With each paddle stroke, sea spray pelts my face like driving rain. In the past five minutes, I've barely moved along the limestone cliffs of the shore. My guide Terry Prichard - my partner in this two-man kayak - yells at the nearby boats, "Paddle back to shore!" We've taken too long a lunch break and the wind has picked up: we're fighting a strong headwind. But I don't mind; the sky above is a sharp blue, and this morning three bottlenose dolphins passed close by our beachfront camp.
We're heading for our campsite on a cactus-covered island in the Sea of Cortez, along the Baja California peninsula. I've come here to explore the Loreto Bay National Marine Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park's 2,000 square kilometres of water and land are home to blue whales and 891 species of fish, including many that appear nowhere else on earth. With cloudless skies and temperate weather, it seemed the perfect escape from a still-cold Canadian winter.
Our trip began the day before in Loreto, a laid-back town of 15,000 on the east coast of Baja. After divvying up supplies for a week of kayaking, our group of five Canadians sets off with our guides to one of the five uninhabited Sea of Cortez Islands: Danzante Island, a narrow, rocky land mass peppered with soaring sea birds and cardon cactus.
Prichard, a lanky 54-year-old who started outfitter Sea Kayak Adventures in the early 1990s with his wife Nancy, offered tips on technique: If I was going to be able to paddle all week, I would have to break the beginner's habit of using my arms and work the larger muscles of my back and abdomen. Despite the coaching, my arms were soon aching, and I let Prichard do most of the work.
After a lunch stop on a bone-covered gravel beach, we made the three-kilometre crossing to Carmen Island, the largest island in the park and our base for the night. Boats were hauled up, tents erected and the group was soon devouring a dinner of fish Veracruz on rice, washed down with tequila sunrise. Then Prichard gave us the bad news. "Baja has one of the highest concentrations of scorpions in the world," he said. If we ventured out to pee at night, we'd best not be barefoot.
And as I was about to go to bed, I got a direct introduction to the local fauna. Manuel, one of the guides, held a saucer-sized tarantula in his hand. He didn't flinch as it crawled up his arm and across his chest before he placed it back on the ground. I knew I would be having nightmares. I retired to my tent, searched carefully with my headlamp for any intruders, and zipped it tight.
Today, we've been paddling south, with the wind mostly at our backs. Now, we struggle through the wind to the lee of the island, relax and hug the coast. Suddenly, my paddle strokes get me distance. Pelicans perch on guano-stained rocks and blue-footed boobies soar overhead. Sandy coves and turquoise bays line the squat wall of cliffs.
This idyllic landscape has caught the eye of developers. Long known for sport fishing and adventure travel - and as an escape from the tequila bars and tourist resorts of Cabo San Lucas, further south at the tip of Baja - Loreto is now in the sights of resort builders, including the Trust For Sustainable Development, a Canadian company that launched a $3-billion project here. (It has been stalled by the credit crunch.)
In Mexico, "All sun and sand development [sites have] been taken," Laura Escobosa, an articulate marine biologist who manages an environmental NGO in Loreto, tells me later.
