Baja, Mexico: La Paz (Day 6: 12/26, Friday, Part 2 of 3)

The water's pleasant enough. There's a baby sea lion napping next to its mama, and, unsurprisingly, this has me unhinged, distracted, at least for a moment.



But I keep knocking into Eric, and his occasional grasping at my leg to point something out isn't exactly tonic to my nerves. Every flashing fin and somersaulting sea lion is a bull shark, emerging from the deep to jerk me to a thrashing, bloody death.

We've been warned to stay a distance from shore and away from the big daddy of sea lions, the one who gets to bone all the lady sea lion(esse?)s, because he's territorial, but there are the friendlies, the younger ones who've probably gotten used to playing with the hordes of snorkelers and divers; these guys keep streaking past my line of vision, playing in my periphery, and each glimpse gives me a jump, has me bobbing back upright, looking frantically for a dorsal fin. "Gah!" I think, and, "swim away, swim away."

Fortunately, Eric's not comfortable either. I'm surprised because he's an avid scuba diver, wall diving, diving in the Galapagos, diving with hammerheads, etc. But--his words--"we're more vulnerable swimming at the surface because sharks hunt from below."

His suggestion that we kayak a bit is met with a nonchalant shrug and "okay," but in reality, I'm creaming my bikini bottoms in gratitude. Thank Hay-Zeus.

The captain of the boat helps us into our kayaks, taking a moment to call down to me as I awkwardly try to simultaneously paddle and keep my vessel from tipping as a result of my inept maneuvering--from on high, he gesticulates with an invisible paddle, and I finally realize that I have to keep the blade perpendicular just as it cuts into the water. Any other angle initiates a disagreeable seesawing sensation and involuntary squeals.

I finally get the hang of it, and Eric and I move towards rougher waters, just off the jurisdiction claimed by the younger bulls, excommunicated from the harem, which is not to say they are not equally--really, more--territorial.

(Meanwhile a pack of tourists has amassed near Big Poppa, another expedition's disembarked--all snorkelers--and they're grubbing all over the rocks from which we'd already been warned away, reaching out to touch the sea lions. What the fuck.)

Sea lions can turn aggressive quickly, and though we're at least twenty-five, thirty feet from shore, the bulls begin bellowing immediately.

"Agh," Eric and I yell. I'm screaming, "run away," as I paddle frantically off, and there's a small boat of locals wheezing at the sight of us. We decide, therefore, to linger in safer waters, where the sea lions are a little more companionable--he keeps using his paddle to nudge off one juvenile that keeps trying to hoist itself into his kayak, and I keep fleeing the more inquisitive ones, but so long as they're not yellin' at us like them thugs back there.

"Ballena," the Spanish for whale, the boat captain suddenly shouts. He's pointing, the boat of locals crowding over their port side. I'm too far away--fleeing the curious little cunts again--but a whale shark is passing feet underneath Eric. He's gasping at the distinctive spot markings, the thirty feet of filter-feeding, largest shark in the world, swimming just below his kayak.

I'm glad for Eric, and relieved for myself. I can tell he'd been chafing at the sight of the scuba divers, wishing he were down there with 'em, and I can feel a slightly less guilty for ball-and-chaining him to the surface.

...

Finally, we decide to kayak towards the neighboring islet that the dive master'd pointed out earlier. It's across open ocean, several hundred yards away, with a fair share of swells, but it doesn't look that bad, that far. Eric, all guns and workout-ready, reaches the opposite shore in an instant, hugging the shore while I'm making an arduous hypotenuse.

A third of the way there though, I don't know whether to laugh or cry but I'm leaning toward the latter. Later, Eric retells it as "every time I turned around to yell at you, you'd pick up your paddle, but you'd stop paddling whenever I turned my back!"

Okay, maybe. I'm murmuring inanities such as "just go on without me" and "fuck this" and "fuck me." The shore looks so. far. away. And my arms are so. fucking. tired. Finally, an executive decision. I begin to count the strokes that I'm making in an effort to stay focused, and each stroke is a moaned number...

At long last, the tiny bajia and water the color of summer, a pale, incandescent aqua, but at this point I'm so exhausted and miserable that I brattily threaten...the universe, stipulating that I'm not getting out of my kayak "if there's no door to door pick-up." The thought of having to hoist myself back onto the kayak and use my arms, now useless noodles of flesh, to paddle any length to re-board the boat, even a mere 50 yards, is anathema.

Wah, wah, boohoo. The lure of clear water's too enticing; I lug the kayak onto the stony shore and gingerly wade into the water.



There's a puffer fish tootling around by itself, and I have a distinct feeling it's curious about me, as it keeps moseying in my vicinity, trundling in circles. I've since learned they're supposed to be poisonous--and not just when eaten as fugu--so it's just as well that my attempts at poking it with a finger end in failure.

Two pelicans are dive-bombing the water, and each crash is a crack in the silence. It's lovely. I could stay here all day.