Ken Bondy
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Trip Report - Part 4
It was good to be on the road again. The afternoon scenery between Rancho Grande and Coco?s Corner continued to be beautiful and the graded dirt road
was good. We arrived at Coco?s at about 2 pm and stopped to meet the legendary Coco. There was one other car there, a young Mexican couple from
Tijuana. Coco was well and at his charming best, clearly inspired by the presence of the attractive young woman. We did the standard tourist things,
had a Pacifico, bought a T-shirt, admired the hanging panty collection, and signed the beautiful guest book. Coco told us that someone had stolen one
volume of his guest book. Hard to imagine that anyone would do that. Then you see all the graffiti on the rocks?.who would do that? Obviously
somebody would. Sure hope he gets it back, it is obviously of great importance to him.
The afternoon shadows were lengthening and we headed out for the paved highway and Bahia de Los Angeles, our southernmost destination. We all
breathed a heavy sigh of relief each time the Hummer engine lit off. We reached Mex 1 in short order and stopped so Jess could load the bike. Once
everything was put together Jess jumped in the right front seat and Jim got in the rear, and we headed south on the for the Bahia turnoff (my GPS
waypoint is marked BLAX).
The ride was easy and several miles down the highway Jess suddenly shouted, ?Goodness gracious, there?s a hole in the Hummer!!!!? (OK, he didn?t say
?goodness gracious?, he used a common two-word phrase starting with ?Oh?.) He was pointing to the hood on the right side, directly in front of him
near the front. I couldn?t see anything from my angle in the driver?s seat, so I found a turnout and stopped. Sure enough, there was about a
one-inch diameter hole in the fiberglass hood. Sticking through the hole was a battery post.
The hood of the Hummer slopes down significantly near the front, directly over the frontmost of the two batteries. Everything looked like it would
clear, including the posts on the top of the batteries, but when we closed the hood after securing the batteries, we did feel a slight pressure. We
thought it was a group of wrapped cables, we didn?t notice that it was in fact the frontmost battery post. Sure enough, the post was in contact with
the hood and it didn?t take long for it to punch through the fiberglass. I wasn?t very concerned about it (it was a small price to pay considering
the predicament we were in), but Jess was upset because he had done the beautiful flame job on the Hummer and knew that matching it would be tough.
We will see.
We arrived in Bahia de Los Angeles around 5 pm. The road from Mex 1 to the town was in good shape except for two concrete bridges/culverts which were
undergoing repair from recent washouts and required a minor detour. We were planning to stay at Costa del Sol, and thought we had reservations. I
had even sent a check to their San Ysidro address for the first night. But of course when we arrived at the hotel their manager had never heard of
us. She explained that there were no rooms available since a group had taken the whole hotel. We were pretty angry about this since it seemed that
we had simply been bumped by a larger group. That turned out not to be true, because when I returned home I found that my envelope with the check had
been returned due to ?insufficient address?. So they never actually got the reservation check. Anyway we got rooms at the adjacent Villa Vitta.
We had been referred to Joel Prieto, a local panga owner and guide who had agreed (by email) to take us out to see the whale sharks. We located Joel
at his home and arranged a trip for the next day. Here?s a preview of what we saw:
continued
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surfer jim
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How big is that fish?.... ....or is that a post card....
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synch
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Great fun!
How difficult was it to find Whale Sharks? I'm headed on a SCUBA trip to Loreto in a week and was hoping to find the same.
I just saw several of your Underwater photos on your home page - The KBR Indonesia photos are Fantastic - what camera do you use?
[Edited on 10-21-2004 by synch]
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Ken Bondy
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synch...
They are pretty easy to find right now in Bahia de Los Angeles. They are regularly there to feed every summer. It is possible, but unlikely, that
you will see them in Loreto. The only other reliable area for whale sharks is in La Paz Bay in the spring. There they use spotter planes to find
them. But even if you don't see a whale shark the diving off of Loreto is great.
Thanks for the kind words about the KBR photos. That is an amazing place. All the photos were taken with a Nikonos RS, two Nikon SB-105 strobes, and
either the 50mm lens or the 50mm lens with a 2x1 teleconverter, Fuji Velvia.
++Ken++
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marla
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Thanks for the report! DId you get in the water with them? That was the trip I was hoping to take, sigh, at this exact same time until life got in the
way.
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a
speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. Henry David
Thoreau
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Ken Bondy
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marla...
Yes, we were in the water with them. It is really a thrill, they are magnificent, graceful, beautiful animals. Hope you get a chance to play with
them sometime,
++Ken++
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David K
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I presume there were no French kayakers around?
I think Mike Humfreville and Paulina can best detail the incident many of us witnessed in July, 2001 at La Gringa... as they were in the water with a
very friendly whale shark!
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Ken Bondy
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No French kayakers anywhere in sight...
although there were a few other boats doing the same thing we were.
++Ken++
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synch
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Largest Shark in the world!@
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