Summer was over. Temperatures in the desert had moderated. October was here and the time to head down to Baja had arrived. We usually head down on the first quarter moon of the month, but this year, we postponed it 2 weeks to the second quarter moon, because Pandro was finishing up a house. I think it's probably a better time later rather than sooner, as the water temperatures had gone down from about 84° to 78°. The Corvina were in, more or less.
Wednesday was the target date to leave and Eddie was first in line. He and Donna left early and got there in the afternoon. Cathy and I left after work on the inaugural voyage of my new troque. I'm very pleased to report that the road was....I repeat was, in the best condition I've seen it in more than 5 years. I had registered my boat on Tuesday with PESCA for the first time in about 6 years, after having to call out General Grant to rescue Mikey and me over Memorial Day. Obeying the law is always a good luck charm. We breezed through Mexican Customs without a hitch, getting the "Pase" green light for a change. With that done, we plodded our way through the berserk-o-rama, better known as rush hour traffic in Mexicali. The road between the Baja Norte capital and San Felipe had numerous potholes. They were worth swerving around, but not bad enough to slow us down much. The Army checkpoints at the south end of Laguna Salada and at the Rt. 3 turnoff to Ensenada seem to have ensconced themselves. We weren't smuggling dope, explosives or guns. No problema.
We ran the standard drill in San Felipe: Tequila and Brandy at Licores del Mar; big blocks of ice at the ice house; hot sauce, salsa, hot peppers, avocados, papaya, tortillas and limes at the Mercado Horse; a case of Corona at the Sub-Agencia by the bus estacion; tank-up and fill the gas cans at the south Pemex station; and we were off.
The Puertecitos road was as good as ever as we cruised south toward the big straightaway after Campo Pulpo, near El Coloradito. I held my breath, as it was only repaired for about a mile after the turn the last time we were down here, over Memorial Day. Then, it was a sight to behold: BEAUTIFUL NEW ASPHALT. Seems like they'd worked on it sometime after Memorial Day. Will wonders never cease. As we approached the Campo Christina S-Curve, the road was still in good shape. Then, abruptly, the pave job ended, but lo and behold, the potholes had been filled, compacted and graded. Smooth sailing continued all the way down to Puertecitos.
We cruised through Puertecitos, with nary a blink of the eye. The Gonzaga road was next. It was rock and roll like usual going up the hill out of town. The stretch down to Campo La Costilla was OK, as it frequently is. When we got past there, then we noticed that they'd actually graded it. The gnarly ruts and washouts over the first sister were smoothed-out. Decent road prevailed all the way over the mountains. By the time we got near Huerfanito Grade, the offshore wind was kicking up dust. At the top of the hill a couple miles before the grade itself, we neared Pomo Hill, ya know, the spot where the pumice is piled up on the left (going south) and it usually isn't too bad on the right. Well, apparently the grader crew thought it was swell fill, because it looked a foot deep on the right and 2 feet deep on the left. I hit it, kicked it out to the sides and it promptly blew right back at me, causing a momentary blackout as it covered my windshield. Oh well, we have to have at least one adventure. I stopped after proceeding blindly through the pomo and dusted it off. Yuk. What a mess. The Huerfanito Flats were in good shape as we cruised past Nacho's Camp and Campo Tano. In a jiffy, we'd passed the big arroyo and the 5 Islas Cafe. Good road continued past the Yorgo turnoff, Arroyo Agua las Palmitas, Juan Pablo's, and Los Delfines to the Happy Rabbit sign, or what's left of it. We turned down and before you know it, we were home. Everything was in good shape, but it was immediately obvious that a big blow had occurred sometime recently.
We fired up the refrigerator, turned on some lights, unpacked a little, and set about relaxing. It was 8:30 at night. We'd made good time. The temperature was downright pleasant....about 70°. Not a cloud in the sky. The Milky Way dominated the moonless sky. A couple beers and a snort of El Jimador later, we hit the hay,
Thursday morning, Eddie was up early. We weren't. Eddie came back with 3 Corvina in a bucket. We didn't. It was nice to know the Corvina were back. We hustled that morning and ran the boat over to Roger's Bay. The sea turned pretty lumpy later that morning. The offshore wind was brisk: not unpleasant, but a little too strong to venture out in the boats. I did some chores, sat around and contemplated the beauty of the surroundings. It had been a long time and was nice to be home again. The temperature was around 85° at mid day. At around 1:00 PM, Bruce made a call on the radio. He was atop Huerfanito Grade. An hour or so later, he was in camp. At about 5:30 that evening, Pandro, Tracy, Zack and Dan arrived.
The night was clear, so Bruce set-up his new telescope. We checked out some nebula and galaxies, in addition to Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus.
 |
|
Web page design and all images contained herein, except where indicated otherwise, are © 2000 Dean R. Charles and are the exclusive property of the author/photographer. Limited license is granted to download these images for personal use, or to use these images on a non-commercial basis. Any other use is prohibited without express written permission of the owner. Violators will be used for experimentation.