A close friend described Agua Verde as her favorite place on the Baja coast, and she infused it with a sense of magic and belonging for me before I even arrive. As we sail into the bay, dodging a hundred-plus foot pinnacle sticking out of the sea, we find the calmest water we have seen. […]
We’re tired. The wind has been unpredictably swirling around at night, sometimes bringing a 2am thunderstorm to sit on top of us for an hour–which also means Uly sits on top of us for an hour. In these storms, Josh keeps and eye on the GPS to watch if the anchor drags, I just worry […]
What do you do to prepare for a hurricane if your house is ten feet from the sea? This is the question on my mind as Josh and I row our dinghy to the shores of Isla Pardito, the smallest inhabited island I have ever seen. It is less than two hundred meters wide, and […]
News coverage of Mexico in the US usually revolves around two topics: drugs and violence. For people who have never visited Mexico, I imagine it sounds like a terrifying place, with corruption and human rights abuses ever encroaching on innocent people. I have been visiting Mexico since I first drove across the border with my […]
Overlooking sets of waves, surfers seem to slip from an expectant watching into a quiet meditation. The rhythmic swell washes over their faces as if the tide cleans their minds. Perhaps they are transported to the belly of the sea, to the barrel of a wave, and the gaze gets to be still amid the […]
With dolphin escorts off the bow, we departed midday from San Quintín for an overnight sail to Cedros Island. Once in open water we were able to turn off the engine and sail into the blissful quiet. Off the starboard beam, a whale breached. (I obviously did not take this magnificent photo below. I will […]
First, a little background about just what it is that I am doing as a Fulbright researcher in Baja California. I study the impacts of climate change on the coasts of Latin America from both a scientific and human perspective. Stories and personal experiences of living on the coast are not used by the scientific […]
A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. ~John Steinbeck I love making plans. I create a vision in my head and promptly fall in love. […]
Day 3 We were quiet as we drove away from damaged San Ignacio. We didn’t know what we would see along the road as we crossed the canyons and mountains to our first view of the Sea of Cortez. Which was stunning. From the top of the road in the coastal desert mountains, the sapphire […]
“Gasolina??” the border inspector repeated incredulously. “Sí,” I sighed. I had just explained that our friends in La Paz said they had heard that the road was open, but to bring extra water and gas. Josh, Uly and I waited in the hot shade 100 meters from the US border in Tecate, México, while two […]
