Baja Journey: Reveries of a Sea-Kayaker

Robin Carey set out in a kayak to explore Baja's east coast. His descriptions of discovery are poetic and revelatory, as he travels first with his twentyoneyearold son, then with his wife, and finally solo. Scenes and events, encounters with Baja villagers, fishermen, and gringo tourists all elicit diverse memories, from those of timefogged college antics to the forces at work in a Shakespearean drama. Selfdiscovery is the product of selftesting and of success in outwitting danger or unexpected events: spearing a fish, rolling a kayak, assembling a coherent phrase of words foreign to the tongue.

Carey paddled between solitude and society, thinking of others who had visited these remote shores. He relates the legends that the Spaniards learned during their stay, as well as the myths they left behind. There have been other visitors--hunters of pearls, otter pelts, and vitamin-rich shark livers, and now there are yanquis who come to Baja seeking an escape from one reality to another, one not quite so "real" to them.

With grace and insight, Carey makes the kayak his cathedraa seat of knowledge that is available to those with unveiled respect for nature and its phenomena.