One of my favorite movie directors is Michelangelo Antonioni (perhaps best known in the US for Blow Up). L’Avventura is one of the films that established Antonioni as a significant director — at the Cannes debut, people booed the film, always a sure sign of something good and original. The film is about a group of people who go to an island on a yacht, where one of the group disappears. The rest of the film is about the search for her.

So, anyway, Suzana and I took our friend Samina out to one of the local islands, Isla Espiritu Santo, for a three day outing. While there, we enjoyed the scenery, slept late, and took our two kayaks out for some water fun. I should, perhaps, mention that both kayaks currently have “issues”: one has a slow air leak, that takes days to deflate; and the other has a slight water leak — it won’t sink, but you end up sitting in a puddle of water after a while.

On the second day, Samina and Suzana took the kayaks out while I took a shower.

When I finished the shower, twenty minutes later, I looked out to see how far they’d gotten. They were nowhere to be seen!

I looked in all directions. Nothing! I got out the binoculars and scanned the coastline. Nothing! I’m not the sort to panic, but my heart rate was, shall we say, elevated above a normal functioning level.

It didn’t make any sense. The kayaks are bright orange, easy to see. One might possibly have sunk, but not both. They might conceivably have been driven out to sea by the tide, but I should still be able to see them!

I considered raising the anchor and motoring around looking for them, but that’s hard to do single handed. I considered calling the other boat in the bay to see if they’d seen them, but it seemed unlikely they would have. I considered sticking my head in the sand, but for that I’d have to get to shore somehow.

While trying to come up with some other unworkable alternative, I saw a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye. Grabbing the binoculars again, I managed to locate them, right up next to the rocks.

Though less than half a mile away, they were small enough and camouflaged by the rocks so that they were nearly impossible to see. But they were fine, and headed back to the boat, both having a great time and quite happy.

I didn’t mention this experience to them until we were back in La Paz a couple days later… I don’t know if they noticed at the time how happy I was to welcome them back aboard Gardyloo.

Our friend Susan (last name not actually Jones) swam with whales in Tonga. We’ve been jealous and trying to catch up ever since. Recently, we took a step closer, though we haven’t yet fully achieved oceanic parity.

Together with Suzana’s brother, Robert, we swam with whale sharks, which are the largest (by far) fish in the world. While not technically whales, whale sharks are still pretty impressive. To quote Wikipedia:

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of 12.65 m (41.5 ft) and a weight of about 21.5 t (47,000 lb).^[8] The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the largest living nonmammalian vertebrate.

The whale shark is found in open waters of the tropical oceans and is rarely found in the water below 21 °C (70 °F).^[2] Modeling suggests a lifespan of about 70 years, but measurements have proven difficult.^[9] Whale sharks have very large mouths and are filter feeders, which is a feeding mode that occurs in only two other sharks, the megamouth shark and the basking shark. They feed almost exclusively on plankton and small fishes, and pose no threat to humans.

Swimming with whale sharks near La Paz can only be done with a guide. There are several companies that provide the guide service. We picked the one that goes out of our marina, On Board Baja, making the logistics easy. They supplied snorkeling equipment and wet suits:

A knowledgable and enthusiastic guide:

A driver:

And where to find the whale sharks:

Here’s Suzana, Robert, the guide, and a whale shark (grey shape with white dots and a fin sticking out of the water, at the bottom of the photo):

The whale sharks we swam with were juveniles, perhaps 3-4 meters long. That’s big enough so that your normal sense of scale sort of breaks down, making for a very surreal experience.

They have huge mouths, giant gills, and a really big tail. There are also often smaller fish hanging off the whale sharks.

While you try not to get too close, Suzana and I were both, separately, bumped into by whale sharks that came up from behind so that we didn’t see them coming. Getting too close or bumping isn’t really dangerous, but it scares them away. Which is another weird part of the experience, that something so much bigger than you is scared of you.

A good time was had by all — well, I can’t speak for the whale sharks, but we enjoyed the hell out of it.