BeigeJournal

“I don’t know whether some people rob convenience stores for the money or just to get on TV”— Heard on TLC’s “What Were You Thinking.”

Kayaking the Vermilion Sea: Eight Hundred Miles Down the Baja, by Jonathan Waterman. 1995

Another delightful book by Jonathan Waterman. I enjoyed Arctic Crossing and I’ve now got his mountaineering books on my list to read someday. Jonathan and his wife Deborah spent two months and 1.08 million paddle strokes traveling the Baja California coast by sea kayak. Like most adventure travel writers he makes the journey sound like fun even as he describes the occasional hardships. The journey is a test of their relationship as well, as you might imagine.

Interspersed with the descriptions of the journey, the people, places, and weather encountered, run a history of European influence in the region and descriptions of environmental degradation and overfishing. It makes for a quite interesting book.