16 April 2014

SKBM attends Baja Kayak Festival

Over 1,000km north of Loreto is a wonderful Baja paddling destination on the Pacific Coast called Punta Banda.  Situated just south of the point is La Bufadora, a small coastal village that boasts one of the largest marine geysers in North America.  Being close to Ensenada, it's popular among tourists and becoming more and more popular with paddlers each season thanks to its incredible rocky coastline, caves, arches, waves, pocket beaches and marine life.

Victor Leon runs a paddling company called Baja Aquatics out of La Bufadora and together with Jen Kleck of Aqua Adventures in San Diego, they organize the Baja Kayak Festival.  Baja Kayak Fest joined the West Coast symposium trifecta in 2013 with Lumpy Waters on the Oregon Coast and the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium in San Francisco.  The three events share characteristics encouraging rough water play, safe exploration and leadership.  You'll run into many of the same faces at each event and all three are leading the way for sea kayaking on the West Coast.  As a company, Sea Kayak Baja Mexico tries to attend these events as much as possible to coach new students and further train current staff.

This year Ramon Arce & Marcos Simental attended Baja Kayak Festival for Sea Kayak Baja Mexico and had a great experience.  Marcos passed his British Canoe Union Four Star Sea Leader assessment with flying colors and became one of very few Mexican 4* sea leaders.  That is a very worthy accomplishment for any paddler and should be a goal for many.  Congratulations Marcos!

Ramon furthered his leadership training and is ready for BCU four star assessment soon.  Great job Ramon!  Marcos & Ramon round out the SKBM expedition guides with Ginni Callahan & Santiago Berrueta.

4 Star Sea Leader and Sea Kayak Baja Mexico Guide Marcos Simental