The world's biggest mud flats...it's just awful.
It's horrible stuff! So, to get at these things, we usually go down to San Felipe in Baja, California. We then hire--we always hire the same person, Ramon--he has a GIS system built into his head. I swear, he will drop us at this same beach every year and they're just featureless beaches of mud and Ramon will drop us in the same spot every year when we go. But if we hop into one of these pangas, they're called, and we head back up the gulf from San Felipe because there is no access to the shore, there's just too much mud, the only vehicle that we've been able to think of that may be able to traverse the mud tracks are a hovercraft and the government hasn't offered to purchase one of those for us yet. After seeing our results, they may not purchase one.
After we're dropped off, we're usually dropped offshore anywhere from a half of a mile to a mile from the nearest chenier, we then hike from the boat--this was at low tide--to the chenier. This hike is through mud that's quite substantial, although this person, a graduate student from Louisiana State, is particular prone to being stuck in the mud. But it's just awful. It's horrible stuff. And we're out there from anywhere from two to four days and we usually have groups of six to ten people. What we have to do is to measure everything that we take very carefully. Each person is allowed one dry bag so that we don't overload the boat and you have to fit all of your camping gear in there, all of your field gear within this, and that includes tents, of course.
Temperatures out here in the Delta will soar close to 100 in the mid-afternoon and then drop to the mid to high 30's at night, so it's just, you're baking during the day and then freezing at night. We do everything from calculating exactly how much water each person will need per day. Right now I've been counting how many M&M's we take out there to keep everybody sane. It is a very interesting experience.
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