MC Raven Ride Report 33 - Swimming with the Whale Sharks

Leaving Santa Rosalia I topped up my tank and headed south to Mulege pronounced "moolah hay" a perfect jewel of a town right at the mouth of Bahia Conception.

Carla King - one of the speakers from the Horizons Unlimited rally fell in love with this place - I can see why. Town's nestled in this valley carved by a river, Town square, great stores, its own mission - As I said, a perfect jewel.

The Lonely Planet guide does mention that it seems like every hurricane that heads up the Sea of Cortez seems to make landfall right here in Mulege.

As it happens, while I was in the area, the biggest Pacific hurricane ever recorded (Patricia)  came ashore on the mainland side of the Sea of Cortez and we, palapa dwellers, didn't even know it'd happened!

In Mulege I met up with Tom and Kit, San Lucas residents who told me of a perfect swimming beach just down the highway at El Coyote. I followed them to the beach.

Palapas! Wonderful sand beach! Palm trees!. And, I swam with whale sharks!!! How cool is that?
I went for a swim and realized that this was the first time I'd swam in the ocean (or anywhere else for that matter) since we'd left Florida back in the late 1980's. Too long. (Water in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska where we'd sailed is just too cold for pleasure swimming).

I was sitting on the shore drying off when I spotted a whale shark passing by. I had to swim out and say 'Howdy'. He was busy and didn't have time to chat so, kept heading down the shore. I couldn't keep up.

This morning, I'd packed up my bike and was waiting for the tide to go down so I  could ride the beach access road (floods at extreme high tides like we'd been having) when a woman, out for her morning walk came by.

Her name is Susan and, we spent, probably, an hour chatting. As she left se told me that "meeting you was the highlight of my day." I don't recall ever being the highlight of someone's day before.

I'd like to meet here again sometime.