Baja California Sur

 
Every year, in March, the 180/185 club goes to Baja. I am not real fond of Mexico, it makes me nervous to be surrounded by teenagers with machine guns every time I land somewhere. However, once you get past that, it is a magical place.

 
It does feel safer when you are with a group. It would help a lot if I could speak Spanish!
 
The club used to stay here at Punta Chivato. It was $60 a night, but was a little run down. Now, they have redecorated, and raised the rates to $140 a night. So, this year (2001) the club is going to camp out at San Franciquito.

 

We flew over to the Pacific coast, to hunt for the wiley sand dollars, and have a picnic.

 

The highlight of the trip is to fly to San Ignacio and pet the whales. Circle the airstrip before you land, and you will be met by local entrepreneurs, who will take you out in their Panga boats.

 

 

It is quite amazing, the whales want to be petted. The whales are in pairs, mom and baby. The babies are only 20 feet long or so (about the length of your panga), and the moms at least 40. The moms seem to say "Check this out junior, these crazy humans will pet us if we get close!".

 

You can tell this is a baby, it doesn't have any barnacles.

 

When it is time to return to the U.S., you must have a 12 inch N-number. I took a roll of red duct tape for this. I put them on the night before we returned, so they wouldn't stick too hard. This is at the Hotel Serinidad airstrip at Mulege. As you can tell from the quality of my numbers, they have excellent Margaritas there.