How I became a sailor...

The idea was first propossed to me by Roberta, who suggested that I should try and find a spot crewing on a yacht over to the mainland. I felt this was an excellent idea, so bright and breezy on my first morning in La Paz, I strolled down to Marina de La Paz to pin up my notice and catch "The Net" - what basically amounts to a morning gossip session between sailors via VHF radio. I got on the radio and put out my generous offer of help to the sailing community of the capital of Baja Sur. For some reason there was not an instant clamour of voices on the radio taking me up on my offer, I just couldn't figure it out. At this point I met Valaska and Philip, an Austrian cycling couple, who had been on the road for three years, they were also looking for a spot to crew over (the ferry was $100 a head). Over coffee they enlightend me to the evil ways of this capitalist world: spots on a boat where in short supply and high demand, we -the potential crew- were in high supply and short demand. Hence the boat owners could pick and choose at their descretion and mess around with timing as much as they pleased and we could either lump it or piss off and take the ferry. They had been trying for three days and had decided that this was their last (a ferry was leaving the next evening). I spent the morning with them chatting up people at coffee hour, chasing potential leads around marinas and ultimately at the ferry ticket office in dissapointment. At that moment I decided I'd give it one more try in the morning and if unsuccessful I'd cut my losses. So the next morning a call comes over the net: "looking for crew over to Puerta Vallarta"- bloody brilliant, to cut a long (and tedious) story short I got a spot on the boat heading out in three days time. I have become the very essence of thrift on this trip, consequently I packed up my panniers and cycled out of town with my new Austrian friends, they to the ferry terminal and me to the free camping beaches 10 km further north. Here I met Mo and Lynn a couple of snow birds from Vancouver Island who treated me like a grandson, feeding me coffee in the morning and delicious meals at night. On the second day came Dom and Sadie a British couple travelling the world. Now Dom and Sadie were the first young British people I'd met and the inevitable outcome was the three of us getting a little merry on the old tequila in Mo and Lynn's caravan, while they looked on in bemusement. I like to think I'm doing the Brits proud out here. Two days after I was steering captain Bill's 42 ft cat, Moontide, out of La Paz harbour. This first day was just a hop down to a bay from where we'd make our passage across the Gulf of California. After a spot of whale watching we spent the next morning doing boat projects, downing tools at noon sharp: "Do one project a day and if it takes you past noon, its a two day job". The afternoon was spent sunning oneself beside the pool of a luxury hotel drinking beer, reading, generally enjoying ones leisure time. The next morning we left before the sun had cleared the horizon, setting out for Bahia de Banderas (and neatly steering round an island penal colony in our path). After a little more whale watching and a superb sunset Bill informed me I'd be taking second watch 10-2. Now I had never done a night watch before and to be put in charge of the fate of this craft and our two lives made me a touch anncey. Accordingly I completely failed to fall asleep before my watch, however all was ok: my nerves (and overload of caffeine) kept me up and down like a yo-yo checking the radar, scanning the horizon, trimming the sails; you name it I was doing it. After my heroics I figured on a nice long sleep, not a bit of it. Back up again at sunrise so that Bill could sleep after his 8 hours of watch. I was starting to get the old itchy eyes when I noticed some sea gulls off to the left: "supper time" I'm thinking, as I change the course 90 degrees- where there are sea gulls, there are fish. Well these fish turned out to be, not fish, but a pod of 20(ish) dolphins and as the boat approached they came to swim with us diving out the water in triplets and racing under the hulls. After taking us off our course for a couple of miles I realised this might not go down too well, so after a quick adjustment of course, I went to get Bill up and take a nap myself. After cat napping on and off all day I was still tired going into the second night and then Bill informed me I'd be taking 2 of the night shifts, hmmm. Well like a good trooper I signed up for them and to be fair the second one was fine, with plenty of coffee in me and interesting things, like islands, to look at on the radar, and the sunrise, a little before 6 to enjoy. The first one however was real hard work, I allowed myself only one cup of coffee (so I could sleep between watchs), so had to constantly fight the tirdness. It is amazing the lengths I came up with to keep myself occupied: I had a pack of 6 oreo's I allowed myself half every 5 minutes, that's one hour squared away, bosh; a ship came up on the radar I spent half an hour working out its course and speed from the radar blips (I know half an hour is a long time but I was tired). At 10 when Bill relieved me I hit my bunk with a crash and was out before my head had touched the pillow. Sailing into Banderas bay, the huge surf crashing around Punta Mita, I got my first sight of mainland Mexico. To be honest I was a little surprised. I was expecting something pretty similar to Baja, maybe a bit more in the way of agriculture maybe a little more greenery but not this. This was mountains shooting up out of the sea, teeming with Jungle and a steamy heat pouring off it...I did not fancy my chances of long days on the bike in that stuff. My Sailing story was completed with a last night on board (actually on board Glen's boat) drinking more of Mexico's finest with Bill and two of his friends, Glen and Dave. I'm not entirely sure how we made it back to Bill's boat in one piece and dry but in the morning I woke up with a delightful throbbing about the temples and the prospect of my first day on the mainland to look forward to.

Baja Sur

As I can now reveal, after exhaustive research, Baja is in fact just a big old strip of desert hanging from some mountains running down its spine. Now to start with I loved the novelity of the desert and this lasted till about 2 minutes into my dirt road experience. After 3 weeks of it, I've got to be honest, I got real bored; espeically as the last clip (250 km) into La Paz was along 2 long straight roads (and a third with a few bends thrown in for novelty factor) with just enough head wind to make me really pissed. So it might be easy to conclude that I hated my Baja experience, on the contrary I loved it. I know your all asking yourselves, hanging on with bated breath: how can this be? Well luckily for you, I'm here to endulge your curiosity: 3 towns, 1 village, 1 descent, 1 climb, and lots of great people. To start: the cycling: the best descent I have ever done, by a country mile: coming down from Volcan de tres Virgenes (great name), to the Sea of Cortez at Santa Rossalia. The speed and swiftness of descent had my eyeballs thrust into the back of my head as I tried to shout with pure joy but the speed of the passing air ripped the sound away from me and the g's created going round the tight bends had my knee almost to the tarmac (thanks be to Schwalbe for producing tyres with such fine grip). The ascent: there were several good un's but the winner has got to be winding up through a canyon, which had cut a rift through the vertical cliffs fronting the Sea of Cortez at Luigi. The climb was 30 km's long and the scenery was immense throughout, with steep dropoffs into the canyon on the right, horseshoe roads and gravity defying standing stones on the messa towards the top. The towns that made the greatest impression on me where each slightly different. First came San Ignacio. Now to be fair any town coming after nearly 300 km of desert is going to seem like an oasis. However when I cleared the final cardon studded hill side and found myself staring down into a valley of date palms with a river winding through its center, my happiness knew no bounds. After a dip in the river, to wash nearly a weeks sweat and sun cream from my alternately red and white body, I headed into town. I people watched in the square as the pilgrims headed to Sunday Mass, I headed in the opposite direction to a taco stand and a full belly. The happiness was complete when I meet some other tourists (on a bus), beers where had and stories swapped. The next town was Mulege, nestled just off the coast in the centre of a near ring of mountains. My love of this town is largely due to two people I stayed with there. Bill my host is a 69 year old waiting to sell his house so that he can go tour the world by freighter. His ability to be so alive (and his constant swearing) had me smiling the whole time. Staying with him was Dave, another cyclist, who has toured from the UK to Cape town and travelled in most other places, was great to talk to and drinking beers with the boys after a great supper by the beach was a great end to my Mulege experience. The last town (litterally as it was my jump off spot) was the place I got to know best: I found $5 (25p) tacos, had my morning coffee spot before a stroll down the Melacon (beach front) and spent much time talking to the sailor's at the marinas around town. This and the beauty of its beaches to the north made it a firm favorite with me. The place that I loved most though was El Juncalito. It is as close to paradise as I found on Baja, with its bay pointing out to a string of islands and backed by 600 ft vertical cliffs, covered in vegetation (thanks to the recent hurricane): sitting on Roberta's (my host) terrace, with her dozen hummingbirds ducking past my head to get to the feeder, looking out across the sea to the islands with the early morning sun on my face was very special. Also Roberta and Vickie (her neighbour) require speical mention: feeding me and entertaining me with their stories and conversation I was truely reluctant to leave after my two nights in El Juncalito.

Back road Baja

After spending the best part of two weeks staying in and cycling through cities and suburbier I was massively keen to get out into some desert landscapes, you know, get away from it all. My first foray was met by edgy border patrols, who took my efforts at free camping near the border as acts of illegal immigration and drug smuggling, unfortunately for them they succumed to my charm and left smiling and waving. The next night I stayed in Ensenada, and despite my host's best efforts, convinced myself that the best way south down the peninsula would be head out East, adding about 50 miles and more importantly 105km of dirt road. On a map this looked fairly benign, I mean after all I was the great conqueror of the casscades, who had dared go where no other biker would (they have more sense). In comparison this would surely be a piece of piss, on the map there were no major inclines. So I happily clipped into my pedals and headed off for a two day jolly to San Felipe and my first taste of the Sea of Cortez. On the way I encountered many dirt bikers, a truely arrogant race - with a few notable exceptions. They were preparing for the Baja 1000, the biggest, bestest, most important thing on the face of the planet, ever. The fact that I hadn't heard of it coupled with, when explained what the race was, the complete and utter failure of my jaw to hit the floor or a total lack of a gleam of hero-worshipping awe dawning in my eye, did not go down too well, not too well at all. I mean how hard can a 1000 mile dirt bike race be, they do it in teams and they have fricking engines! I managed to escape these fiends of the road about a days ride south of San Felipe (Where I met a con on the run from US law enforcement). Here is where the dirt started. The first couple of Kms where bad, the next 3 practically unrideable, with the kind of gradients I would have struggled on with a road of beautifully laid tarmac, combined with loose gravel and sand and rocks pushing you to the edge of the cliff, I struggled up about 1.5 km, riding the rideable, walking the rest. A pickup came past, stopped and offered me a lift to the top. I looked at the rest of the track, it was even worse. I didn't even hesitate. Descending down the other side, every bone in my body attempting to shake itself loose, I consoled myself, this was just the construction site detour, tomorrow the road would be better. I was so very very wrong. The next day started off with sandy tracks, which when more than half an inch deep, bury the front wheel and fishtail the rear flinging me into the road. This is usually not so bad as the landing zone is normally just as sandy as the crash site but every now and again you hit a rock. The worst one took the weight of both me and my bike, at a good tilt, right between my quad and hamstring, allowing me to unleash my Peter Griffin impression on the unsuspecting desert. The real problem with this injury was that every-other pedal stroke the two mussels squeezed the bruise between them, not fun. I managed to do 35 km of the 45 km stretch to the next water supply, before I was once again offered a lift (cars pass by about once an hour), by this time the road had headed into the hills and the 4x4's were travelling at about 10 mph and I was walking about 90% of the time, so I excepted. However, when he said he'd take me back to the tarmac I said no: I wanted to finish this road otherwise from now on i´d be afraid of going on dirt tracks. In Spanglish it is hard to put across this kind of psychological argument. I tried to set off that afternoon but a bolt in my pannier rack sheared off, leaving me neck deep in trouble. A dirt buggy passed by after a couple of hours of me trying to pries the bolt end from the eyelet, and they take my stuff back to the water hole. I follow and heading down to the Campo (beach side community of, mainly, Americans) I spot a guy working in his garage. Peter drills the bolt end out, dismantles my rack, puts it back together with new bolts and then does the same to my rear rack. Not finished with his generosity he then insists on me staying for supper and then gives me a bed for the night. I am truely grateful to Peter and Donna for helping me out when I was at my most vulnerable. The next day was pay(back)day for me taking those two rides. I reckoned if I could do the remaining 60 Km of this hellish track then I could call it quits with my ego. I preceded much the same as the day before but without the truly appalling sections of road (I didn't have to walk more than a couple of hundred meters at any one time to get out of the deep sand or over the ridiculously rocky sections). However I was only making progress at a rate of 5 kmph, slower than walking pace and by 12 had covered half the distance, with less than half the days light left. For the last day and a half I had been riding out of the saddle, it was just not possible to sit down and maintain any kind of control or keep my posterior from turning black and blue. As it was I stacked it more times than I can count on all my fingers and all my toes but I kept pounding away and by 2 had reached Coco's corner, where I was able to drink aenough beer to dull the ache in my feet, legs, hands and arms. Then on again: I finished the day 8 kms short of the road huddled in a canyon trying to keep out of the wind, feeling oddly extremely happy. The next morning it took me another hour to get back to the black-top but by 8 I was having huevos Rancheros and giving my legs a bit of a breather.

So. Cal.

Cycling wise this is the most miserable experience you could hope to put yourself through. I mean honestly, who puts a beautiful coastal road there to tempt a cyclist and then puts two major cities in the way with a traffic light every 200 meters and fills the road with arrogant bastard drivers trying to push you off it? Not all was doom and gloom however, although the cycling was not fun I stayed with some great people: first was Mr and Mrs J Dutton in LA, Delyth was the perfect hostess and I wanted for nothing as I took my first proper break from the saddle (a luxurious 4 days!) and explored a little of what Santa Monica has to offer. Next in San Diego I stayed with Michael and Bernadette, who treated me like a son, feeding me almost too well (detecting an extra spare tyre on leaving) and helping me get myself geared up for my push into Mexico. Along the way I met the usual characters on the street, including a 50 year old guy, who apparently set up Ultimate Cage Fighting and is now in a multi-million dollar law suit with some fat cats who stole it from him, meanwhile he´s working as a street sweeper (hhhhmmmm). I also treasure a conversation I had as I was borowing a pump from a bike shop. The owner comes out to talk:

Him:"you know your cycling the world´s most popular bike route"
Me:"come again"
Him:"the PCH (pacific coast highway) through So. Cal. is the most popular bike route in the world"
Me:"Say´s who?"
Him:"Well I came up with the phrase but in 20 years no one´s ever challenged it"

At this point I´m thinking that 20 years is far too long for such a stupid, obviously bollocks statement to go unchallenged, I set about erring the ways of those who have gone before:

Me:"I´m not so sure buddy, have you ever cycled the route from Jasper to Banff I hear that´s meant to be pretty special"
Him:"Who cares about some beautiful remote route, I´m talking numbers of cyclists."

This statement encapsulates all that is wrong with the Californian psyche, but I´m happy, it keeps those tools off the nice roads.

Me:"well I was always told it was quality not quantity that counts"

I encounter a stony silence for the next 5 minutes, happy with my work I potter off.