However, last week around this time I found myself saying this to my new fishing partner JT: "I hate running from weather reports, but this one is a hurricane report . . . ."
I refer to reports of the ominous reports of Hurricane Rick, who at the time had just been upgraded from Tropical Storm to Hurricane and given his oh-so-scary and menacing name. He was headed, by almost all projections, directly toward the lower part of the Baja peninsula. Of course, I was planning to approach lower Baja that same night from the opposite direction.
I'd already caught some whiffs of Rick from wunderground.com forecasts, and they didn't look good. In an area so dry they usually don't bother making bridges across the rivers, clouds and rain were forecast for mid-week. This alone would have interfered with me and my plans, because I do like driving off on primitive dirt roads and camping primitively on the beach, away from big gringo RVs. Even if I had my 4WD truck instead of a Cabo rental car, this would be bad news.
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| From Fishin Sabbatical |
Plus, along with the rain forecasts, they were forecasting unusually strong winds up to 40 m. p. h. both in the morning and afternoon. I paddle in decent winds like any other really commited sea kayaker, and I do it because you inevitable get caught in them and must be prepared to handle them. But I ain't stupid enough to paddle out when it is already whitecapping at first light. And when those winds are part of a thing called a Hurricane, whatever its name? I think not.
The storm was basically forecast to keep me on shore for several days or more, gutting my trip. I had a sinking feeling from the start that cancellation would happen, but nonetheless got busy hunting around for information and checking stormpulse.com every ten minutes. Friday was not a restful day. Some people I consulted just said "Go for it," and I was sorely tempted to do so. I thought maybe I could hide out inland in a hotel in Ciudad Constitucion for a couple boring days while the storm passed and then get back to fishing. But other voices, from bulletin boards frequented by expats actually living in Baja, told a different tale:
If you are there and this one, "Rick" comes through there will be no hotel rooms available. People I have talked to who are there now have all reserved rooms for this blessed event already. If this is like Jimena, which I sincerely hope it isn't, there will be no food, water, electricity, no atms, bridges knocked out, etc. It is NOT the place to be during a hurricane or after, for that matter.
So I did cancel. And guess what? By Saturday Rick got promoted to category 5, and they started saying he was the second strongest East Pacific hurricane on record. By Sunday he was already turning away from a path toward landfall on Baja, and by Monday he was demoted several points down, almost to a mere tropical storm. Rick fizzled out. It turned out to be a best-case scenario, in which I could have gone down and lost one day on the water, if that.
Though in reality, I probably would have been having a very unrelaxed time in a camp on Mag Bay, watching the sky and worrying if my cheap rental car was ever going to get back out of there.
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| From Baja Winter Solstice Fishin Tour |
No matter, there is a new plan, and it is good: the spell of condo livin' and panga fishing that was planned for the end of my trip is now at its beginning, and the forecasts look wonderful for the foreseeable future at the tip of Baja. I'm going to hang out and fish with some friends, paddle a new area for new pelagic species, and probably drive off to spend a few days in my little remote fishing heaven down there. Personally, I'm forecasting a flurry of dorado with occasional 40-80 pound gusts of striped marlin and yellowfin tuna. We shall see.
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