The wind howled all night long and we woke up to everything covered in sand.  The wind gave us a short break in the morning, enough time to cook up some pancakes and eat.  After that it started again.  We just dressed warmly and dealt with it. 

You can see the whitecaps from the wind.

The tide was really low this morning so we went out to do some tide-pooling.  This was a lot of fun and the diversity in tide-pools always amazes me.  We had the best luck flipping rocks.  Saw quite a few sea urchins, but I kept my hands clear. 

At lunchtime the weather was really turning and the clouds were rolling in from the Pacific over the mountains. It was striking watching the weather move in.   

We loaded up and headed out.  I had planned to potentially meet a friend of mine, Mark, but after 2 days of hailing him on the radio, we must have been on different schedules.  We decided to head north to our secluded beach at Ensenada Alcatraz and get away from all the people at Daggets.  The camp was really filling up. 

The drive out to Alcatraz was uneventful and we didn’t see another soul on the road the whole time.  The mud flats you have to drive through right before the beach were a little wet and we broke through the crust a few times, but they were not wet enough to be real mushy.  Once we arrived, we still had quite a bit of wind, but it was a lot easier to deal with with such beauty all around and a whole beach to ourselves! 

Even in bad weather, how can a beach like this be bad? :)

We had another break in the weather that night for a couple hours and I cooked up some spaghetti. I managed to get it all over my face. :-)

After dinner the wind hit again with a vengeance!   I had put up my tent for the first time on the trip because I thought it might rain. It was early and we decided to hang out in back of the truck to get out of the wind.  We ended up piling into the back of my Tacoma with a bottle of red wine, a deck of miniature playing cards, and a bag of chocolate chips!  Brian was the banker and he handed out the chocolate chips and we played cards for a few hours.  It was a lot of fun and wine and chocolate always go together! 

After the wine was gone and the laughs had died down, it was time for bed.  I crawled into my tent and the wind was howling and whipping my tent.   I thought I’d be able to sleep through it, but not a chance.  Every time I’d get close to falling asleep a big gust would come along and slam my tent into my head!  It was comical.   I think I slept an hour or two all night.