Graham Mackintosh Baja Books

 

First evening on the island

"...they switched off their light, opened up the throttle and crept forward like they were about to gun the motor and run the boat up beside my tent. I momentarily recalled the image of a huge, charging killer whale seizing its unsuspecting sea lion prey from right off the beach and dragging it back to shake it into oblivion."    Marooned With Very Little Beer

Campsite beside abandoned panga

Driftwood launch ramp

Island interior

Parachute and bag dropped into the bay

Contains minikeg of Heineken

"I identified with and felt protective of both of these birds. They were part of my growing family. I had my family and my mansion. God, how little we really need to be happy."       

Marooned With Very Little Beer

"Graham is a product of the welfare state. Free health care, free education through college, totally ruined him; now he's only fit for sitting on his ass on some island somewhere talking to himself."    [Graham's Wife]    Marooned With Very Little Beer

Orange-crowned warbler

"If total defeat pervaded my life I would be found along some lonely shore, no doubt by the Sea of Cortez, gazing humbly at the wondrous diversity of life, putting everything into a larger perspective."

Marooned With Very Little Beer

Curious fish -- gulf opaleye

Kayaking inside Este Ton  --  Guardian Angel Island

"The cross was so simple, so sincere, so perfect. How strange that simple folks, like fishermen, can so often grasp what scholars, scribes, and the erudite outpourings of a hundred bible schools can totally miss." 

   Marooned With Very Little Beer

Endemic island chuckwalla  -- Sauromalus hispidus

Feral cat -- Angel de la Guarda

Angel de la Guarda --  from Canal de las Ballenas

Toothed sucker of a Humboldt squid

Perfect kayaking day

Chuckwalla beware -- endemic speckled rattlesnake -- Crotalus mitchellii

Roger and Alfredo from Villa Bahia bring supplies 

Beachcombing finds stacked on my sit-on-top kayak

West wind

"The Sea of Cortez is like a charming serial killer; it befriends and seduces you, then suddenly drops all pretense and explodes in heartless overpowering fury." 

  .......Graham Mackintosh  (Marooned With Very Little Beer)

Reviews

In "Marooned with Very Little Beer," his fourth and latest book, Graham Mackintosh has given us his finest piece of storytelling since his debut with "Into a Desert Place."
In the hands of a lesser author, a narrative about two months on a desert island in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, might quickly deteriorate into an excercise of repetitive "Then I did this's." Coming from the pen of Mr. Mackintosh it becomes a magical mystery tour full of exciting events.
With his endless curiosity of all things big and small and neverending quest to see what is beyond the next hill, Mackintosh takes the reader along on what amounts to a hands on natural history lesson, examining everything from sea stars in the littoral, to feral "vampire" cats, to indigenous rattlesnakes. When you add itinerant sea kayakers, bush pilots, and friendly marijuana runners, it becomes both entertaining and enlightening.
Few authors have the ability to educate while telling a good story, and this book does both.
It is the work of a master storyteller, and whether the reader is a Baja aficionado or not, after downing "Marooned with Very Little Beer" will have the urge to pack a bag and head for a desert island.

James Michael Dorsey,
Author of "Tears, Fear and Adventure, 30 years of Travel off the Beaten Path."

Two months alone on an island, something that sounds like a TV plot with unwilling participants. "Marooned: With Very Little Beer" is Graham Mackintosh's tale of his willing stay on a deserted island known as [Angel de la Guarda], roughing it. His story is one of getting in touch with nature, history, geology, and most importantly, getting to know himself. Written in a witty yet informative and enlightening manner, "Marooned: With Very Little Beer" is a top pick for community library memoir collections and for anyone who wants a tale of true adventure.

Midwest Book Review.    July 2008