Thirty pescaderos arrived in the morning. I got up at 4:00 AM, packed and launched by 7:00. As usual, all my worrying in the night was for nothing. I accidentally launched into a mild set and didn't even get my face wet! I stopped to make three more liters of drinking water. I don't like having stuff in my cockpit, but to make water on a sandy shoreline I had to have the desalinator in there all day. This time the wind blew me back towards a point so I had to stop and paddle back out occasionally.
As I approached Punta San Carlos I saw hundreds of harbor seals! They were sleeping in the kelp and I startled them one by one. I also saw a pair of large bottle nose dolphins! The fog which had been pretty heavy all day started to clear.
As I rounded Punta San Carlos the monster swell rose up bigger than ever. There was a cluster of camper vans and RV's on the bluff and the water was full of board surfers, paddle board surfers and surf kayaks. They were all having a great time with the waves that bothered me so. Such a good time that no-one had tome to come out to talk to me. I risked going into a calm area past the point to talk to a woman on a paddle board. She turned out to be an Asian tourist (who's English was better than my Spanish). I asked her if she knew where these waves were coming from. She gave me a funny look and told me that waves come .. from the ocean? No, I insisted, have you heard a surf report lately? No she did not know what that was. Two weeks later I logged onto a kayaking forum and saw my friends reporting how much fun they were having surfing these waves from the typhoon down near New Zealand. These are my people! We know where the waves come from!
My intended landing spot is 10 miles past the last road here and not protected from the waves. It was a “beach” I had only seen on Google Earth, which might turn out not to be a beach at all. The shoreline became very steep past the fish-camp protected by the point here. I considered landing and calling my brother on the satellite phone for a swell report. But the day was only half over and I decided to go to my Google beach and look. I could always paddle back up to the fish-camp. I paddled past the last road and into a depressing fog bank.
I looked at every arroyo I passed, asking myself “can I camp here?” One of these looked good, but then a monster set arrived and broke far from land. I could not see the beach from this far out. I was so sick with worry that I could barely eat, but forced myself to choke down some trail mix and drink some water. The sugar hit my blood stream, the fog cleared and I felt better. I decided there was a land-able beach at the next arroyo where even the monster waves spilled. I could land if I needed to. I would proceed a little farther and keep track of all the land-able beaches I could fall back on if necessary.
The Google Beach was actually pretty nice. A little cove that diluted the strength of the monster waves. All the waves broke far from shore and spilled gently to a cobble beach. There was a gravel berm with a flat top to camp on above the high tide. It turned out the the gentle break was created by a sandy shelf under the water, above water at lower tides. An escape route up a steep arroyo at one end of the berm made it a safe beach to get stuck on. I hiked up there to get a good view of the sky for the sat phone and called my brother. He looked at the swell forecasts: Five foot swell or less for the whole area for the next few days. I guess I will continue the trip after all. But no explanation yet for the monster sets.