Mark

What are your mods?

Raymond

On 10/14/07, Mark Drillock <mdrillock@cox.net> wrote:
>
> My wife and I just returned from a camping trip to Baja. We spent 12
> nights on a nice beach about 700 miles south of the border and another
> night each way to break up the drive. We had many good times and saw
> more marine wildlife than usual. One day we were out in our boat fishing
> near a remote beach and we saw dozens of sea turtles all around us. We
> had seen a turtle here and there many times over the years but never
> more than one or two in a day. This day we could simply not count all
> the ones around us in the water at the same time. In the clear water we
> saw many swimming by below us as well as the ones watching us on the
> surface. Turtles on the surface are a strange sight, with their shells
> mostly at or below the surface of the water. They stretch and strain
> their necks to get their heads high above the surface like periscopes
> when they hear or sense something near them. Later we heard that fresh
> turtle egg nests had been seen on some of the beaches.
>
> We prefer the warmer and calmer Sea of Cortez side of Baja and usually
> spend 2 weeks in early fall camping, kayaking, snorkeling, fishing, etc.
> The beach we always try to go to at that time is at the upper edge of
> the area most affected by hurricanes and this year it showed some minor
> recent storm damage. The usual dunes along the beach were largely
> flattened and our favorite camp spot at the very end was washed away
> enough by storm surge that I did not care to risk parking there this time.
>
> We had arrived late in the day and were pushing to get to the beach long
> enough before dark to have time to pick a good spot we could stay at for
> the whole trip. With varying tides and changing winds, some spots are
> fine for a night or 2 but carry the risk of being unsuitable for longer
> periods. As we came over a small rise with a view of the long beach I
> could see the situation clearly enough. Deep tracks in the sand where
> people had been stuck, a minivan parked well back from the dunes with
> the owner's tents much closer to the beach. I recognized a couple of
> other camps as belonging to people we knew from prior years. Straight
> ahead there was a nice empty spot between some scrub brush covered sand
> dunes and I pulled the knob to lock the rear diff, gunned the motor and
> aimed for it. A guy came running out from the dunes waving his arms in
> warning. I stopped to talk and he said I would get stuck if I tried it
> just like he and several others who had tried for that spot. With my
> boat/kayak trailer, surely I would be badly stuck he thought. Thanks I
> said, and gunned the motor again. When I hit the deepest sand the tires
> spun a little but we kept right on going to just the place I wanted to
> be. I was not sure I could get back out so easily but I would worry
> about that later. We made it out with no trouble as well. During our
> stay several people got stuck trying to get near the beach where we
> camped. Syncros can do some impressive things and with a few mods even
> more so.
>
> The first night was warm, calm and quiet, with a billion stars and a
> prominent Milky Way. Far out in the distance over the water we could see
> lightning flashes by the hundreds. This distant lightning continued
> every night of the trip except one. The third night the lightning came
> in to shore and we had a tremendous thunderstorm with several hours of
> rain.
>
> No two days of the trip were exactly alike, typical for Baja and the Sea
> of Cortez. The 9th and 10th days were windy, blowing so steady from the
> north that during the night the Syncro developed a sharp lean to the
> north side. The wind erodes the sand from around the nearest tires so
> much that the vehicle actually sinks. I had to several times dig sand
> out from under the other side tires to level the Syncro out. After the
> windiest night it was so bad that I moved the Syncro over about 6 feet
> to a fresh spot. The sand that blows out from under the van piles up
> high behind the protected side. We had a 2 foot high dune right outside
> the slider that was not there when we went to bed.
>
> The calm returned again for the last 2 nights, along with cooler temps
> that had us actually pulling a sheet over us in bed and placing a
> blanket where we could use it too just before dawn. The next to the last
> night was the clearest of the trip. We sat out after supper and just
> stared up at the sky. In addition to many shooting stars, we spotted 10
> satellites in about an hour, all but one in polar orbits.
>
> We went fishing from our inflatable boat on about half the days we were
> there. We caught nice Dorado (mahi mahi) and shared with others camped
> on the beach each time. Late on our last afternoon we went dusk fishing
> for a Sierra and shared the ceviche we made from it with our neighbors.
> It does not get any better than this.
>
> Mark
> 87 Syncro Baja Camper
> 87 Syncro Passenger
> 83 Stretched Turbo Diesel
> ........
>