After a long Baja-less summer, cooler October weather had arrived and the time had come to go down to Baja for the first trip of the season. Hurricane, cum Tropical Storm, cum Tropical Depression Juliette bombed Campo Deano & Cathy with several inches of rain from September 30 - October 3, 2001. Here's the GOES-10 image from 1:00 PM on the 2nd of October.
Now we've had a 100 year storm and a 25 year storm all within the last 4 years! We didn't know whether we'd be able to get down there or not. The road was damaged, but passable. All in all, I've seen it a lot worse. You did need a 4X4 to drive through the sand in Arroyo Mal de Orin, just south of Los Delfines. Click here to read more about the road and see a few road pictures.
I usually like to drive the last part of the road at night, but this time I wanted to do it in the day because of the uncertainty of the washouts. It was a good decision. We arrived about 3:30 after spending an hour helping a couple of German tourists out. After unloading our stuff, we loaded the boats, intending to take advantage of the 10:00 PM high to launch and run over to Roger's Bay. A feast of Eddie's famous chicken ranchera burritos followed. The tide never rose enough, so we scrapped our plans until the next morning when the major high occurred.
The dawn broke to a wonderfully calm day. We got the boats down to the beach and awaited the tide. Eddie and Marwan fished the finger reef for Corvina. The Corvina were in. They caught a few, including these two.
This photo is courtesy of Marwan himself.
A little later, we prepared to launch. Here the tide is nearly high enough.
I trained the bwana scope at the northern horizon. The infamous norther white caps were apparent. We hoped it was merely mid-day wind chop, so we ran the boats over to in front of Roger's. Before long, the blow arrived and built in earnest. A weird haze set in. It continued all day and ruined the fishing. I snapped this picture of our Ocotillos, verdant for a the first time in years after the abundant rain the week before.
As evening neared, Eddie and Marwan surveyed the situation.
Here's what it looked like towards Roger's Bay.
We fired up two barbecues and Pandro roasted a whole mess of Albacore that the boys had caught over Labor Day. Yum.
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