Swimming with the (sea) lions on a lean, marine adventure
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-050814baja,1,446933...
By Hugh Dellios
August 14, 2005
ISLA ESPIRITU SANTO, Mexico -- Out beyond our tent flaps, the day's adventures were beckoning with the gentle lapping of the waves in the cove.
Already one of our young sons was playing in the sand outside his own tent 50 yards away. The other one was about to launch himself onto the cove in
the kayak he mastered the day before.
Oh, for a few more minutes of lazy comfort after a late night in lounge chairs on the beach, sipping aged Cuban rum, digesting fresh-caught yellowjack
sashimi and swapping silly stories as we stared up at a sky nearly white with stars.
Would you believe this helping of solitude is one part Baja California beauty, one part Italian hospitality and one part nostalgia for youthful beach
camp adventures in pre-apocalyptic Somalia?
That's what you get at Baja Camp, a barefoot island getaway a few hours flight from Los Angeles that offers a taste of the lean but elegant safari
adventures of Africa, complete with gourmet food and even a little cavorting with (sea) lions. It's just a lot closer to home.
Where else could you spend four days as one of only 10 people on a protected desert island in a sea so rich in marine life that Jacques Cousteau
called it "the world's aquarium"? Okay, maybe there are a few Mexican fishermen overnighting on a beach on the other side of the island, but they
sleep in shacks and you in a comfortable, full-service tent.
The camp is a re-creation of boyhood memories for Andrea Tamagnini, 44, the Italian host and perfectionist chef who grew up spearfishing at beach
camps where his family spent summers near their home in Moga- dishu, Somalia. That was before the country dissolved into chaos and civil war in the
late 1960s.
Tamagnini has had a government concession to run the camp for five years on the 38-square-mile Isla Espiritu Santo at the tip of Baja California in
the Sea of Cortez. It is a one- or two-hour boat ride from the city of La Paz.
The experience is possible because of a unique effort to preserve the island. In the early 1990s, worried after a few mainlanders from La Paz began
building concrete bungalows on it, the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and other environmental groups joined with the government to buy out
local land rights to the island for $3 million.
Today, it is a marvel of conservation, hosting only Tamagnini's camp and a few day visitors. The only creatures worthy of calling it home are sea
lions, manta rays, dolphins, turtles, and, in season, gray whales and whale sharks.
Many campers come just to sit in the sun, and enjoy the cell- and satellite-free solitude. The more adventurous can swim with the sea lions, kayak,
fish, snorkel, scuba dive, hike the desert trails or just sit back in the boat and watch the dolphins leaping in front of the bow.
The deeply bronzed Tamagnini said he found himself on this side of the planet 10 years ago after coming to California for romantic reasons. Then he
wandered south to Baja in pursuit of his passion for spearfishing.
"That's when I discovered Isla Espiritu Santo, and I wanted to spend every waking day here," he said. "I find this a mix between Sardinia and Somalia.
It looks a lot like the Mediterranean, and that's why the Italians love it so much."
Tamagnini hosts 10 people at a time between May and October, often five couples but sometimes several families. He advertises through the Internet (www.bajacamp.com) and word of mouth. The cost is $200 per adult per night, $135 for each child age 7 to 12 (younger than that not allowed).
Minimum is a four-night stay.
The camp consists of four family-sized tents spread out along the 200-yard beach. The wooden beds are comfortable. There is ample head room. The
floors are made of reed mats that feel cool to your increasingly suntanned feet.
Behind each tent is a shower stall made of a wooden platform and canvas flaps. You fill a bucket from a blue barrel that has been warming in the Baja
sun all day, then hoist it up on pulleys over your head.
There is no more liberating feeling than standing beneath the warm bucket cascade as the rock bluff above you turns pinkish amber in the pre-dinner
sunset.
The cleverly designed, island-friendly toilets are surprisingly comfortable, clean and easy to use in their own canvas-walled stalls.
The main tent serves as lounge, cantina, dining room and reading room, with comfortable canvas reclining chairs, solar-powered portable stereo and an
ice chest full of soft drinks. The beer, wine and liquor is extra, and cheaper if you bring your own.
That brings us to the menu, which reminds you of the luxury safaris with its savory, "How did they do that here?" style. Except it's even more unique
because the main course usually just came out of the sea and is seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil from the Tamagnini family orchard back in Umbria.
And speaking of family, Tamagnini reports that the cuisine got even better after his 66-year-old mother, Anna, came for a stay last year and gave the
new head cook a few culinary lessons.
During our stay last year, lunch consisted of shrimp carpaccio or heaping salads?again topped with the Tamagnini olive oil. Dinners can begin with
ceviche of "chocolate" clams served in their own palm-sized shells, followed by freshly caught grilled snapper.
Our ceviche one night came from right off our beach?a small octopus that one of the camp crewmen dug out of a tiny cave. On shore, the children stared
spellbound as it gripped their hands and forearms with its suction cups. Then it departed for the kitchen tent.
Another night's appetizer was sashimi made from the blood-red meat of a 16-pound yellowjack fish. How fresh? Our children helped reel it into the boat
an hour earlier after the camp boatman found the churning water where the jacks and seabirds were preying on a school of sardines.
Another day, we by chance passed over a school of darting yellowjacks in the cove on our way back to camp, and Tamagnini leapt into the water after
them, facemask on and speargun ready. With the children cheering him on from the bow, he managed to hit one, only to have it shake off the spear and
get away.
Daily outings include a visit to a cove where barking sea lions sun themselves on the rocks and venture out to swim with you. Other days you can
picnic on a prime shell-hunting beach (although collecting is discouraged) or hire a separate outfitter to pick you up for scuba diving or marlin
fishing.
The water in the cove is so clear that, on a long kayak tour, two dads could spot a plate-sized starfish on the flat-sand bottom 10 feet below. No
problem diving down to scoop it up and carting it back to the beach for the kids to admire.
Safety concerns? The camp is remote, but not too much, as we found on our second to last day when our son Alexander slipped off his sandals when we
weren't looking and badly cut his big toe on a shell.
Tamagnini quickly boated us an hour to the mainland, where a friend was waiting with his truck. He then drove us up the coast to a clinic in La Paz,
where a doctor did an excellent job of stitching and bandaging the cut.
"You can't go back out to the island with this," the doctor ordered.
My wife Cindy, a nurse, and I nodded respectfully. Then, with only a day left to our island adventure, we were hustling as fast as we could back out
to Baja Camp.
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