 30 degrees (Fred's choice) would definitively have been the safer 'bet', but I am quite chuffed how chance-perfect these Bardsey ferries today turned out to be.

GPS Track

Wave Train Timetables

With an early start at the Holyhead Marina we paddled around the breakwater to North Stack. Not much going on there with no swell. Heading out wide to drop down to South Stack where the waves were steep enough for a while to get long rides.

Sunny warm lunch in Abraham's Bossom. Arriving very early for Penrhyn Mawr, I climbed out onto one of the exposed so-called 'fangs'. And looked for a 'switch' to turn Penrhyn Mawr 'on'.

All the time in front of us there was a group of dolphins. But however close I drifted they allways had their distance. Roger (of Coastal Spirit) made a stunning picture.

More and more paddlers started to arrive waiting for the wave train to arrive. Penrhyn Mawr was very nice today. Great rides. Not very rough but good rides with lots of opportunities for manouevering on the waves.

GPS Track

In Transit

I arrived in Anglesey with incredible beautiful weather. Fred and Walter came over for a long weekend. Not a difficult decision to go to the Skerries when also the tide is perfect for it. Halfway between Victoria Bank and Coal Rock a group of 10+ dolphins crossed our transit.

It was quiet on the Skerries. The Terns (and Puffins) that loudly occupied it when I was here last in May left and also the bird wardens. The seals are still there quietly enjoying a nap, like I am.

GPS Track

I found my trusted old Tweety Explorer in enclosed confinement. Protected from itself and/or from others? Thank you Nigel and Sea Kayaking UK for having me use my most trusted sea kayak. Enjoying to be out there again.

Both Hands Free

Went with Barry & Justine for an afternoon paddle on the Menai Strait. Best workouts are against the flow, made a little bit easier today for me for the fact that I was in my Taran16. And with both hands free it is also easy to take on new challenges.

Down the Yahoo! drain Pipes

It came to my attention that Yahoo! ends its Pipes service by 30 September. What the ... is Yahoo! Pipes, you are rightfully to ask.

I started using the free Yahoo! Pipes service some years ago to merge RSS feeds from various news agency websites to filter out kayak related news articles while not be bothered with a volcanoe. The graphical interface of Yahoo Pipes! made that very easy to do. The result was again a RSS feed that could be integrated on my blog, for instance. The feed was even 'pumped' to a KayakNewsFeed Twitter account to 'archive' the messages. For RSS is only triggered for new messages and old messages drop down the list and eventually out of it and are 'lost forever'. Little effort, big results.

Some interesting websites did not offer RSS feeds, though. Yahoo! Pipes made it also possible (directly or indirectly) to create a RSS feed out of any web page that has structured repetitive blocks of content. Converting the 'repetitive block mess' into a RSS format with 'Reg-ex coding' was not so easy though. Big fuzzy efforts (^.{0,99})( \| )(.{0,99}$), even bigger results.

A RSS feed provides only a snippet of each item. To read the whole article one is directed to the originating website. Everybody's happy? Surely the news provider wants some credit for supplying the news, by visiting their website. By offering RSS they have a way of telling the world 'read more? visit me!). For commercial use there would sure be loads of small print...

There are alternatives to Yahoo! Pipes. However that will mean hosting the alternative one selves and more hardcore coding... I am not so keen on that.

Moreover, there are other developments that work against RSS altogether. More and more websites use proprietary ways of offering news that cannot be 'scraped'. Those sites want you to visit them in the first place for advertising, logging and profiling. I.e. the developments regarding supplying news on Facebook based on profiled interests, tracking, friends' activities and related advertising. How 'independent' news would that be?

The other worrying example I found out recently is that the Dutch Watersports Counsel (WSV) is offering a news web page that looks like it is created from plain RSS, but in fact the news text snippets are a collection of images created with a kind of proprietary Adobe Flash. How to filter (OCR) the word 'kayak' out of image text? End of story for RSS?

I think the inventors of XML and RSS should be awarded an IT 'Nobel Prize'; even posthumously. My first job after College was writing software in COBOL to extract lines from bank balance and transaction statements from SWIFT 'wire transfers' off a computer reel tape. That was pre-XML and very hard-core coding indeed. XML (and RSS) would have made that a piece of cake. Yahoo! Pipes indeed rewired the web using RSS. Now some wires will be cut and lights start to go out.

NewsCURRENT will be reduced to a mere trickle by 1 October and the KayakNewsFeed will stop flowing altogether.

From all of these signs saying sorry but we're closed
All the way down the telegraph road
- Mark Knopfler -

Pretty in Pink

Yesterday I enjoyed a nice afternoon with Tatiana, paddling the spectacular coastline from Porth Dafarch to North Stack. The georgeous sunny weather and a lively turquoise sea was a great opportunity for promoting pink kayaks. This one is a SKUK RomanySurf RM from Phil Clegg's fleet.

After more than two great weeks in Anglesey I have finally time and opportunity to (start) updating my blog. So more to follow in reverse order.

GPS Track

She Just Does It

It is possibly a tricky thing for me to write, as a male, about female achievements, because we might have a totally different perspective.

We are very likely to remember EXACTLY when Freya Hoffmeister hit the kayaking scene in our part of the world and kayaking discipline.

Determined female paddles showed that they are just as capable to achieve long and committing expeditions. Possibly they generally less bragg (and write) about it. They just do it their way. While most of the 'high-profile' 'firsts-fastest-longest' had already been paddled, men could easily argue that it had been done (or written about) before; by men... On other occasions women were (at the time) even written out of history; i.e. female air force test pilots in WWII.

Freya Hoffmeister will complete her 3-year long epic circumnavigation of South America, that she started on August 30, 2011 in Buenos Aires on May 1st 2015. How fitting: on Labor Day. I am not sure if Freya now has set a 'standard' that CAN be achieved by others. Focus and determination is universal and that is inspirational!

Below is the (Google Translated) Press Release:

Hereby I have the pleasure to invite you to the ceremony on May 1 for Freya Hoffmeister, the best expedition kayaker in the world, coming to Puerto Madero finishing the first circumnavigation of South America. Freya paddled from Buenos Aires on August 30, 2011 and after 26,832 kilometers traveled back to the city where she was starting from with a new world record under her belt, being the first person to perform this feat. Freya, 50, will be escorted by dozens of kayakers, and she will be received with full military honors of the Argentine Navy at the Fragata Sarmiento, both by local authorities and members of European diplomats and media Argentines and international

All paddlers are very much welcome to be part of the arrival ceremony on the water. You will be paddling a short distance on sheltered waters inside Puerto Madero. The start will be from the new jetties at -34.62043, -58.36295. The kayakers will wait for Freya at the port entrance at -34.59508, -58.36479 while she is paddling in from her current arrival spot , and escort her to the Fregata Sarmiento at -34.60893, -58.36571.

Please contact Javier Perez chango70#hotmail.com to sign up on a list for the paddling escort and for possible access to the ceremony on the Fregata.

Every non-paddler is surely welcome to watch the event from any spot on the harbor!

Blowing Dust Off

When Life gets in the way of kayaking... It has been about two months ago that I have been in a kayak. Saturday's club trip was cancelled, but Fred and I decided to go paddling today. With the wind (and my paddling shape) forecast, Grevelingen lake was a good choice.

This 'lake' has been dammed-off from the sea in the sixties but still is properly (even more) saline and has occasional seal presence. The feeling of paddling against a 5 Beaufort headwind told me that I am not as nearly in shape as I was in September 2014... Great surf rides on the way back to get the hang of surfing waves, for Anglesey is closing in for at the end of this month.

GPS Track

Kayaking the Aleutians

My copy of Justine Curgenven's DVD "Kayaking the Aleutians" with Sarah Outen arrived this afternoon. Between all the 'digging through work' I just had to make time to see it almost immediately. I choose the 'Director's Cut' to view first.

In two words: INCREDIBLY MAGNIFICENT!

Winter Surf

Today went kayaking in the surf at Cemaes Bay with Roger (from Coastal Spirit), Barry & Justine. Offshore wind force 6 and 'bloody cold'. I am not used to paddling in rough conditions with pogies on. So I used them intermittendly to warm the other hand and surfed without them. The velcro on the pogies was strong enough to not sweep them off my paddle. For the rest I was comfortable in 3 bottom layers and 4 top layers under my dry-suit and a fleece-lined Kokatat Balaclava under my helmet. Hearing was seriously impaired as the wind sounded like a force ten through the holes in my helmet.

On my way out the first time, I only stopped paddling when I was out of the surf zone completely. Only to find the rest much further back in the surf zone. Heading back in again was in a controlled fashion as surely any surf-ride here would end up in a loop. Turning in the wind was off-course extremely difficult and most rides ended in a 'refreshing' bongo slide. The surf subsided and around 14:00 we went back ashore.

Is it coincidence that my more recent encounters with rough water start with the roughest of the day and subsiding thereafter? Thus no gentle 'breaking-in' and build-up for confidence building.

Tomorrow I am traveling back to the Netherlands to be back again in Anglesey end of April.

If you not already have noticed the buzz on Justine's great new film "Kayaking the Aleutians", be sure to check out the trailer and pre-order at CackleTV (or Zeekajak.NL) before the 14 february release date.

A Lively Day

R&R after wipe-out at Penrhyn Mawr and continued towards South Stack & North stack and back. With Justine, Laura & Mirco. A lively Day.

The Saturday Club

Today I joined the 'Saturday Club' for a paddle out of Rhoscolyn. I arrived in North Wales yesterday in grey rainy weather. Today it is extremely nice weather; blue skies, max. force 4 Beaufort winds and not too cold. No pogies needed!! Unbelievable nice Winter paddling conditions.

With a group of 14 we set out to Rhosolyn Beacon. There was big swell but it was hard to catch the waves. Justine managed a pop-out though. I am in my old trusty Tweety Explorer again that I could use from SKUK for during my stay.

After lunch we headed rock-hopping towards Cymyran beach where there was nice surf to play in.

I tried to remember names... Barry, Justine, Aby, Ed, Gwyn, Jimsky, Mirco, and with a little help: Marc, Laura, Claire, Kirsty, Rich and Paul.

Upon return to Rhoscoly Beach my car would not open with my remote key. Cursing modern key technology first... At least the car door still has a keyhole. Flat battery; I had left my lights on. Jump starting no-go. Push starting no-go. Anyway, this emergency was quickly sorted by the AA and I could join the club again for dinner at the White Eagle. Not before I had to race as fast as I could across Holy Island to recharge my car battery within the shortest possible half hour as advised by the guy from the AA.

Functional Crossings

Fred is a Mechanics lecturer at Delft Technical University. He is also an avid sea kayaker. Fred invited me as a guest to a "Functionals Workshop" for his students. One of the two examples he used was the mathematical approach of crossing a river with current. The other was a mechanics example of a string connected between two points. Both examples heavily relied on integration and differentiation and culminating into the same 'functionals' theory.

Integration and differentiation went way over my head when I was in school, losing most of my hair in the process. My maths only got partially 'repaired' as part of my IT studies in College. My one year in Econometrics there was a real nightmare though, fortunately not mandatory and it did not stand in the way of my IT-carreer. Integration, differentiation and Pythagoras, forever lost on me I thought, until today.

So in short, I was already glad that I could barely follow the 'magic' involved in transposing one formula into another. Lots of aha moments of remembering that I actually have been tought the basics all those years ago. Stored in dark crevasses of my mind. The river crossing 'metaphor' helped. As for the string I could only think of 'resonating bridges'. Highly complex things made 'calculable' by... maths...

So the shortest time to cross a river with current (not minding where you end up) is in a straight line [correction] on a straight course perpendicular to the river (omega is zero). Easy, but formally mathematically explained, not so, but very much simplified and useful.

Friday a recap and the shortest time for a crossing with variations in current but ending up at a specific point. Forget about the tidal vectors in the sea kayak navigation books. This will be 'hardcore' maths. Simplified 'formulated' math problems will find it's way off the paper and into the real world, be it in vectors or a real crossing.

I am looking forward to my next crossing to the Skerries with Fred in May. There might actually be a fourth way of doing this crossing. I am learning.

New for 2015

Combine your garden sea kayak storage with this exquisite piece of Art. Positioning this Designer garden furniture at the waters' edge allows for care free launching. An add-on pully system can be used to haul the kayak out of the water into it's bay. Batteries and kayak not included. For safety reasons, when not in use, one should keep an eye out for playing children that could take this for a slide. Shipping options and shipping cost are to be confirmed.

Happy New Year!

Looking Back

With 2014 coming to a close, time to look back, but not turning back. A year in 41 pictures, still looking for one that makes it a magic number.

Pipe Dreams ?

Etymology

From the fantasies experienced when smoking an opium pipe.

Noun

pipe dream (plural pipe dreams)

(idiomatic) A plan, desire, or idea that will not likely work; a near impossibility.

I think that his plan to have map cases available for this Christmas is a pipe dream.

Pipe nightmare !

A "near impossibility" nevertheless leaves room for possibility...

Tock Tock, Who's Dare

I heard the sound of Woodpeckers before, but never from a few feet away, and definitely not from out of the tree in front of the house.

I have a 'love-hate' relationship with that tree. It is the last standing old tree in the streets around. Not a popular place to park any car under because of it's popularity with birds; and a real 'nightmare' with pigeons. Maybe that started off the more bird-friendly 'clay-pigeon' shooting sport.

Woodpecker had me look up and smile. Go peck away any time.

Retirement Age

After 15 years and 266088 km my Opel Astra went into retirement today.

It is not the only thing I own(ed) that is still fully functional, albeit aching, well beyond generally accepted retirement age, for instance:

• My Kokatat GoreTEX Whirlpool Bib of 2004 shows some signs of 'incontinence' at the zipper; now into it's golden age.
• My TecTour anorak of 2008 (old model) is a bit more 'breathable'; a gray shadow of it's former mango self.
• My MsFit PFD is reasonably OK, except for a thread-bare hydration pack.

This year is their retirement as well, finally.

Earlier this year, my laptop got stolen only days before XP retired; that was unfortunate, both for me ánd the thief. My old Explorer is spending it's retirement on Anglesey. My new Explorer is only intermediately retired until I have fitted the Kari-Tek roof-rack on my new car, awaiting a fitting kit.

I am not sure if my new car will again last 15 years with me. Nowadays in the Netherlands car sales (and usage) is extremely tax-driven, not so driven by common sense.

I won't drag too long about it, but when Maserati joyfully announces a hybrid version that can drive a whopping 20 miles on battery-power (and thus saving more than 50% on the car price and annual taxes) something must have gone awry with the promotion of so-called eco-friendly cars.

When those 'plug-in' gas guzzlers are edging to be nett less expensive for corporate use than true fuel efficient petrol cars that you have to look for at car dealers with a microscope. Blinded by the Emperor's new clothes.

eCall, park-assist and sen-sored tire pressure. I have none of this. Just in time though. Hopefully for the next 15 years, but I doubt it. Hand operated rear-windows: just barely. Airconditiong: yes, unfortunately: too late ordering, or more specific: 'hurried ordering' because of... yes: 2015 tax reasons...

What car did I buy? A car that is probably considered by car afficianados to be even more boring than an Opel Astra...

Car sales is not the only part of the economy that has logic reversed like in Pirates of the Caribbean "At World's End". Down is up. Left is Right. Red is Green. Wrong is 'Right'.

1+1 is 0; at least something is still (partially) logical.

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
[Taxman, the Beatles]

If you retire too late, I'll tax by date
If you get too old, I'll tax the mold
[Axman]

Waiting for a train

Because of time and schedule constraints I could not drive to Cornwall and instead had to fly in via Bristol. It had already been a tight schedule but at least I made it to Bristol Temple Meads train station on time. Only to find my train to be delayed by 26 minutes. The platform by then crowded with people for a next (last) train in that direction. Like herrings in a can... At Truro the delay had run-up to 45 minutes, making me miss my last train on the Falmouth branch line to Penmere. Fair to say that Great Western Railways kindly provided for a taxi-bus to drop the stranded passengers off along the line's stations. But Jeff Allen picked me up from Truro and at midnight I could call it a day.

On my return trip a week later (today) I opted for the connection that needed no other transfers and a reserved table seat. So at 09:26 I am waiting at the (non-staffed) Penmere Platform for a train... that is canceled... Fortunately I could sit at (unreserved) table seats on both connecting trains and I am now 30 minutes away from Bristol Temple Meads. Then only a bus ride away from the airport.

The British and the Dutch rail system appear to have more than one thing in common. Privatized and delays. And maybe they also use the same statistics for measuring service, in that a canceled train does not count as delayed. Also it seems there are a lot of jobs with British Rail. All those gated stations and platforms with service personnel at those stations, gates and platforms to help people with valid tickets and non-opening gates. And many conductors on the trains, at least on the ones that run, calling out for tickets of newly boarded passengers only.

The British rail users remain kind and polite under all of this and show patience in queus. The train conductor on the Penmere branch line gracefully accepting my written-down reservation number, despite regulations, for I only could collect my on-line booked ticket at a Truro ticket machine.