Kayaking the Vermilion Sea : Eight Hundred Miles Down the Baja

by Jonathan Waterman

Release Date: 10 December, 1996

Edition: Paperback

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Too much whining

Waterman spends most of the book whining. The three main threads of his complaint are the ecological devastation, how the native peoples were taken advantage of by the various colonizers, and how his one year old marriage seems to be on the rocks. When he talks about the stark beauty of the land, it is always in the same breath with how badly the place is getting ruined.
I read the book when I was in Baja California Sur in May, 2003. The place was beautiful, the weather was great and the people were extremely friendly. The book's doomsday predictions were very much out of whack with the reality.

Modern Jesuit

It's very well written and full of interesting information. but it's one of these misanthropic ecology tracts. Much of what he says is well justified but, considered as entertainment, it was so full of grouching about the adverse effects of everything on the environment that it ended up with too many sour notes.
I was struck by how close his moral attutudes were to those of the early missionaries he describes. He extols the virtues of mortifying the flesh, and relishes describing the hardships he has inflicted on himself. He keeps encountering residents who do not share his beliefs about how life should be lived. They commit such crimes as fishing and using toilet paper. They are not the original inhabitants of the country.