2014 Autumn Harvest

A few years ago I decided I wanted to try to grow as much food as I possibly could in my little postage stamp yard. The lawn had been removed years ago and had been xeriscaped with years of adding  thick layers of mulch slowly becoming rich worm castings.  This year I thinned out much of the desert plants and planted squash, corn, carrots, more squash, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, basil. All the good stuff.  It really took off . 

I have been harvesting and preserving since August. My main method of preserving is slicing and drying. I have 5 dehydrators going at any one time, 4 electrics and 1 big solar dryer (seen above).

At last count I have 350 pounds of winter squashes  ready for the root cellar. (That big banana squash in the back row if over 25 pounds!)



I also put away about 3 gallons of kale-krout, 20  qts pickles, 20 qt grape juice, 30 qts of dried apricots, 20 pints apricot jam, 30 qts dried apples, 2 quarts dried cantaloup, 20 qts dried tomatoes, 10 qts dried shredded zucchini, 2 gallons dried corn, 4 qts dried kale, 2 qt dried basil, 3 gallons grape wine,  3 gallons apricot wine, 3 gallons apple cider vinegar. I still have many pounds of tomatoes and peppers yet to harvest.   I have yet to harvest my carrots but it looks like a good crop.  I failed miserably on growing potatoes, onions, and garlic, the most important crops! I am afraid it is going to be a long sad unsavory winter for me.  I will do better next year.

 

A Baja Utah Sailing Adventure Sept 2014

A Baja Utah Sailing Adventure Sept 2014  

It was a dark and stormy night. No really. It was. I know writers use that cliché to build suspense, and adventure writers use the dramatic flashback to some dark and stormy night to allow their hero (usually them...) to reminisce about what craziness had brought them to that dangerous situation on that dark and stormy night.   But this trip started on a dark and stormy night from the git go.

 

For several years I have loved Baja Mexico and have made several trips down there to sail. The wonderful wilderness, majestic desert mountains, the sea and sea life,  certainly the wonderful people and great food make it a paradise.  With a trip to Baja on the agenda again this year with my new sailing kayak Vagabunda, I was looking for a good long shakedown trip here nearby, about 2 weeks or so, to make sure all my skills and gear would be up to the rigors of Baja. I thought about Lake Powell, certainly beautiful, but not a good sailing lake.  Lake Meade?  A reasonable option but with the low water level the "bathtub ring" makes it a pretty dreary place.  Then I realized I have my very own Baja right here in my own front yard. The Great Salt Lake! I had pretty much been ignoring “GSL” for 40 years for not very good reasons. Too salty, I thought, too buggy, too stinky, too shallow, with all the shoreline surrounded by miles of sucking mud flats. Boy, was I wrong, and I lost out on many years of great adventure I could have had out here.

 

 

GSL is one of the largest "dead seas" in the world.  River water for hundreds of miles around drain into this lake with no outlet to die a salty death.  The GSL is about three times as salty as the ocean, and nothing much can live in the briny water except a tiny brine shrimp that is harvested by very tough guys out on the lake for months every autumn,  and brine flies (no relation to the shrimp), both of which feed on a few species of algae that also live there.   These, in turn, are food for millions of migratory birds that pass through here on the Pacific Flyway on their way to the Arctic every spring.  The lake is a remnant of ancient Lake Bonneville that once covered several western states about 1000 feet deep. You can still see the old line of the shore up on the face of the surrounding hills.  At its modern peak, in the early 1980s, the lake was about 100 miles long and 50 wide. Now, with the water level shrinking from years of overuse and drought, and vast sections carved off by dykes, levees, causeways, and evaporation ponds for extracting minerals, the current lake is about 30 miles long and 15 wide.  There are several islands in the lake, Antelope, Stansbury, Carrington, Hat, Gunnison, Fremont, to name a few.  Most of these are technically not islands anymore, as the shrinking water level has left them connected to the mainland by big sand flats that allow you to walk, even drive, out to almost all of them.

There never has been any significant sort of recreation or real estate development on the lake. For 100 years the Saltair resort on the south shore has struggled to make a go of it. They built a big dance hall with giant golden St Petersbergesque onion dome towers. Sort of an odd choice if you ask me.  They once had amusement park rides back in the day, and held pretty big concerts. Old timers recall seeing the Beach Boys there. The place has burned down a few times, and got flooded out in the high water days in the 80s. I recall seeing pictures of a guy in a boat rowing across the dance floor!  It has been restored again and open as a concert venue.

The state has built 2 marinas,  but low water has forced closure of the one at Antelope Island, and the one on the south shore can now only handle shallower draft boats. The bulk of any other development has been industrial. The west side of the lake has become the domain of the mineral extraction folks, mostly via giant evaporation ponds.

When I was a kid my family moved to Utah from Oregon. I had loved small boats even back then and just restored an old homebuilt flat-water kayak I got from a buddy. The first thing I noticed when I looked at the map of Utah was this giant lake right next to town! This was going to be great. I didn’t drive yet but it was so close to my home I planned to build a little trailer for the kayak and tow it to the lake with my bike.  But when we got here, I fell in love with the mountains, climbing and hiking and skiing became my passions for the next 35 years, and the lake and the kayak were forgotten.  I think my dad hauled it to the dump when I was away at college.

When I got into sailing a few years ago, I met several folks with sailboats out on GSL. The few times I went out with them were fun, but there didn't seem to be anywhere cool to go, and everybody just seemed to go out, sailed around in circles, watched the depth gauge and made sharp U turns when they hit shallow water again and again and again, have a glass of wine watching the sunset, and motor back in.  Not that any of that was bad, not just the sort of sailing exploring adventures I had in mind.  Then I met Josh Church recently and he said he had been out on many multi day cruises on the lake, anchoring out over-night, having a great time. It was true that there were vast sections that were too shallow for his 4 foot deep keel, and he had to anchor a few miles off shore of some islands, but he was out having a great time in a truly wilderness setting.  Talking to Josh I realized that the GSL would be perfect for my kayak. I could hop from island to island, sail in water as little as 6" deep, pull up on shore, camp in wonderful secluded desert wilderness.  Just like Baja.  OK, sure. It is missing the sea life, the whales, the dolphins, the pelicans, the wonderful "south of the border" charm, people, music and food, but it is still an amazing place to enjoy a grand wild adventure, loving the desert, the seclusion, the magnificent mountain vistas across sparkling water.

 

 The Saturday I had planned to leave was one of the nastiest on record with cold rain and fierce winds. I stayed in bed and started out the next day under partly cloudy skies and moderate winds from the east, perfect for heading west as I was.  My sailing kayak performed perfectly. I made 13 miles that day, one of the longest of the whole trip. I did run into some shallows and had to walk the boat through a "rock garden" of tufa knobs for a while. (Tufa is a soft rock that precipitates out of the water and settles on the bottom.) I camped on the south end of Stansbury Island on a sandy spit. That night a big bad thunderstorm came over and thrashed on me for about 2 hours. I have spent a lot of time out camping in small tents in bad storms, but never in conditions like that before. The wind was blowing my tent over so I sat on that side of the tent with my arms up holding the wall from collapsing. I felt like that raw army recruit who was always screwing up at basic training and his drill sergeant made him run around all day holding his gun up in the air. (Of course he goes on to save the platoon with his strength and valor). But I wasn’t in a war zone, it just sounded that way. Lightning bolts and simul-thunder crashed around me for hours. Flash-crash-boom.  The rain pounded down in waves, like a fire hose turned on patriots demonstrating in a town square.  I was thinking perhaps I should put on some pants in case the tent blew out and I had to scurry to another fox hole, but it took both hands to keep the tent up, so I just sat there bare-bummed and whimpering shamelessly. I can see the family reunion scene many years from now. "Grandma Kenzie, was great grandpa Kyle brave when the worst storm of the century paddled his bum out on the Great Lake?"  "No Julito" she replied, "He wasn't wearing any pants, and we all know that you can't be brave if you are not wearing any pants. He just sat there in that tent whimpering shamelessly"  (Julito wanted to be brave, and he never again went to bed without wearing Gore-Tex pants. No amount of pleading or threatening or bribing with Otter Pops could change him.  Bearded psychotherapists with round spectacles would study his behavior and mumble among themselves and shake their heads.  Years later he mentioned this odd fact about himself in his Match.com profile and he met a spunky kayak sailor named Wind-Song who understood him perfectly and they proceeded to complete the second ever sailing kayak circumnavigation of the Great Salt Lake, and went on to solve the mystery of why pelicans stopped nesting on Hat Island.)

 

 

 My boat is a sailing kayak rig, basically cobbled together out of spare parts. The hull is a very good two person touring kayak with a foot operated rudder. I added home-made outriggers for added stability, a lee board, mast and sail, and I sewed a spray skirt out of cast-off boat cover material I found in a dumpster back in California.  I have been working on her for 2 seasons now, sailing almost every week from April to October, upgrading to some store-bought parts, making little improvements continuously here and there and she really is turning out to be a fine little craft. She is rugged, reliable, sails well, and I can paddle when I need to.  I admit I am an unenthusiastic paddler. I know many people love it and wax poetic about "the song of the paddle", but I am a sailor, and for me every paddle stroke is a song yodeling my failure to get to where I am going under sail.  But certainly paddling is better than needing a motor!

 

 

The next day I sailed up to the north end of Stansbury and camped near what I think is the one and only beach-front cabin on the entire lake. It seemed abandoned and didn’t look like anyone had been there in a long time. The graded track into it was overgrown with weeds and brush. The cabin was of modern construction, with vinyl siding, metal roof, huge 2 story glass wall facing the lake. Inside was beautiful wide pine plank paneling and vaulted ceiling, really a treasure.  Too bad whoever owns it doesn’t seem to be using it. The inside was a mess, a window was broken out, and there was a huge hawk nest on the second story deck!

 

 

I had arranged with my friend Josh to report in with him by cell phone every few days. He had told me that he has coverage across most the whole lake. He must have Verizon. I have T-Mobile. Big difference I am learning.  I had cell coverage this morning and had checked in with him after the big storm, but no signal up this far. Hmmm.  There is small brine shrimp harvest marina on the north tip of the island and I could see people there but I didn’t bother them. Nothing to worry about yet.

Tuesday I woke up early to a drizzle and the forecast on my NOAA Weather radio called for scattered thunderstorms all day so I rolled over and went back to sleep. I woke up about 9 with bright sun and clear skies so I packed up fast and launched for Carrington Island 5 miles away. By the time I was moving, the sky had quickly clouded over again and a frisky wind piped up out of the west and I made the crossing in a little over an hour!  Vagabunda was screaming on that beam reach.  I walked around the island for a while, climbing up to the summit and seeing an awesome camp site on the north end, a mile away.  Up over the summit I noticed the ground was pock-marked with big craters and odd looking rusty metal bits scattered about. The craters were old, all grown over, and I wondered if some treasure hunter had dug about looking for lost Aztec gold or something. Just then 2 fighter jets from Hill Field went screaming overhead heading for the west desert practice bombing ranges. I then recalled someone saying this used to a bombing target and these craters were direct hits, and the metal shards were metal bomb-casing shrapnel.  So glad to know they could hit an island. (I heard Iraq air force veterans boast they now can put a bomb down Saddam Hussain’s chimney. If they only knew which chimney...).  I walked back to the boat and another thunderstorm looked like it was coming in so I wrapped up in a tarp under a bush and waited for all hell to break loose again like the other night. It never did but I had fallen asleep and enjoyed a sweet little nap and woke to warmer sunny conditions. I launched the boat again and headed to that nice spot around the corner and put in a snug little camp.  Because most of the land I was camping on this trip was loose sand or gravel, I made it a practice to back up all the tent pegs with rocks. At this camp, every rock I lifted up was crawling with lizards that darted off to safer rocks. I wonder how many lizards I saw more than once! They must have thought the world was coming to an end.

The next morning, Wednesday, was clear but cold. I noticed a group of guys driving around on ATVs and doing some sort of work on the beach. I walked over, introduced myself, asked if they phones with cell service. He said yes,  and I could use it to call Josh and report in.   Since that first morning 3 days ago I had not had any coverage. Even up on top of the ridges I had hiked up. Nothing. Then as I walked away from these guys my phone chirped and I had coverage just long enough to receive a text message from a friend hoping all was well. By the time I tried to respond the signal was lost, mood was spoiled and no signal ever again until Thursday evening on Fremont island. I used to have a Spot messenger that lets you use satellites to let everyone back home know all is well. I guess I should get one again. Or just not tell anyone I am going so they don't worry!

The brine shrimp guys were just out scouting for good places, the season doesn't open until tomorrow so I invited them over for coffee. Several came over to my camp and we had fun comparing projects. All of them were immigrants, from Thailand,, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq. They lived at these company shrimper camps out there, made $10 hour with food and lodging included. They all said it was hard work but all seemed very happy with it all.  Some had been coming out for years. I later found out that they had spread the word around the lake that some crazy guy in a kayak was out there.

 

 

 I wanted to go on up to Hat island, only 3 miles north,  and the wind was blowing from the north so I just paddled.  It was a slog but of short distress.  I got into a big area of those tufa heads and after trying to paddle through them and going aground several times, again I just got out and waded, leading the boat like a tame little burro. It was so nice to have my entire camp just follow along with hardly any effort at all. So much easier than backpacking!    After a while I started to get cold and my feet were numb so I called it done, pulled the boat into a rocky little cove about 1:00 and took up life on dry land again.

 

 

Hat Island is a tiny pile of rocks out in the middle of the lake where pelicans nest in the spring. It was totally deserted now. No evidence of any mass nesting now, except for millions of bird bones scattered all over the place.  So many in fact it seemed incredible that any birds had survived to nest next year! But I guess they do. Thousands every year.  Odd that there were no carcasses of partially decomposed birds, just millions of bones.  With the island now connected to the mainland by the sand bar I imagine coyotes, foxes and rats have a feast out there when the birds are on nest. In fact I wonder how much longer the birds will use that place to nest?  Seems not so ideal anymore.

 

 

The forecast looked favorable for tomorrow, Thursday, to be good for a crossing over to Promontory Point. That will be 13 miles of open water with the potential for big wind and waves to happen, with nowhere in the middle to hop out to safety so I was prepared to wait days if I had to for conditions to be right but tomorrow looked good. The storm was moving out, high pressure was building, and winds from the west (I was heading east). I wanted an early start so I set my alarm for 5:30 and had everything as ready as possible for a quick getaway in the morning. I admit when the alarm went off that early I rethought my strategy and dozed on for another 30 minutes, then scampered to get packed and out to the boat. It all worked out and I was on the water by 7:30 and it was just light enough to see without needing a headlamp. The winds were brisk out of the west as predicted and I was headed northeast so it was perfect. I was going pretty fast, average about 4 miles per hour. I was making good time; the sky was clear and sunny by midway across.  After a few hours with winds that were pretty strong, and because of the long fetch (the distance the wind can blow across the water to make the waves) the waves were getting pretty big, about 3-4 feet.  Pretty serious conditions, but they were mostly swells, not breaking waves. They were come in on my hind right quarter and the boat mostly just bobbed nicely as the waves rolled on under harmlessly.  A few, though, seemed to roll back onto me from the down-wave side of the boat and would slosh back up over the spray skirt. The skirt was working perfectly and the water would just roll off with no problems. Even with all that I only had a few sponges worth to swab out when I got to the other side.  I was very pleased with how the boat handled those bigger conditions, but I was a bit worried what would have happened if it had gotten worse, with stronger wind and bigger waves. That is the thing about gaining experience. All you can do is just keep pushing the edge a little further each time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes just because it happens, and you hope you make it. Each time you do, you learn something and gain confidence in your skills and gear until at some point you get in over the limit and it all gets very nasty.  But all was fine today. 

 

 

The travel distance to Fremont Island was about the same as to Promontory, and since I was a few days behind in trying to meet up with my friends at Antelope Island, and since there was nothing really very exciting for me at Promontory anyway, I set the course for Fremont and landed there instead, after a 4 hour crossing. I was tired and hungry since in those big conditions I couldn't take any time or attention to rest or eat while underway. I don’t know what sort of passages and conditions I will run into in the future but I can't imagine having to do many other crossings that would be much bigger that this one, so I was pretty pleased that it all went so well.  I sat on the beach, and drank the one beer I had brought along just to celebrate completing this crossing

I hiked up to the top of the ridge on Fremont and got cell signal so I called anyone who would be worrying and checked in with them all. That was nice.  As I hiked along I found the skull of a big desert bighorn sheep. The horn curl was a full circle plus a bit.  I wandered about, exploring a bit, then set up camp down by the beach.

 

 

The next day, Friday, I sailed and paddled the 8 miles on over to Antelope island where my friends from the Wasatch Mountain Club would be arriving for a 3 day car camp.  The low water forced me to beach the boat almost a mile from the Bridger Bay campground. That made for a long foot slog with all my gear. I asked a ranger where I could get water and he pointed to the visitor center about 2 miles along the beach across the bay. I almost cried. I had been there before and had seemed to recall there being a water spigot at this campground but no. A fellow just then was walking out of a giant motor home heard us talking and asked "How much do you need? I have plenty here in my rig , you can have all you want.".   Schweeet!  It turned out he was there with the Wasatch Mountain Club, John was his name, and the nicest guy ever.  I was a bit surprised at his RV because I was not used to mountain clubbers showing up in RVs bigger than my house. They have tended to be a small tent crowd.  As I got to know him though, I learned that he has recently organized 5 day backpacking trips into the Uintas and the Grand Canyon, as well as just doing a 200 mile self-support bike trip in Yellowstone.  Certainly he is no slacker.  Since he was not using the tent spot at his site he offered to let me use it, which turned out to be the best site in the park, on nice soft sand right in the shade of the only tree in the park. 

 

 

The rest of the folks started showing up that evening and we had a nice time. We hiked Frary Peak on Saturday, and huge potluck dinner party. After a week of eating trail mix and dried beans and rice, I really tucked in to the fresh salads, the barbequed turkey, and French fries. Those folks really know how to have a backcountry potluck dinner! Thanks to John and Julie and everyone for such a fine spread.

The next morning, Sunday, was my planned departure day but I delayed long enough to let a few folks play with my boat, and joined in on another awesome potluck brunch with pancakes, eggs, bacon, potatoes. Thanks to Robert and Turtle!  Incredible food once again.

I launched about 11 AM. The forecast was for moderate winds from the south, which sounded bad because I was headed south and pretty much expected to beat into it all day and have to paddle much of the distance. However, by the time I got going, there was a light breeze out of the north and I just ghosted along downwind as easy as could be and had completed 8 miles by 4 PM and called that done,  half way along the shore of Antelope island.  I set up camp on a bluff near some huge rock outcrops, looking up a vast broad grassy valley. It was one of the nicest most picturesque camp sites I think I have ever had anywhere!

My camping strategy on this sort of trip is pretty much like I was backpacking. I use a small tent, tiny cook stove, eat dried food.  Since I didn't have any hope of finding fresh water along the way I started out carrying about 11 gallons,  planning on using about a gallon a day, and hoped to be able to top up if I found some along the way.  Since I used John's water at the club camp I still had plenty.

The next day, Monday, was dead calm, so paddled 5 miles to the south tip of Antelope Island and camped.  It was a hot day, but I found a big rock outcrop with a huge crevice in the shade where I am sitting right now typing this.  Talk about an office with a view! I am so lucky.

They say that sailing is the art of riding storms around.  We had a great storm last week, with wonderful winds. But this week, with a high pressure system building over the area, the forecasts were “Sunny, hot, light winds becoming calm”.  Not too happy for a sailor.  I started out on the final leg of my journey under dead calm conditions, and had resigned myself to paddling the entire 6 miles. No problem. I can do that.  Just grit my teeth and turn up the music on my iPod. And paddle on.  After a few minutes, though, a fresh breeze filled in from behind me and I flew across the next 3 miles in less than an hour with no paddling.  I did have to paddle in the last 3 miles, but it was a delightful day.

As I paddled in and pulled on to the marina launch ramp where my car was parked, a stern looking park ranger walked down and asked me  “Are you Kyle? We have been worrying about you. We found your car left here for days with no word to the harbor master, we looked inside and saw that we were dealing with a kayaker, and proceeded to organize a rescue!”  Fortunately, they had somehow connected with my friend Josh, who I had been communicating with, and they realized that I was fine and had no need of rescue.  I guess I should have left a note on the windshield telling them what my plan was.

So to my original “complaints” about GSL?  There were very few bugs, at least at this time of year, and mostly only around the marina and the Antelope island causeway, and these were non-biting brine flies.  Everywhere else was almost bug free.  Stink?  None, just good salty air.  Too salty?  The only effect of that I saw was that the cuffs of my clothes crusted up rock hard, (but then rinsed “clean” again every day.)  My zippers did seem be pretty unhappy with it.  I had to rinse them daily to keep them sliding.  Too shallow? Maybe for a sailboat with a deep keel, and yes I did have to walk my boat through the shallows to dry land, but it was no big deal.  And I never did see any mud, sucking or otherwise.  The lake bottom and beaches were either hard sand or tufa rock flats, very good walking everywhere.   

 

So was it as good as Baja?   Well, true, there is no spectacular sea life,  no whales, no dolphins.  But I had a grand wilderness adventure, I met wonderful, kind, warm, generous people, I enjoyed great food,  I watched the most spectacular sunsets over sparkling water with majestic mountains everywhere I looked.   No, it’s not Baja, but I can look around,  breath in a big whiff of salty air,  squint my eyes a bit, take a few shots of tequila,  and maybe not be able tell any difference.  Muy Bueno!

 

Vagabunda, my new adventure

Vagabunda.  A 16 foot 2 person sea kayak with foot operated rudder.  Car-toppable, beach launchable.  my dream boat.   I added the outriggers, mast and sail, all out of scavenged junk. The outrigger (extended floaties for stability) )  are made of PVC pipe. the sail is made from an old billboard tarp. (Dasani water.  Appropriate, eh?)  She is rigged with a "sprit" sail pattern, which is a simple 4 sided sail, with the "sprit" spar coming up off the mast at an angle to the outermost upper corner of the sail. This an old  traditional pattern.   Way back in the day, huge barges used this type of sail all over Europe.  I rigged a "brailing" line that pulls the top of the sail close in tight to the mast for stowing quickly and easily. There is no boom to bonk me in head coming about, or to conk me while dropping.  She is a very simple, easy to sail, and very seaworthy craft. I have put many days (and miles) on her over that last year.  I have been out in very rough conditions, and never got a drop over the gunnels, I do use a velcroed spray skirt in case to do get splashed, (but that is very rare) and have never felt nervous or vulnerable.   I have practiced sailing her without the outriggers, solid as a rock, and  and have tipped her over (on purpose) and recovered, bailed out, kept on keeping on. She will carry about 400 pounds, and I have sailed her fully loaded.  All good.   After a long season of proving that she is the right boat for me,   I finally upgraded the scavenged junk parts with a real store bought sail and outriggers. She is even better, but still retains the charm of the do-it-yourself sailor.    She is a very sweet boat, ready for anything.
PS:  Long after I made and named her, I was given a book, Enchanted Vagabonds,   about 2 kids in  1932 that made a 16 foot sailing kayak (out of wood slats  and canvas, no plastic in those days) . They launched from San Diego, sailed down the entire coast of Mexico , into the Sea of Cortez,  on down to Panama, a 3 year adventure.   Paddling, sailing, camping out, living off the land, just them and their little boat.   The name of their little boat?  Vagabunda.

 

 

genesis of a crazy idea - Guymas Mexico November 2009

Main Street Saturday night in Guymas: a Sea of Cortez adventure Nov 2009

My friend Steve had just purchased a sailboat down in Mexico and invited me to come down after Thanksgiving 2009 and help him launch and learn. He had done a lot of sailing as crew on other boats, I had done a lot of sailing on little boats. We figured that between the two of us we might be able to add up to one half-assed sailor. Sort of.

His boat was in San Carlos Mexico, about 250 miles south of Tucson on the Sea of Cortez (AKA Gulf of California). Baja is over yonder, about 80 miles to the west, protecting San Carlos from the swells and storms off the Pacific, but the Sea of Cortez is still very “big water” to me, after sailing on Jordanelle lake my whole life.

San Carlos is a beautiful small harbor town for yachters and sport fishermen. The twin rock pinnacles of Tetas de Cabras (“Teats of the Goat”) tower over the bay. It is a small town, only a few shops and open air taquerrias, a small boat shop, art galleries, a real estate office, but overall pretty quiet with lots of norte americano money. It is a luxury town that only north americans can afford. Houses on the bay cost half a million at least. Mexicans work there, but live in very small houses inland.

Guymas was more “Mexican”, bustling with the old traditional seaport with big ocean going ships that come in and out and several shrimping fleets, a town square with bigger-than-life statues of famous statesmen, businesses, big stores, a small airport. Sport fishing used to be HUGE here, but seems to have died out. Not sure of all the facts why, but the fishing grounds are not as lush as they once were.

Neither town is really infected at all with the mass tourism of so many other places. No McDonalds, no Gap, no Megaplex theater. The movie Catch 22 was filmed here back in the 60s. I preferred Guymas over San Carlos, since it seemed more like “real” Mexico (whatever that is. I wonder if the Mexican residents wished it were more “real” like Chicago or Los Angeles...)

I actually went there once as a kid with our boy scout troop. We mowed lawns and earned money and spent a week there. I have a little chunk of coral that sits on my bathroom vanity from that very beach where they filmed the movie. At a church dance in Guymas I fell in love with a girl named Gloria who spoke no English. I spoke no Spanish. Our relationship consisted of one dance and one conversation “Mi nombre es Kyle, como se nombre?” ( “My name is Kyle, what is your name?”) When I returned to find her, 35 years later, I was heartbroken to find that she had not waited for me and had moved on with her life.

Steve bought this boat from a friend of ours who had bought a bigger boat and was leaving for the south pacific. It is a Balboa 27 named Harmony 27. (the “27” was to differentiate her from another boat named Harmony already there. Never saw that one though.) She is a sloop rig, with a single mast, main sail and a jib. There is a ton (literally, about 2000 lbs) of lead ballast in a shallow draft keel, with a steel plate swing-keel that can be raised or lowered as needed to sail into shallow waters. It was rigged with the same sail pattern as my little 15 foot dinghy Sirocco back home, but obviously much bigger and much more complicated than any boat I had ever been on before. Steve had sailed several other boats even larger and more complicated, but we had a very steep learning curve to learn this particular boat. Fortunately, the weather conditions that week were very calm and forgiving for learning.

It was a simple boat but very comfortable. Small V-berth “stateroom” in the forward part for the captain, and I slept on the couch in the “living room” . Portapotty, sink, stove, all we needed for comfortable living. We hung a solar shower (black plastic bag with a hose) from the mast to clean up with. Steve had installed a solar panel to power a few lights and a portable refrigerator, so we had cold beer. Both Steve and I were used to roughing it on cold mountains in small tents so this was total luxury, even without a Jacuzzi.

Steve had gone down there earlier with his truck full of gear to take possession of the boat before the other guy left town. I came down to join him a few days later. Flights do come in there but are very expensive (“Muy caro”) so I flew to Phoenix and caught the bus from there to Guymas. An 8 bus hour ride, but the bus was a regular long distance rig built for comfort. Air conditioning, reclining seats, and in flight movies. In Spanish of course…… The bus ride was a big part of the joy of the trip for me, as I got to see the scenery and every little town along the way and met many nice people as they got on and off along the way. A few spoke English and I was working on my Spanish (in case I ran into Gloria again…) so I got along fine and had a grand time. Steve met me at the bus terminal in his truck and we moved onto Harmony that night.

The next day we visited our friends that sold Steve the boat, Gene and Gloria (different Gloria..) and Zig, all from Salt Lake. Gene and Gloria had bought a 44 foot luxury yacht, “Pincoya” and were getting ready to sail for the south pacific. We took Harmony out for a spin and had a blast. Winds were pretty strong but she was a good solid boat and very forgiving of our learning curve.

We had a little work to do on the boat before we sailed out for the week. Nothing big, installing the solar panels and refrigerator, installing an auto pilot, provisioning with food and fresh water, but everything takes longer than you ever expect, and we had to scrounge for parts. Like a chunk of wood 2x4 from a dumpster, and short chunk of pipe to rig an extension to the arm of the autopilot. We spent a few days doing that stuff, and were ready to sail by Monday.

We had about 5 days to be out, and our plan was to sail up the coast, poking our nose into every little bay along the way. And there a lot of little bays there. 43 possible places to anchor in the next 70 miles, according to the chart. After the first 5 miles, the signs of civilization ceased and it seemed like total wilderness. This is Sonoran desert at its most stark. Don’t let all the beautiful water fool you. On shore this is the harshest desert on the planet. High rocky peaks and ridges cut by deep steep canyons, saguaro cactus, salt brush, creosote, an occasional palm tree in the deepest darkest of the canyons. A critter’s gotta be tough to live here. And humans ain’t! Beyond the small harbor towns the coastline was largely un-inhabited


We saw very few other boats out. Odd, I thought. There are at least 300 sailboats in the San Carlos area, but we never saw more than 3 out at a time. Sure, it was a bit past the most popular season, but I think they were all waiting on repairs of some sort or another. It seems that spare parts are hard to some by down there, and mail is very unreliable, so it could take a month to get a package, if you ever get it at all. Seeing all the sailers not sailing, waiting for repairs, reinforced my resolve to never own a fancy boat. I have always thought that the simpler the better. Small, simple, cheap. Easy to fix with nothing fancy to break. They say the time you spend sailing a boat in is inverse proportion to it’s length. I saw that starkly in very sad reality at San Carlos.

The weather was clear and sunny for the most part, but a bit unseasonably cool. Days in the low 70s, lows at night in the 50s. it felt balmy to me though, just coming from a blizzard in Salt Lake, but the locals had pulled out their winter jackets and wooly mufflers. We had rain one night, but it cleared and warmed as the week went along.

The first day of our 5 day odyssey we sailed around a bit in the main bay and dropped anchor in a beautiful little nearby bay called Martini Cove. Surrounded by steep cliffs, birds of every sort flying around. My favorites are always the pelicans. They are so fun to watch. They fly in squadrons of 5-10 birds, skimming the waves, flying so low that their wing tips sometimes touch the water, and as they approach a swell, they curl the squadron one by one up and over the swell. Very cool to watch. When feeding (which is most of the time), they will hover 20-30 feet above the water, spot a fish, tuck their wings and drop straight down into a nose dive, hit the water with a big splash and come up with the fish. I am embarrassed to admit it but I once sat for hours doing nothing but watching pelicans fish and never got tired of it.

We saw a crested caracara on the cliffs above us. This is a raptor very much like an osprey, mostly white, dark markings, with a black crest on its white head. Very beautiful and only seen in Mexico, I think.

It was a bit stormy that night, with rain and wind, but there was a beautiful double rainbow over the cliffs to the East. “Rainbow at night, Sailors delight” the old timers say. I have heard from experts that many of those old weather sayings are usually pretty accurate, and sure enough the next several days were gorgeous. Something about with the sun setting in the west, shining through clouds already passed on to the east of us making rainbows that evening. Or something like that.

The next day was pretty calm so we motored north a dozen miles along the coast. We passed abandon old fishing resorts, popular back when there were more fish. The winds picked up pretty strong as we approached our goal, Bahia (bay) de San Pedro and bucking it was a bit of a challenge, so we were glad to duck into the bay quickly. This is a very well-protected lagoon, with rocky shores hooking around us almost in a complete circle, with a long pebble beach running for 2-3 miles in between. There was a camp of local fisherman on shore. They had a small tent set up but most were napping right on the beach. They had a fire going and cooking some sort of meal. They waved, we waved. After a while, towards evening, they all loaded up into a small panga (open skiff-like fishing boat that is very popular there) and took off, leaving the tent. We didn’t see them again. We think the shrimp boats work at night and these fellows may have been sleeping the day on the beach, and took off at evening to report for duty on their ship. Visiting their campsite later, I noticed big stacks of small “conch-looking” shells in and around the fire pit. They were about 2-3 inched across, mostly roundish with spiney protuberances along the bottom edge, colored white on the bottom with speckled earth tones across the top. I’m sure that was what they were cooking, but I have never seen shells like that before. The next day we snorkeled in that bay for hours and never saw one in the water. I’m not sure where they were getting them from, maybe the shrimp nets dredge them up from the bottom out deep, but it looked like they had eaten a whole ton of them.

A big shrimp boat pulled into the bay later. It was a huge old ship, rusty red and all work looking. Nothing festive, or leisure or shiny about that boat. Just work. There were thousands of birds flocking about, roosting on the cables and shrouds. They must have enjoyed a feast of shrimping leftovers.

The next day, we weighed anchor and sailed west to Isla San Pedro. This is a big rock island about 8 miles off shore. The winds were perfect and we sailed briskly. Steve tossed out the fishing gear and caught more fish for dinner. There is nowhere to anchor anywhere on the island, as the water is hundreds of feet deep right up near shore, and no beaches. The rocky cliffs come right down to the water and straight on down, down, down. We circled the island, about a mile wide and 3 miles long, listening to the sea lions bark and roar. They were hard to see, as they were mixed in with the boulders at the base of the cliffs but we could sure hear them!. The cliffs were dark basalt rock but stained bright white by the millions of birds roosting there over millions of years. Steve and I are rock climbers and we guessed that there would be no possible way to climb up those guano stained cliffs.

Sailing the big Balboa 27 was so much different from my little 15 foot Sirocco dinghy back home. Same sloop rig and rudder, but the “feel” was so much heavier and ponderous. With Sirocco I sail with the main sheet in one hand and the tiller in the other, ready at a moment to tweak either one to adjust to a sudden gust. My body weight, too, had to be an integral part of the “ballast”. Every tack required shifting of my body weight to properly trim the overall kit. Slow action there would result in a wild heeling over and probable capsize. With this boat, with a ton of ballast in the keel, and 3 tons overall, we tried to keep the main sail trimmed to control the heel at an efficient angle, but didn’t feel like we had to have the sheet in hand every moment, and moving around didn’t seem to have much effect to her trim. Very odd sensation. I could even sit comfortably on the lee side without feeling like she was going over. I am sure in harsher conditions we would need to be more careful, but in the 15 knot winds we were in, it just didn’t seem like a problem. She had a roller furler jib so it was pretty easy to adjust the size of the jib that we had out. The main sail had 3 sets of jiffy reefing, witch created a lot of lines to deal with and keep untangled. I know people single-hand boats like this, but it seemed like a real handful for that one hand….practice, practice, practice eh?


That evening we were back in Bahia San Pedro with the shrimps boat but no men camped on shore this day. Another sailboat, Safiyah, joined us in the bay and we chatted with one of them. Nice talkative fellow with a long white beard. They were from Florida and it sounded like they spent a lot of time on their boat down here.

The next morning we snorkeled all up and down the rocky shores. Very interesting sea life, with fish of every type: sea stars, coral, some spiny looking critters I was not sure what they were. Sort of lobsterish, but not. Maybe sort of “shrimpish” Much larger than any shrimp I have ever eaten, it was at least 6 inches long. I was pleased at how clean the water and shoreline was. Many places I have seen in Mexico are strewn with washed up litter, but this seemed like a pristine wilderness.

Living on a small boat for several days, for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised how comfortable it was. Even with 2 of us, I never felt cramped or claustrophobic. We lived simply, ate simply, spent the evenings barbequing fish we just caught, enjoying a few shots of tequila straight from the bottle, watching the sun go down. I played my guitar for hours, working on some new songs I never seemed to have time to learn back home. At night the boat rocked and rolled to the swells rolling into the bay. Sometimes it seemed like it rolled much more than the size of the swells would have caused. Never really uncomfortable, but interesting to notice the effect. We read a lot. Never bothered to fire up the iPod, and never missed the TV or radio. Not even NPR.

Steve was a good sailing companion. I hadn’t known him all that well before this, but we got along great. We had similar dispositions and reactions to things like cooking, messes, fixing and rigging things. He was a very analytical thinker and tinkerer (a very handy skill on a boat!) , a quick learner and determined to master sailing, but still conservative enough not to kill himself (and me) in the process. My age, (50) he has been mostly retired for quite a while and when he isn’t sailing he is wandering around the world in his big tall 4x4 live-aboard van.

Mornings were briskly cool. Sitting in the cockpit with a cup of coffee, watching the sunrise over the cliffs, a jacket felt very nice. Once the sun came up, though, jackets and caps peeled off and we were warm for the day.

The next day we sailed back down south to spend the night anchored in Bahia Algdones. There is a small resort and an open beach bar there, but it was still very quiet. Only 1 other boat, no one on the beach. I decided I wanted to paddle the inflatable ducky kayak into the famous Soggy Peso cantina for a token beer while Steve made ceviche (fish cooked cold in fresh-squeezed lime juice. Delish!) The ducky was solid and easy to paddle, but as I hit the beach I mis-managed a killer 4" wave and the angle of the beach, and I capsized and rolled down into the water for a full immersion amphibious landing. The fisherman at the bar had a great laugh at my expense. I walked up the beach dripping wet and said "I hear you take soggy pesos here" and they said, "I'll bet you have some!"

The next day we ended our little journey back at San Carlos. I had to catch my bus back north the next evening. We bummed around town, visiting with other boaters about their boats, went to a swap meet and an artsy fair on the boardwalk and such. I went to a bar on shore that night and Steve propped the dock gate open for me, but some well meaning security-minded person, thinking only of our safety, slammed it shut so when I came back to the boat later, I had to rock climb along the old masonry sea wall to get past the gate to get to our dock. It wasn’t hard, and it wasn’t far, but at night, in sandals, after a few beers, above the blackest water I can imagine, it was the boldest solo climb of my career.

One of the hi-lights of the week was the 2 hours we spent wandering Guymas Main street before I had to catch my bus. It was just so very cool! Guymas families out on Main street on a Saturday night. Moms and dads and kids and grandparents, all out for the evening. It seemed that were a lot of shoe stores (ladies) , pharmacies, and toy stores. Steve got a blade shave from a classic barber shop. Saturday night, and the barbershop was a hoppin place! Out on the street next door, there were a bunch of teenage boys playing drums to some soundtrack, making a ton of noise and having a ball. I dropped a 20 peso bill ( about a buck and a half) on the youngest-looking kid’s drum and he beamed as if he were Elvis. We danced with them all as we walked by and for just a moment, I felt like maybe I had lived there once in a former life. What a cool place. Main Street Saturday night in Guymas.

I left Steve there in San Carlos to keep sailing for another few weeks. My bus ride home was a “red eye”, launching at 8:00 PM. We rode all night, and reached Phoenix by daylight where I caught my flight back home. Landed in another blizzard in Salt Lake. Now I know why people retire to someplace warm. Maybe, just maybe, it would be possible to retire early, live “on the cheap” on a sailboat in Guymas. Sip your morning coffee watching the sun come up from the cockpit of a simple boat. Eat a fish you just caught. Get a shave on main street on a Saturday night. Maybe.

First post - Sailing yellowstone Lake Aug 2009

The Duckling that Came in From the Rain
A Yellowstone Lake odyssey. Aug 2009 By Kyle Williams




You can set your watch by the winds on Yellowstone Lake. Every day in the late summer, about 8:00 AM, the all-night east breeze gives way to a morning Northerly wind, 10 knots or so. At noon the winds start gyrating madly, Elvis-hips-ishly, and all points of the compass are thoroughly represented. By 1:00 they settle into the afternoon southwest wind, up to about 20 knots, and at 4:00, the thunderstorms arrive with rain, hail, lightning, thunder, and 40+ gale winds. In 1838, Francis Beaufort, trying to define the wind, would have called it Force 8 conditions. The surface of the lake is instantly whipped to a froth, with streamers spraying off the 3 foot wave crests. All is a maelstrom. By 7:00, it quickly settles back down and is mill-pond calm for the rest of the evening.



Sailing a small 15 foot boat in these conditions would be terrifying if it weren’t for the predictability. Like your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, you know what to expect and can plan accordingly. We only goofed once. The second day out, the storm caught us out on the water and we didn’t make it into our little harbor until 4:30. We pulled in white-knuckled, breathing hard, and thoroughly chastened for our ignorance. Lesson learned, not to be repeated. Sirocco is a stable little boat, with a sloop rig, steel centerboard, and a tiny cabin only big enough for gear storage. She handled all these conditions very well.

My neighbor Steve Townsend and I were out there for 8 days. Loaded with camping gear and an inflatable kayak up under the bow, we launched Sirocco at Grant Village in the West Thumb, and sailed for 2 days east and south across the lake, and down to the tip of the Southeast arm. This is one of the most remote corners of Yellowstone Park, (and maybe even the nation…) where motorboats are not allowed and true wilderness is near total. We were camping on shore, moving every day or 2.

We had moored Sirocco in a protected bay and paddled our kayak across 3 miles to a trail access point. We saw a family of otters sleekly swimming along in front of us, and lost count of the bald eagles we saw, and as we pulled into that bay we saw an osprey on a snag looking intently at the water below. In a moment, she hopped up off the branch, hovered for a moment and dive-bombed into the water, came up with a cutthroat trout in her talons, and flew directly over us to perch back on the snag for dinner. Under bluebird skies we hiked to South Arm, and as we entered a vast meadow we saw a pack of wolves trotting across and out of site. 4 blacks and 1 gray, absolutely breathtaking in their strength and beauty. As we hiked back to the kayak to paddle back to camp, we stopped to visit John and Alf, who we has bumped into back in Salt Lake City and knew were going to be camped somewhere near here. It was 3:00 PM and we knew we couldn’t count on being across the water to our camp before the 4:00 storm so we hunkered down and waited. Black clouds were building and we didn’t have to wait long. The afternoon light show fired up right on schedule and we had a ringside seat on the bluff above the lake. We had foul weather gear with us but the rain was more ferocious than normal, pounding the ground around us, and wild winds ripping, so John pitched a tarp for us all to hunker down under and drink hot soup he so graciously offered. The rain was blowing horizontal so the tarp lean-to was perfect protection. That is, until the wind shifted 180 degrees and we had to hustle to rig another tarp in the mirror image of the first, making a fine-looking nylon yurt. As we sat there enjoying the storm in all its wonder, a baby duckling suddenly appeared under the corner of the tarp. Apparently lost, looking for momma, and as grateful as we were to be out of the storm. No country for old men, or cold ducks. He was shivering. I didn’t know ducks ever got cold! For heaven sakes, they swim around in water surrounded by ice, seemingly immune to the cold, but this little guy didn’t look comfy at all. I tried to catch him to tuck him into a warm cap, but he scampered off and disappeared into the brush. After a few hours the storm softened just a bit and we got out to stretch our legs. Just then we saw the duck swimming out the narrow mouth of the bay, out into lake, which surely meant certain death for him, either from the still-raging waters, or from the eagles that cruise over-head with a sharp lookout for such a morsel. The circle of life. He was duck-paddling strong and squalling loud to attract momma when we lost sight of him for the last time. Fair thee well, my fine feathered friend! By 8:00 the wind and waves had subsided enough to allow us back on the water safely and we paddled into our camp long after dark, ready for a long rest and warm bed, grateful for the kind hospitality of our new friends.

The week passed quickly, with days filled with sailing, paddling and hiking. We paddled up the Yellowstone river delta, surprising a huge bull moose browsing on the shore-side willows, and checked out a 10 foot high beaver lodge. I’ll bet it was more luxurious inside than our tents! We saw many bear tracks in the mud on the shore, but I didn’t see a bear all week. One day in camp I was off on a hike (looking for bears) and as I came back Steve asked, “Did you see it?” “ See what” “A grizzer bear walked right past our camp, drank from the lake and walked right on back into the trees.” I’m still not sure I believe him, he can be a bit of a joker sometimes, but he sure seemed earnest about it so I gotta report that “we” saw a bear. We practiced “bear safety” with a zeal bordering on religiosity. Sleep way over there, cook way over here, don’t allow any food mess to remain, and put everything, including our clothes we ate in, into the bag to pull up into the tree tops every night. A kayak rangerette named Jacki stopped by regularly to make sure that every camp on the lake was obeying the rules. She had to leave us a nice nasty note one day, as we had failed to string a bucket up the pole one day.) Once a bear tastes human food, then no one in the area is safe until that bear is removed far away or killed. Usually killed, eventually, because they will find their way back and resume a life addicted to marshmallows and top ramen.

Ready to head out, with a 2 days of sailing between us and French fries and hot showers, we had the boat packed for an early start, hoping to catch the remnants of the nightly east wind, which would have been perfect for sailing on a beam reach up and out of the Southeast Arm. We rowed out into the bay to hoist sail and drop the centerboard , and we discovered that our centerboard wouldn’t drop. Stuck up in it’s trunk! We had been dragging her up onto the pea-gravel beach over night, and pebbles had jammed the centerboard tightly inside the trunk, preventing it from dropping. ARGH!! Back to shore we went, and we careened her over, pulling on the main halyard to hold her on her side with her under-belly exposed, and I spent the next hour in waist deep water with a stubby screwdriver prying out the pebbles. Next time a long skinny metal hook will be in the tool kit. Because of the delay from the jammed pebbles, we missed the east wind and had to beat up against the north wind all morning. John and Alf passed us paddling in their 17 foot Tripper canoe. Later, out on the main lake, the “Elvis winds” caught us we were trying in vain to get around Plover Point. We spent a very frustrating hour getting nowhere in a hurry. John later told us they could see us from their camp and marveled at our patience. Tacking back and forth, then again and again, with winds changing to come from a different quarter, then they would change a gain. As the steady afternoon winds blew up from the south, we made quick westerly progress and pulled into the protection of Wolf bay before the gales came on, and we camped for the night. Now this camp was fraught with peril because we didn’t have a camping permit for Wolf bay. Yellowstone park requires all backcountry camping to be in designated areas, by permit only. Our permit for that night was out at Breezy Point, 5 miles along, but we couldn’t make it that far, what with the hurricanes and all, and we were told that the rangers didn’t cotton to folks camping where they aught not to, so we knew we were taking a big chances stopping at Wolf bay. Facing possible jail time or at least maybe a stern talking to, we camped there anyway. We dodged that bullet, as no one else showed up at the camp to claim it, and no rangers came to cite us. Don’t no one tell, OK?

The next day our watches must have stopped: the world was all out of kilter. No wind came up at all that morning, from any quarter, fair or foul. After 8 days, we were ready to be finished with it all, so we broke down and for the first time on the trip pulled out the little electric motor and powered our way back to civilization. A light breeze finally came up about 1:00, so we hoisted sail for that last mile and sailed on into the marina, displaying a very masterly approach to the dock under full sail. A perfect landing after a perfect week in a perfect place.