The road to gonzaga bay - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 43

the border into Mexico at Mexicali, gassed up the car in San Felipe,
and headed out on the one-lane dirt road to Puertecitos fifty miles south.
That stretch of road is crossed by numerous soft, sandy arroyos, and
I was as impressed with the way the little car went through sand as I
was with Dave's driving skills. When we arrived at the tiny fishing set-
tlement of Puertecitos, Dave said he needed a break. He proceeded to
lie down on the ground and fall fast asleep. Twenty minutes later he
was up and ready to go. Clearly this was an energetic and driven man.
We took o¤ again for San Luis Gonzaga, another fifty miles south.
The terrain changed considerably and the road began to wind up
over steep, rocky hills. The roadbed was now jagged rock cut by fre-
quent eroded gullies. The car had hit bottom many times on the sandy
road to Puertecitos, and now it was doing that on the rough road of
hard rock. Taking a run to get up an exceptionally steep hill, we hit
bottom really hard; this time, we feared, we'd done some damage.
Peering under the low Corvair we saw a trickle of fluid coming from
the pan of the automatic transaxle—definitely not a good sight in such
an out-of-the-way place. We couldn't do anything on that steep, nar-
row road, so Dave started the car, made it over the hill to a wider spot
in the road, and pulled over. Dave managed to get the car jacked up
enough so he could slither underneath to catch the leaking transmis-
sion fluid in a can and to check out the size of the hole. He managed
to save about a quart of the fluid trickling out of a small crack in the
metal pan.
I was amazed at his calm attitude in a situation that to me seemed
quite serious. He approached it as if it were simply one more problem
that needed to be solved so we could be on our way again. With the
set of tools he'd brought he dropped the pan, cleaned it thoroughly with
gasoline, and, using a propane torch, solder, and a piece cut from a beer
can, he soldered a patch over the crack. That done, he reinstalled the
pan, poured the saved fluid in plus an extra quart he had brought along,
and topped it up with some engine oil thinned with a little gasoline.
Once again we started out, and the Corvair seemed to run just fine.
Arriving in San Luis Gonzaga safely, we set up camp, had a quick meal
of canned stew and fresh Mexican rolls, and turned in for the night.
Bahía de San Luis Gonzaga is an almost totally enclosed, well-