In The Shadows Of Cerralvo: East Side

Off the south end of Cerralvo Island I sense a conflux of forces that suggest I’m in over my head.

- Scott Sadil

Winds, swirling north, splay the current; whitecaps unravel past me, tumble toward a steep and stony shore. To the east black clouds swarm the horizon. In the opposite direction, knotted thunderheads climb into blue skies—a contrast as vivid as the dark mountains pitched sharply above the gringo sprawl spilled through sunlight along the distant shore.

And Cerralvo itself—a benign presence viewed from dozens of different vantages along the coast east of La Paz— keeps growing , looming larger and larger since Madrina and I reached the candy-stripe lighthouse at Punta Arenas, hoping to circumnavigate an island that now looks like a massif or entire mountain range thrust from the depths of the quickening sea.

Moments later—How can it be? I’m forced to drop sail and pick up the oars. The wind dies; the sudden calm sharpens my sense of vulnerability. Tidal currents, funneled through the gap between Cerralvo and Punta Arenas, threaten to carry me back into the open sea. I’m soaked in sweat; the August heat, freed from the wind, is closing in on me. I pull for the rugged shore between Roca Montaña and Piedras Gordas, a gentle sandspit the local pangeros call El Viejo, the old man.

I can’t make it that far. Skies clear; a light shore breeze turns against me. As the sun falls toward the spine of the peninsula, I drop anchor inside a rocky cove, in water shallow enough I can go overboard, if need be, and free a bight of rode or chain in the toothy reefs below.