{"id":20738,"date":"2023-01-07T00:01:14","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T08:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=20738"},"modified":"2023-01-07T06:30:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T14:30:01","slug":"charlie-dont-paddleboard-a-baja-new-years-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/07\/charlie-dont-paddleboard-a-baja-new-years-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Don\u2019t Paddleboard: A Baja New Year\u2019s Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Mike Huber<\/h6>\n

There was no better way to ring in 2023 than camping off our motorcycles on a beautiful beach in Bahia Conception in Baja, Mexico.\u00a0 The only thing that made the moment more special was sharing cigars, Tecates, and Tequila with our new friends in the palapas to our left and right while sitting around a fire.\u00a0 Somehow, I managed to make it until 10 p.m., which is equal to a Boston New Year, and I surpassed my previous Baja New Year by 1 hour.\u00a0 I was pretty proud of myself.<\/p>\n

\"\" Groggily awaking the next morning to the sunrise peering over the mountains across the bay was a serene way to start the new year.\u00a0 Once we had a coffee (or three) in us we decided to pack up and make our way back north. The plan was originally to hotel in Guerrero Negro for the night, but we had made such incredible time riding that we arrived in town by 11:30, and it seemed too early to stop for the day.\u00a0 The biggest problem with this is once you leave Guerrero Negro there isn\u2019t much (really anything) until you arrive in Gonzaga Bay, which is another 4+ hours of riding and the possibility of bad winds.\u00a0 We rolled the dice and decided to attempt the ride to Gonzaga confident we would arrive just before sunset, which I had confirmed was at 16:49 PST.<\/p>\n

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The ride up was rather uneventful and even the winds seemed to be cooperating with us on the last leg of this ride.\u00a0 In pulling up to the Rancho Grande Tienda to reserve our campsite, refuel the bikes, and load up on firewood we were starting to feel the 320 miles we had just completed.\u00a0 One of the cool things about camping in this location is the rather long bundle of firewood they provide.\u00a0 Every time I load the wood on the moto it looks like some type of biplane. \u00a0What completes the biplane feeling is riding to the palapas on the bay you are parallel with an airstrip, so you actually feel like you are about to take off. Just as we hit the 1-kilometer dirt road the winds began to increase heavily.\u00a0 This was the norm for this part of Baja and wasn\u2019t too alarming for us.<\/p>\n

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Thankfully the palapa provided us with some protection from the swirling gusts, but not from the roaring freight train sounds that would keep us awake through the night as a demoralizing reminder that we\u2019ll have to ride in them the following day.<\/p>\n

After setting up our home for the evening it was time for a cold Tecate beer to unwind and enjoy the gorgeous views of the bay and the mountains that surround it.\u00a0 As I sat in my chair, I noticed a lone paddleboarder in the bay and became a bit alarmed with his lack of movement while he struggled to fight the wind to return to shore. He was quite a ways out and it was obvious the wind was physically and mentally wearing him down from this difficult battle.\u00a0 I could see him stand up to paddle ferociously for a few moments and then he would lay on the board, clearly to rest.\u00a0 This went on for about one more Tecate when I noticed it was 15:45.\u00a0 People were beginning to gather on the shore to watch his valiant yet seemingly unsuccessful attempt to return to his camp, but he wasn\u2019t getting any closer.\u00a0 It was time for me to walk the beach and see who this person was with, gain insight on his experience level, how long he was out for, and determine next steps (if any were needed).<\/p>\n

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After a few minutes I found his wife who didn\u2019t seem to be concerned until I mentioned that sunset would be in an hour.\u00a0 At that moment the full weight of the situation set in, and she became frantic.\u00a0 Being one to always travel with a SpotGen 3 GPS emergency beacon I powered it on, gave her a brief tutorial on how to activate the SOS button, handed it to her and said, \u201cIf I am not back in 15 minutes you push the SOS button.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0I then directed her to drive the bay in search of a fisherman or boater that could possibly assist.\u00a0 While she was working the problem from that angle, I fired up the BMW GS1200 and returned to the tienda to see if I could find a local that could assist in what clearly was becoming a rescue operation.<\/p>\n

The locals in the tienda didn\u2019t seem to know anyone that could help.\u00a0 This was not what I expected, and my brain was scrambling for any other ideas to save this person.\u00a0 As I exited the store the man\u2019s wife came flying into the parking lot creating a mini dust storm from her sprinter van.\u00a0 She was even more panicked then earlier. Just as I was about to take the GPS beacon, return to the location of the paddleboarder and press SOS we saw a 1960s VW van with some surfers with their boards on the roof.\u00a0 After explaining the situation, they fully agreed to help, and we all raced back to the beach.\u00a0 We had 40 minutes of sun left before it disappeared over the desert mountains behind us.\u00a0 Once our rescue caravan arrived one of the surfers quickly dawned his wetsuit, grabbed his board, and was off into the cold, windy waters. \u00a0Fortunately, it didn\u2019t take him very long to reach the distressed paddler, secure his paddleboard to his surfboard and tow him back in.\u00a0 Everyone was safe and back on shore with 10 minutes of sunlight remaining.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The rescue operation was a success.\u00a0 The hero surfers made a hasty exit just as the last rays of light from the sun began to fade into the lonely desert.\u00a0 An hour later the family came over to our palapa to gift us with a couple bottles of wine as a thank you for assisting in the rescue mission. \u00a0Of course, we invited them to share our campfire.\u00a0 Chatting with the paddleboarder, we learned this was his first paddleboarding experience. Together we relived the moments of the day from each of our perspectives while drinking the wine and enjoying the glow of the fire.\u00a0 What could have been a much worse ending was nothing more then a valuable lesson for him.\u00a0 The true heroes were the surfers, and I never even got their names before they rolled back down the dusty road and into the Baja desert.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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More good Baja articles and stories<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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Headed into Baja?\u00a0 Insure with the best:\u00a0 BajaBound<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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By Mike Huber There was no better way to ring in 2023 than camping off our motorcycles on a beautiful beach in Bahia Conception in Baja, Mexico.\u00a0 The only thing that made the moment more special was sharing cigars, Tecates, and Tequila with our new friends in the palapas to our left and right while … Continue reading “Charlie Don\u2019t Paddleboard: A Baja New Year\u2019s Story”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[63],"tags":[2453,3,3300,420,94],"class_list":["post-20738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baja","tag-bahia-concepcion","tag-baja","tag-baja-camping","tag-bmw","tag-triumph"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Paddleboard_BIkes_1-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20738"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20783,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20738\/revisions\/20783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}