The One That Got Away — 1.0 — Pacific Ocean, About three miles southwest of Punta Pilla, Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico
“That’s me on the longboard/ That’s me in the spotlight/ Losing my religion/ Trying to keep up with you/ But I don’t know if I can do it/ Oh no I said too much…” (paraphrase)
There is no other way to tell this story but straight up beginning to end. Otherwise you won’t believe it and you might not anyhow…..
On Monday the 13th, January, 2020 I loaded my board onto the rack of my Tacoma and drove it down to the beach at Shipwrecks. It was early, probably not past 8 and the sea was calm and I put the board in and kneeled it out past the shore break and then I was standing and paddling in the nice fluid calm stroke that I like, the stroke that can take you distance without much resistance, the one it seems like I can do forever.
It’s winter here so the sun is not yet up in the sky and on the horizon I see the splashing of humpbacks, but they are way out there, mid distance to the horizon, I’ll never get close unless they start to come my way.
There is nothing like stand up paddling on a calm clean ocean. At first you can see down into the water, the rock reefs and then the sand but soon it is just a deep blue/green underneath you and then there is the lighter blue of the sky and the gold of sunlight evaporating a few morning clouds. I am just stroking along ,enjoying it, they way you have to keep your balance, center of gravity shifting with the board and the stroke.
A couple of rays fly out of the water to my left and they slap back onto the surface with a crash and a splash of white. I see a seal floating a hundred yards to my right, floating on its back with two flippers pushed up sharp out of the water, pretending it’s a sea turtle I guess, though I’m not fooled. Further off there is a bait ball forming, the surface water crinkled as it swims collectively and then a panic as it is attacked from below and it boils the top of the ocean for a moment trying to escape.
The whales are still going off out in the distance, lob tailing and fan tailing and every so often coming out with a breach that pounds back the water and makes a booming sound you can hear for miles. It’s still pretty far, but it’s kind of exciting.
I get back into my stroke and I’m just cruising and soon I’m a couple of miles off the shore.
Now there is a fishing/whale watching boat coming into view, just a simple panga out of Playita with a center console and a bimini top and trolling rods leaning off to the sides. They motor down and then drift with the pod of whales about a half mile off.
Well now I’m making progress and so I put a little more into my stroke and soon I’m coming up on the back of the panga and the humpbacks are still there, maybe six of them maybe more and they are putting on quite a show. Breaching, lobster tailing, the whole fine whale show.
This, of course, makes me paddle faster and now I’m getting in close. There are two tourists/fishermen at the front of the boat and they have their I-phones out and they are making photographs of the whales jumping. I paddle along side, maybe ten yards off their port quarter, and I hail the captain and I say to the fisherman/woman: Hey can you get my photo with the whales?
This is not likely, a very difficult photo to make, but they agree and I keep stroking until I am now fifteen yards in front of the boat and then all of a sudden the ocean just goes completely calm. It’s like the whales have heard me and decided to head north. It is quiet, hardly a ripple on the surface. It stays like this for several long minutes.
I’m about to turn my board and apologize to the boat because I have obviously spooked the whales and the show is over and just as I am turning the surface of the ocean explodes 25 yards to my center left and the mother of all humpbacks, all 40-plus tons of her, comes flying out of the ocean, full tilt, right in my direction. She completely clears the water and is suspended in the air with the sunlight glistening all around her, and I can see the barnacles on her chin, and I can see her eye looking at me, and I swear there is a grin on her mouth.
The whale crashes back into the ocean and the splash is tremendous and I’m suddenly wet and trying to balance on my board and I’m scared silly knowing she could kill me at any moment, though, of course, she’s just having fun.
A minute later I recover and the whales swim off and I paddle back to the boat and I say to the fisherman; Did you get that?
“I’m not sure,” he says, “That was amazing!”
“Pretty intense.” I say.
He checks his phone and he says he got me on the board with the splash and I give his wife my email address and she types it into her phone and they say they will send me the photo. Then I begin to paddle toward shore and the captain speaking good english asks me if I live nearby. I’ve got a place near Shipwrecks Beach I tell him. Oh, he smiles,my father has a house there, it’s next to Rancho Cardoncito . Oh I say then you must know Titi. Titi? He smiles and laughs, I’ve known Titi all my life. And then I say are you an Aripez? Si,si, he says, “Corrcto, Aripez,”and then he says: “Eso fue bastante intenso, eh?”
“Intenso,” I nod, “Muy intenso.”
A day later I get an email and there are a couple of photos. One of the whale breaching, the other of me trying to balance on my board after the splash. There is also a message: “Thanks for the story, we really love Ricardo.”
Okay, all of that is pretty cool, right? Then last night I wake up at midnight and suddenly it dawns on me what the fishermen tourists were talking about. I get out of bed and I go to my desk and I have a plastic file case containing some stories and it also has the only remaining copy of a book I wrote in 2003. It is the story of the little town of Playita and the huge corporation that comes there to build a resort. The main character is a young man fighting to keep his property. There is a photo in the book of the man and his daughter Lilianna Marie.
The man is Ricardo Aripez. The captain of the boat.
How, I am saying to myself, Did I let THAT one get away from me?
Photo by Craig Willis courtesy of the Super-Panga “Fati”, Ricardo Aripez, Captain.
