May 5, 1998
Oceanside, California, USA

It’s 2:35 in the morning. I can’t sleep. I’m too excited. I just decided that I am going to fly home for a few months, then fly back and continue on my journey in early October. Two reasons: #1. I am going to get baked if I attempt to paddle the Baja in the summer. #2. I need money.

I was hoping to be well beyond Baja by now, but winter turned to spring, and spring turned to summer. Six months ago, back in Santa Barbara, I went to a slide show presentation put on by two guys who had paddled the Sea of Cortez last fall. They had horror stories of being scorched by the sun all day, and raped by Mosquitoes by night. "Those fools!", I thought to myself, "If they were smart like me... they’d have paddled it in the winter." Well... this fool isn’t a sucker for punishment. I can’t go into something knowing that I’m going to be miserable.

In the past month, my website has been visited over 6500 times. On the opening page of the web site I state "I need your help to make this website happen.". So far, only one person has made a monetary donation. I cannot afford to continue the website unless I can raise some funds another way. I have no money. Every cent I spend is loaned to me from my parents. I can’t even consider quiting the website; I have put far too much time and money into it already. While at home, I plan on raising funds by doing a series of slide show presentations recounting my adventures thus far. I’m totally psyched! I haven’t even seen most of my slides yet myself.

I have a new kayak waiting for me in San Diego. I was going to send my used kayak home by transport truck, but now I am going to ask my father to fly back to California with me, and join me for the paddle between San Fellipe and La Paz. He was thinking about joining me for a few months in central America, but the logistics would be much more difficult than what I am now proposing.

Here is a run down of the last couple days:

Last Friday, I was on the front page of the Sun-post, a local newspaper in San Clemente(which borders San Juan Capistrano). Rachel, the reporter, wrote a terrific story, and the photos looked great.

At noon on Friday, I had a meeting with Eric, a guy I met at Kinko’s, who runs a publication called the Student World Traveler. Starting the next issue, I will be a regular columnist for the magazine.

That evening, I treated Mark and Mike to supper at a nice restaurant as a thank-you for allowing me to hang-out at their place as I recovered from my surfing injury.

Saturday, I spent most of the day writing, and trying to figure out why my modem wouldn’t allow me to get on the net. "Your connection was bad... so it was terminated.", my computer kept telling me. It was frustrating.

By supper time that night, there was not a scrap of food left in the house, so I ordered a sausage and clam pizza. The following day, I ate left-over pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Sunday night, Mike, and his friend Chris, and myself, went to see Godzilla. Since Mike is a paramedic, we all got in for free. It was an okay flick, but definitely not on my top ten list. It looked more like a video game, than it did a motion picture.

Monday morning, Mark drove me back here to Darryl’s house in Oceanside. My modem is still on the fritz. I ordered some new software from Motorola today, and they said that they’d send it FEDEX over-night, so hopefully I’ll have it fixed by tomorrow afternoon(I should say this afternoon; it is now 3:45 in the morning.). I better head back to bed. I’m glad I got this off my chest, and out of my mind.