I was woken up in the wee hours of the morning, just before twilight, by a strange noise. I got up and walked into camp and figured out that three coyotes were taking turns getting into one of my food boxes that I had left partially unlatched. The damn coyotes actually ate a loaf of my bread and a whole box of protein bars!! I closed the box and put it away and went back to bed. Right before I fell asleep the coyotes had walked up to within a few feet of my tent and started howling!!! The little bastards were mad at me! I got up again, this time mad, and I put on my sandles and took off through the desert chasing the coyotes!! I chased them a few hundred yards, finding more of my food too. Damn yotes, they were lucky that I didn't have a rifle!

Besides the coyotes, I had slept really well. We hit the kayaks early to get out for some exploring while the weather was calm.

The island, Isla Alcatraz, was as I remembered. I got to the island first and got a few pictures of Brian and Marisa paddling over.

The large green sea turtle shell from Dec 2005 was no longer there.  It had been broken up into pieces over the last year and a half.

Walking around the island is really interesting. Lots of cool stuff.

Active Osprey nest

Great blue heron nest with eggs.

Momma heron was mad at me for taking pictures. :)

Dead pelican

I tried getting some pictures of the American Oystercatchers that were everywhere, but I didn’t bring my big camera and lens.  I wasn’t comfortable taking the dSLR in the kayak this morning.  Brian did though and he got some great pictures of the bird. 

There was also a moment of levity after Brian landed on the island.  Half way across he found a very large spider in his cockpit with him!  I’m glad it wasn’t me, I probably would have flipped my yak freaking out about it!!  Here is Brian trying to find the spider to remove it.  

It was the beginning of nesting season for the gulls and there were many nests on the ground.  I didn’t know that gulls nested on the ground. 

Around lunchtime the winds started blowing again, so we decided to head north.  At this point in the trip, with the bad weather for the last several days, I had decided that leaving a day early was best.  We originally had planned on leaving Baja on Sunday and somehow I was planning on driving all the way home that day too, but that was very ambitious.  I approached Brian and Marisa and they were fine with leaving on Saturday instead.

We drove north and made it to Gonzaga Bay around 4pm.  The gas station was closed, so we didn’t get gas, but with our reserve, I knew we’d be fine to San Felipe. We made a quick stop at Alfonsinas, but they were not open either. There was a cool plane parked though.

We stopped at Punta Bufeo to see if some friends were home, but they were not, so we continued north a  little more and took the La Palma arroyo out to the water and made our last camp on the beach.  Another beautiful camp with a great view of Isla San Luis beckoning to us all night...