Baja he-man talks to fishermen

After reading Graham Mackintosh’s Into a Desert Place about his two-year walk around the Baja coastline, I had to meet him. Smallish and pale, Scottish by blood, he was living in Lemon Grove.

By the time I read the last pages my plan was forming: I was going to paddle and fish the entire Sea of Cortez in a plastic sit-on-top kayak. I found Mackintosh’s email address and we met at a Rubio’s a couple days later. I’d told him the basics over the phone and when I got there, he was already sitting at a table with maps, charts, and a couple signed hard covers of his book.

In the first minutes we were deep into planning a trip that I never made. But I will always remember Mackintosh’s enthusiasm and kind advice.

Graham has since written Journey with a Baja Burro (a 700-mile walk down the foreboding interior of Baja with a burro following the Mission Trail); Nearer My Dog to Thee (about four months in Baja’s Sierra San Pedro Mártir with two adopted street dogs) and, Marooned with Very Little Beer (tales from two months of kayaking and hiking the second largest island in the Sea of Cortez — Angel de la Guardia).

Graham will be the guest speaker at the San Diego Anglers monthly meeting at the Bahia Resort Hotel on July 6, 7 p.m.