Imagine……Warm sand between your toes and ice in your drink!

“San Felipe likes to think of itself as a small drinking town with a little fishing problem.”

Longfellow’s epic poem began, “On the shores of Gitche Gumee.” My tale begins, “On the shores of San Felipe.”

A casual, short drive up the coast of the Sea of Cortez led us to a charming little campo named Pete’s Camp. A campo in Mexico is a small village of homes and this one entices you with its long stretch of unadorned beachfront. We had visited here a couple of times in the past, but never stayed more than an hour or two.  Our visit last year revealed pretty palapas right on the sand and we immediately began anticipating our return with the Baja Buggy to enjoy the beautiful setting below the campo.

We easily picked our favorite palapa. The only serious criteria seemed to be finding one with enough hard-pack sand as to not allow the Buggy to sink. Little did we know the irony in this thought.

Almost immediately after turning off the engine, we noticed that the tide was out and just happened to be the most stunning tidal drop we had ever seen. The water’s edge seemed to be about a half mile out and we decided to forgo setting up camp and trek out across the sea’s floor. Charro decided to follow us, unusual behavior for her…she hates the water and the sound of the waves….but her tail was up, so we let her follow.

My first exclamation at exploring the sandy bottom of the sea was that there were no shells to be found. Well, forgive the pun, but the tides turned. Within minutes, we had handfuls of black and brown ones that we had never seen before. We were delighted. We kept going further out, intrigued with the hunt for more shells. A kiter flew above us, seagulls and shorebirds circled overhead and the warm water washed over our feet. Charro frolicked a little bit behind us, actually getting wet. A perfect place to be, at a perfect time of the day.

We stopped for a moment to look at what appeared to be a very large ATV on the tides edge, a hundred or so yards to our right. Tony thought it might belong to the kiter and expressed concern that it might be stuck.

I bravely got a little ahead of Tony, just filled with joy at the beauty of this water phenomena. As I bent down to pick up a shell, my feet suddenly started to sink into slime. I kept going down, sinking deeper, when I felt Tony grab my arm. Sheer panic propelled me upward, my feet came loose and we all managed to get across the mud flats to safety.

As we again stood on hard sand, catching our breath, Tony declared we were going back and searched for a mud-free route.

I chose what seemed to be a mud-free route to the ocean’s edge. “After all,” I reasoned, “we had come this far. Why not finish the journey? Besides, there were probably even more beautiful shells at the water’s edge.” Who could possibly argue with my logic?

He reluctantly agreed and Charro plodded along, this time tail down, as we took off into the warm, shallow water again.

It wasn’t long before Tony and I sunk down at the same time into even stronger sucking sands. Raw fear overcame both of us. Tony freed himself first, I was struggling, but managed to scream for him to get Charro. He had already reached behind him and had her in his hand, as he grabbed me and set me free. Up and on the move again, we made it a second time, like we had wings on our feet.

After a minutes rest, we carefully scouted out a route back to shore and,ever so cautiously, walked it.

We noticed that we were very close to what we thought was the stuck ATV. It actually turned out to be a pick-up truck, abandoned by it’s owner who had gotten it stuck in the mud. The beast had unmercifully sucked the truck into a non-rescuable depth and destroyed it. It had been brand new and efforts to get it out of the sucking sea-bottom with cranes had been useless. It did not have the distinctiveness of being the entities first victim.

How lucky can two people and a dog be?