Folding Kayaks Forum

I'm planning a kayak trip to Baja, and was surprised to find that there appeared to be no guidebooks for multi-day kayak trips on the Sea of Cortez. Recently I was pleased to find the exception:

http://paddlepublishing.com/

The book is The Guide to Baja Sea Kayaking by Dave Eckardt, who also wrote a what I understand to be a respected Colorado whitewater guidebook. I've no relationship to the seller, commercial or otherwise, just want to give a heads up about a book that was hard to find out about and does not seem to be widely known; you have to put in some very specific search terms in Google or Amazon for it to show up. I haven't made my trip yet so can't really give a very useful review, but it's a full color guide consisting mostly of satellite type maps overlaid with coordinates and descriptions of campsites, towns and supply points, significant points and features, etc. Should be a very useful book, and the parts describing places I have been on a previous car trip seem accurate and candid. I paid for it with Paypal from the authors website and it arrived promptly.

Cheers, Andy

Thanks, Andy. Kayaking guide books on Baja are virtually non-existent, you're right. This one is probably as good as it can be. After reading example chapter Sta Rosa - Mulege, I would say, it is 60-70% right on. Eg., there are wilderness camps on San Marcos, but things changed after the 2006 hurricane, some coves are a mess, and the best coves are taken by fish camp and gypsum mine with port. There is a military base in Barra San Lucas, but there is no loud reveille heard at the Moseys RV park where I stayed, so he probably meant another camp to the South. There are on-water RV camps on Mulege river, but most of them are a trap during the low tide, 'cause the river is muddy and shallow. San Bruno is probably a good starting point for trips to Isla San Marcos, but from Barra San Lucas (Moseys camp) is both closer and more realistic for those flying with folder, since San Bruno has no bus connection. There is a water store in downtown Mulege, but the closest water store to any of listed 3 camps on Mulege river is the one at the West end of pedestrian river walk (no longer pedestrian, btw, since it's been paved). And so on...

Laminated Topo Almanac or boating charts of chosen sections are still necessary - aerial photos in this book are largely useless, too small scale. I would say, boating charts like those by http://www.coastalwatersrec.com/content/view/42/79/ provide more visual info on the coastline, with marked possible campsites and descriptions of places of interest. This map doesn't list stores, but on a trip shorter than 30 days I bring all the food from Vancouver, properly re-packed and rationed.

Update.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page in the link to see the pics of Mulege after September 2009 hurricane: http://bajaforums.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3196024271/m/230100332/p/1

Town of Mulege is 20 miles South from Isla San Marcos. I wrote earlier that in March 2009 wilderness beaches on San Marcos were in poor shape (mostly disappeared) after recent hurricanes. I also didn't recognize some places between Bahia de Los Angeles and Santa Rosalia. Well, hurricane Jimena in September 2009 turned out to be the worst in the last 50 years. Mulege was hit the hardest and Sta Rosalia got its share as well, though not nearly as bad as Mulege.

Normally, areas South of Loreto suffer the most, but this time it was weird - the hurricane turned to the North and then parked itself between Sta Rosa and Mulege, pouring a lot of water.