Puerto Sanfrancisquito to Punta Ballena //
The first squawk of a pelican is how we know it’s morning. It’s otherwise pitch black out when we wake up. The sea is so calm within the small, nearby bay that the star-filled sky reflects perfectly from it’s surface.
Although this would be a perfectly fine place to sit still for a day, it’s on the pricey side for Baja at $15 per person per night. We made the most of it by taking showers and emptying our toilet but now that those chores are done, we’d rather be paying $0 at the many options that surround us.
We have a couple of options in mind, the first of which is a beach that, by boat, would probably only take us a few minutes to get to. However, by land it’s about an hour. I’m guessing at this figure because for whatever reason time seemingly becomes irrelevant in Baja and I hardly pay much attention to the clock.
None of us have expectations for the day so we’re all pleasantly surprised by the beautiful drive through the desert followed by the pristine white sand beach that the road delivers us to. We park, walk down to the water’s edge, and immediately all plop ourselves in the sand. The calm sea before us puts us in a trance as though we’re being hypnotized. This is how you know you’ve found a good beach; when setting up camp can wait because relishing this new location can’t be delayed.
Eventually we get set up and settle in. Mark & Josh go snorkeling while Hannah & I paint with watercolors. Darci spots a sea lion passing by about a hundred yards from the guys but they have no idea, they’re busy admiring all the fish beneath them.
Even though their swimming attire is soaked with salt water, something about the guys hanging their stuff out to dry alerts the honey bees to our presence and our truck becomes completely swarmed. Carefully we move what we can away from camp and move other things inside, removing any trace of water, and then go for a walk and hope for the best when we get back. Thanks to the bees running us off we spend the evening walking, collecting shells, watching the birds and the fish, taking photos. Thankfully they’re mostly gone when we return and I kind of appreciate how they shoved us off to enjoy the sunset.
Thanks to Darci I learn that this is not a shell that I’ve found. It’s a paper nautilus, an egg case made by the argonaut octopus. 
Mark mentions the idea of moving on in the morning, the bees were rather frustrating this afternoon. But this beach is too good. Tomorrow we’ll have to work at seeing that every drop of water is kept indoors and hope that the bees will grant us permission to remain another day.
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The beach is beautiful and the octopus egg case is amazing! Sorry about the bees. I hope tomorrow will be a better day.
In addition to water, bees need electrolytes too. So they might be after more than just the water from your stuff.
That’s a great point.