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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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Duncan Murrell - A Whale of a Time

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  • The small island of Isla Catalina has the largest barrel cacti in the world and it is also home to the world’s only rattleless rattlesnake. I gorged myself on the succulent fruit of the barrel cactus that taste very much like kiwi fruit. The snorkelling around the island was excellent. There were some good places for fairly deep freediving that revealed many different species of fish.
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  • Because of the permanently blue skies and maximum visibility the sense of scale and perspective were amazing. I only experienced clouds and rain on one day in the five months that I was there.
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  • After spending so much time under the full glare of the sun under permanently cloudy skies I became very brown. Fortunately my skin tans very quickly. When I was a young boy spending nearly every day at the beach during the summer holidays I became so dark that people were asking my parents if they had adopted me from India. Isla Monserrat and Isla Catalina were the farthest offshore islands that I paddled out to.
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  • Giant barrel cacti (Ferrocactus diguetti) on Isla Santa Catalina, the Sea of Cortez and  Baja Penisnsula, Mexico.
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  • It is a deciduous shrub growing to 4-metre (13 ft) tall with bright green shoots with an angular cross-section. The flowers are small bell-shaped yellow-white to pinkish-white with pink. The fruit is an edible red to orange berry. It can produce prodigious quantities of fruit when it gets enough sun. It grows as an understory plant, thriving on decaying woody material in the soil. Often you’ll see them growing out of the top of rotting stumps, feeding on the remnants of old timber. The bushes will tolerate rather deep shade, but under those conditions they tend to be somewhat spindly and don’t produce much fruit. This was my favourite berry to make into a sauce to have with my multi-grain pancakes nearly every morning to fuel me up for a long hard day kayaking with the whales. It has a very distinctive tart taste that makes excellent jam and jelly. They weren't as widely available as blueberries so I always tried to remember where the best patches were located, and this was the best patch near one of my regular campsites at Point Hayes in Chatham Strait. Indigenous peoples of North America found the plant and its fruit very useful.The bright red, acidic berries were used extensively for food throughout the year. Fresh berries were eaten in large quantities, or used for fish bait because of the slight resemblance to salmon eggs. Berries were also dried for later use. Dried berries were stewed and made into sauces, or mixed with salmon roe and oil to eat at winter feasts.
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  • The Jesuit missionary Ciamente Guillen founded Mission Dolores in 1721 on the coast of the Baja Peninsula about midway between Loreto and La Paz. There was a small ranch near the beach with these burros. The people were very friendly and helpful, allowing me to replenish my water supply from their well and there was an unexpected bonus; I arrived just when the mangos on their mango tree were ripe so for a small price I was able to stock up on a rare treat of fresh succulent fruit; truly manna from heaven in that barren place.
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  • The biggest challenge for the trip was being able to carry sufficient water and ration it because after I left Loreto there were only two places between Loreto and La Paz that I was aware of where I could replenish my water supply, and this small fishing village called Puerto Agua Verde that I’m setting off from was one of them. The photo was taken by a British couple that I met there who were also kayaking to La Paz. I was using my large French Nautiraid folding double kayak, which has a large open cockpit and ample storage space for an extended trip like that. When I started the trip I was only able to buy a limited selection of fresh fruit and vegetables and it was also a major challenge preserving them in the constant heat and ensuring that I had sufficient nutrition to get me all the way to La Paz. There were many contrasting benefits of kayaking in the Sea of Cortez compared with Alaska. Firstly, there is minima tidal range in the Sea of Cortez compared to Alaska, meaning that I didn’t have to drag the kayak up and down the flat sandy beaches and secondly there were so many places that were suitable for landing, whereas in Alaska there are very few accessible beaches and most of those are steep and rocky. This stop was the last human habitation until the ranch near the ruins of Mission Dolores.
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