Hopefully some warmth . . .

Here are some of the camerone at the Black Market in Ensenada. There were several booths with piles of various sizes.
See the snow we left behind? This is our RV site outside Mercy Hospital in Roseburg southern Oregon. Notice my Mystic (kayak) on the roof, Lorne's is on the other side.
I tried to post some pictures to the blog yesterday but no luck, as the connection was so slow. Better tonight, although it does take some time.


Well, so much for Bahia de Los Angeles. Nothing but wind, and very cold. Not as windy as it could be but too much for us to make our maiden kayak voyage. The problem was the wind was mostly blowing off shore and during the course of the day it just gets stronger, not less. If I have to struggle with wind I really would prefer to fight going out rather than struggle coming back in. And since we have only paddled in a pool…..

So we are on our way to Guerro Negro where they will take away all our fruits and vegetables at the agricultural inspection station north of town. We can buy new ones in town. We will stay the night and tomorrow make our way to San Lucas Cove and our next chance to get in the water. Hopefully we will see our old friend John there.

They have made some real headway on running the telephone wires up Baja; they are now almost at the turn off for Bahia de Los Angeles, or at least the poles are, and the wires are on their way. We passed a work crew of about 10 guys, two to each pole, one to climb up and the other to help sort out the wires and ropes the other guy was carrying up. No cherry pickers for these guys; and no harnesses or spurs either. They had to shinny up the pole using a heavy rope fashioned into a double loop. I was truly too stunned to take a picture! More than a bit scary – our friend Lois would have been impressed – she could have shown them a thing or two I am sure.

A great deal of the coastal agave is in bloom along this route. The desert changes frequently; from Bahia de Los Angeles it was predominately boojum, then for quite awhile it was elephant trees together with yucca, along with the boojum; then it turned to predominately datilillo (tree yucca). This is a most useful tree – according to the Baja California Plant Field Guide: A tea from the flower buds is used to treat diabetes and rheumatism. The buds can be eaten like bananas. The flowers are cooked and ground for candy, the rootstock is used for soap and softening cowhides. The fibers are used to make sandals. The stalk is shredded for mattress material. The trunk is often used by ranchers as a living fence around a home garden or corral. Much of the barbed wire fences along here use the datillo, apparently you can just cut off a piece of it dig it in like a post, and it will usually reroot itself. The black ripened fruits were harvested and eaten by the natives after boiling or roasting.

Lorne’s cold is still hanging on. Now it is in his larynx and he sounds very croaky. He is eating Baja honey.

I tried posting a number of pictures last time but our internet speed was so slow it just didn’t work, hopefully we have a faster link tonight. It varies, I forgot about that…