Losing things is not much fun. The experience brings you right up against your personal materialism. How much does your
stuff matter? Of course, there are degrees. Seeing your binoculars or a favorite gift slip beneath the waves doesn't compare to dropping a screwdriver overboard (unless it was your last screwdriver and you're making an urgent repair). And there's a big difference between misplacing an item at home and losing that same item while traveling, without the luxury of days, weeks, or years to find it again. Most of the time, a lost item is a hassle and an expense, small or large. Occasionally it is worse than that. But it can also be an opportunity to practice non-attachment: Don't cling!
[This blog post relates to our 2016 exploration of the Gulf coast of Baja California Sur. Two years later, in February 2018, we are making preparations to sail there again from the coast of Sonora, so we figured we should make up for "lost" time before our new adventure begins....More posts to come.]
Just 2 km south of Bahía San Marte on the Baja California Sur coast is the little-visited anchorage Ensenada La Ballena, which translates as "Whale Inlet." We tucked in there on Feb 26, 2016, and had the bay mostly to ourselves for 3 days. It was one of our favorite anchorages and would be the southernmost point of travel for that trip. We kayaked, tidepooled, snorkeled, and hiked up two different canyons. There were sea caves to paddle into—if we dared. A few groups of touring kayakers landed on the small beach for a rest, and some of them camped overnight.
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| View of Cilantro at anchor in Ensenada La Ballena. |
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| Sue drying her feet on the deck of her kayak. |
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| Curtis on a placid morning at Ensenada la Ballena. |
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Sue exiting a sea cave after feeling a swell lift and push her kayak
into the cave and hearing a "giant sucking sound" deep within. |
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| Curtis climbing aboard Cilantro from the kayak via the swim ladder at the stern. |
After our first views of mobula rays leaping outside of Bahía Agua Verde, we weren't surprised to find them again at Ensenada La Ballena. But in this quiet bay, the entertaining acrobats took things to a new level. They swam and leapt, day and night, in small groups or large, throughout the bay. We often saw several sets of paired wingtips sticking out of the water as the mobulas glided about. The leapers probably needed to start down deeper in order to build up enough speed to explode out of the water. Sue thought they looked like flying stuffed pillows, or maybe wontons. In the dark, it was disconcerting to hear a small bubbling noise as one took flight, followed shortly by a SMACK as it flopped back down. We half expected to find the cockpit full of mobulas in the morning, but it never happened. They had better radar than we gave them credit for.
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| Smoothtail mobula rays swimming in formation at Ensenada La Ballena. These had a wingspan of 2 to 3 feet. |
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| Mobula rays with their "wingtips" just out of the water. |
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| Sue snapped this shot of Cilantro with a leaping mobula just visible at right. |
One gusty afternoon Sue’s snorkeling suit blew off the stern while we were below decks. By the time we realized it was gone, the sun was down. Unfortunately, a
marea roja (red tide) moved in overnight, reducing water visibility to near zero throughout the bay. In the morning, we went for a hike, hoping the water would start to clear up by the time we got back, but it didn't. On the following day, the red tide was dissipating, so we spent several hours searching, Sue stitching back and forth in her kayak and Curtis snorkeling and diving. No luck! Just mobulas doing laps and showing off their leaps.
Before giving up on the search, Sue steered her kayak inshore to trace the curving beach, thinking the suit might have drifted into the shallows. Something on the bottom caught her eye, so she paddled closer and saw a blurry mix of dark and light shapes. Her snorkel suit was black with neon green wedges and side stripes. Hmm. As Sue stared straight down, the water surface stilled and the mysterious shapes resolved into a broad set of overlapping diamonds, each one perhaps 2 feet across, a mix of gray and white. Mobula rays! A very tight group, hovering just above the seafloor.
Sue stared and stared at the rays, puzzled by their behavior. Were they trying to camouflage themselves? Were they feeding? Breeding? Ahh, the answer came to her: The mobulas had found her snorkel suit "swimming" in the bay and claimed it as a god. And not just any god, but the long-awaited "Lord of the Mobula Rays." These mobulas were merely shielding their new god from prying eyes. And so it goes (the snorkel suit, that is)....
A "footnote": Before we left La Ballena, we went for one last hike, after which Curtis's very nice Keen sandals were left on the beach (we won't say whose fault it was!). We didn't notice they were missing for a few days, by which time we were 40 miles north. Ah, another loss. Maybe someone with size 8.5 men's feet found them and put them to good use.
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| Sunrise with kayaks at Ensenada La Ballena. |
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| An adult Heermann's Gull. |
While working on this post, Sue started to hear a refrain in her head:
the art of losing isn't hard to master. It comes from the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop:
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
