Pos: here
Loc: Faro Páramo
Acc: tent
Dist: 60,5 km
Start: 7:35 End: 16:42
A day with strong following wind, but calm seas…perfect, actually! Well, if you don’t mind getting blown along at 12km/h occasionally without paddling…
I started out with the almost high tide, sitting in my kayak and waiting to get flooded. Nice way to start! Well, I could drag the boat into the shallows, but then I’d get rather cold feet… 🙂
I actually enjoyed the paddling day, mainly the sections along the cliffs where the wnw wind had to follow the cliff line due south. In the sections without cliffs and beach only it was just about pushing, rather coming 90 degrees offshore, and at the beginning of the long peninsula El Páramo it was slowing me down a bit. But oh well…still making good headway.
I was passing another oil working station with 6 huge tanks, and was wondering why there is always some gas being burnt…this station didn’t have a chimney like the last on, but a big wide flame, whose origin I couldn’t make out from down the water, was burning on the cliffs. Scary!
The long spit of the peninsula El Páramo was rocky beach only, and besides 5 tourist fishing and beach walking there was not much to see.
I kept on paddling until I turned around the south east corner, where the landing was even easier than all along the spit. The sea is calm in general here behind a wide shallow belt. Easy going!
Tomorrow it would be over 80 km into the Rio Grande river mouth, so I may aim for rather 69 km to Caleta la Missíon, where I could be picked up, if Saturday’s weather makes no sense to paddle. I’m not sure about Saturday morning yet!
At least Friday will be a very calm and nice paddling day! Sunday and Monday the wind wants to be over 25-30 knots again, then I’d be really happy to be in a house instead of in a shaking tent!
I dared to camp on a rocky ledge quite close to high tide, which is just NOW! – I have to keep a close eye outside! The last wave washed 1 m before my tent…but as this beach is rather rocky than sandy the wash disappears fast into the gravel…water, stay away!
3 comments on “Thu 08/12-2011 Day 101”
Freya, what George describes as gas flares seem, as seen on google earth, to be in some cases to be accompanied by crude petroleum or waste sludge ponds or lakes which are spewing their contents into some of the rivers and on an ebbing tide– making their way into the sea. Looks like a real mess sometimes…I could be mistaken about the nature of the dicharges, but on my screen that is what they appear to be. This condition appears to continue to the the last large bay on the east coast. If this condition is as bad as it appears, We hope you have no problem dealing with it.
Freya,
Thank you for the great blog of your amazing trip. The burning flames you see near the tanks is called a ground flare and is contained in a large ground ditch. The flare handles surges in gas and burns excess gas from the petroleum processing. Ground flares are common in Mexico, no towers needed. Alle gutte fur ihne schone Reise.
Georg
Good days ahead, Freya. Sounds like today was somewhat easy for you…but then you make it seem a piece of cake. Sorry if that makes you hungry. Your writing indicates you are well rested. Cheers! :))
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