Baja, Playa la Palmita to Punta Morro Prieto, March 30th 2002.

We left the beach at our usual 8:00 AM launch time and paddled across a shallow bay torturing sting rays by poking at them with our paddles. We considered heading towards Isla El Racito, but it looked low and uninteresting. However, the shallow water pushed us farther and farther out until we went close by the island anyway. These shallows are apparently part of Estero La Trinidad. Around Punta Trinidad the shore had low bluffs above the water and rocky reefs at water level close to shore. Some of us spent much of the day treading our way thought these, looking down at the life in the shallow water and within touching distance on the reef on both sides of our kayaks. Bob and I picked up a sea urchin (it took the coordinated effort of two paddles) and I ate most of the roe as a snack at our next stop. I could not talk many of my friends into taking a taste of it!

We landed at a little bay near Punta Morro Prieto with the usual berm blocking the sea from two salt flats. These salt flats were still salty and had a few brine pools in them. When I went for a walk the salty soil had funny ridges all over it that crunched underfoot. These turned out to be the houses of little fiddler crabs! When I realized this I turned back, tip-toed out and tried to leave with the minimum of home-wrecking. There were two salt flats behind this beach because they were separated by a tall bermy thing, perpendicular to the normal beach berms. It was ten meters tall and flat topped. It looked like a man-made road fill, almost smooth on top with very steep sides. It snaked a few gentile turns down from the hills, getting shorter as it came. It seemed to be made of volcanic red cinder brick-like rock. But it was filled between the rocks with fine sand. Now was such a structure made? My best guess was a lava jumbles that was submerged for a while so the water had time to fill the cracks with sand. Then it was uplifted again.