In case you didn't know, The Sea of Cortez, Gulf of California and The Vermillion Sea all refer to the same body of water. Unsurprisingly, Mexicans are not fond of using the name of the conquerer Hernando Cortez, and The Vermillion Sea is named from the red rocks of the Grand Canyon that used to flow into the gulf from the Colorado River. There is literally nothing left of the river that reaches the gulf now, but the name is still sometimes used.
This is our last day. It has been a great trip. I bought a new flight directly to LA instead of dealing with Tijuana again. Joy (the van; I wonder if I need to keep saying that) has a new axle.
I kept my daily journal going, but this time I’m deciding not to transcribe it for the blog. Much of the entries were repetitive anyway, such as, “Went for another morning kayak, saw more Blue Footed Boobys…” It may sound like the trip was boring, but it most definitely was not. Just like the Alaska cruise, I saw incredible wildlife, beautiful geologic formations and I met wonderful people and learned about their lives and careers.
Amber and Dave are both physicists, working at CERN and Stanford. Ketti is an influencer and had an arrangement with Uncruise. Bella is a dermatologist and was always covered head to toe in the sun. Grant looks like he should be on the cover of GQ magazine. There were 36 of us, and almost as many staff and crew. We made a little community and the vibes were always good. Once again, I learned a lot about the area, the sea life, the indigenous history, and retained maybe five percent.
The first several days, I fell into what I would call “cruise excess”; the food was rich and delicious. Of course there was the drink of the day and cocktail hour was a scheduled activity, and then there were the regular snacks and treats showing up. There was a festive feeling on the boat (tempered by the preponderance of seniors aboard). Nonetheless, it took me a while to regulate myself. One of my sleepless nights as I felt my stomach working on my dinner, I had an image of two teams in my body; the mouth team and the stomach team. The stomach team resents the mouth team, because they don’t do a good job as gatekeepers. The mouth team is easily convinced by pleasure-promising interlopers. They beguile the mouth team into letting them pass, bribing them with momentary pleasure, then create all kinds of chaos in the stomach. The stomach team has to work overtime to handle the mess. I would like to be the CEO and have the mouth team visit the stomach team and learn how important it is to give them respect and be better gatekeepers. Of course food is pleasure; the misconception I fall into sometimes is thinking more food equals more pleasure. If you tasted our chef’s dishes you may succumb to this misconception as well.
Next destination, a vanlife gathering at Lake Havasu!