Adventurous San Diego fisherman fulfills a dream voyage in his 15-foot boat down the Sea of Cortez
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/outdoors/20041125-9999-...
By Ed Zieralski
November 25, 2004
Rick Traylor put the boat in forward and then reverse, but nothing he did motored us away from the dock at Puerto Escondido, a hidden harbor that
author John Steinbeck called "a place of magic."
Traylor and I were eager to put our first nautical miles on Marshall Madruga's 15-foot aluminum boat, but we had a problem.
We forgot the bow rope was still tied to the dock.
Nervous but under way after I sheepishly untied us, Traylor confessed as we headed out that the only previous hours he'd ever logged on a boat were at
the helm of a few rentals at some San Diego lakes.
Now Traylor, getting soaked by sea spray, was running a 30-horsepower outboard motor on the often cantankerous Sea of Cortez. Our destination this day
was Agua Verde, 25 miles or so south, a spot we only knew from a map.
The fact that my boating experience was slightly more advanced than Traylor's ? I once steered a pontoon boat on the Colorado River ? didn't exactly
make us overconfident.
But we headed out into an area legendary Baja author and adventurer Ray Cannon once called "Juanaloa," a mysterious and mystical part of Baja that
only adventurers see. Much of it is remote and inaccessible from Mexico's Highway 1. Its backdrop is Baja's Range of Light, the rugged and extensive
Sierra de la Giganta, but it includes remote green oases, countless arroyos with colorful canyons, cliffs and huge sand dunes.
Everywhere, the azure sea is filled with life: leaping dorado, diving gulls and pelicans and osprey, giant sea turtles, acrobatic manta rays and huge,
docile whale sharks.
We stayed close to shore, mostly, cruising inside the stretch of islands off the coast.
One of Cannon's tales of Juanaloa is a Spanish conquistador myth that tells of a tribe of beautiful Amazon maidens who danced by fires in nothing but
black pearl loincloths in the Agua Verde area. Could their descendants remain?
Our confidence may have been low, but anticipation was high.
This is really Marshall Madruga's adventure. I was a part of it for six nights, five days, two of which were spent on Madruga's boat, fishing and
traveling south toward his final destination of Cabo San Lucas.
Traylor was with Madruga for 13 days, 14 nights and returned with him from Cabo San Lucas to San Diego by truck after they fished the area around Las
Arenas below La Paz.
Madruga spent 25 days in Baja over September and October. His mission: to navigate the entire length of the Sea of Cortez in his small boat while a
support team traveled Highway 1 in his pickup and camper, boat trailer in tow.
When Madruga suspected the road was too tough, he drove the pickup. When he thought the fishing might be too good to miss, he was in the boat doing
what he was born to do ? fish.
"I want to show how safe, relaxing, enjoyable, beautiful and adventuresome Baja California really is," he said before heading out.
Madruga fell somewhat short of navigating the more than 900 miles of coastline from where he launched at Puertecitos below San Felipe.
Instead, he opted to travel the last section from Las Arenas, below La Paz, to Cabo San Lucas via Highway 1.
He said fishing had dropped off at Las Arenas, and the seas were too rough to complete the voyage in the small boat. So he and Traylor, the final
survivor of his prearranged support staff, saw the last part of the peninsula through the windows of Madruga's truck.
What's left to tell now are the tales from this Sea of Cortez odyssey.
Madruga, a 36-year-old San Diegan, put a tremendous amount of planning into the trip. That it went so well at times ? and so badly at others ? was
mostly because of where (and with whom) he traveled.
It was Baja, and his support team consisted of two guys from Florida and later Traylor and me. None of us had ever done anything like this, and there
were times when that really showed.
I joined Madruga at Villas de Loreto. By then he'd already had problems with his first support crew. The two Florida guys, one of whom was a fishing
guide Madruga met in Florida, had abruptly ended their portion of the adventure after nine days. They had blown through some very good fishing areas
off Bahia San Nicolas, failed to show there and had missed preset call times with Madruga on satellite phone and the boat's radio.
Instead, they cruised to Loreto to bask in the splendors of Villas de Loreto, a resort with cozy rooms, hot showers and good food.
Villas de Loreto once was the famous Flying Sportsman's Lodge. It's been refurbished, with its old Baja atmosphere restored, and sits on the shores of
El Parque Nacional Bahia de Loreto y sur, Mexico's largest protected sea reserve.
The problem was the Floridians never contacted Madruga to tell him what they were doing until late in the day, finally reaching him after he'd been
worried sick.
Madruga already had survived a blown tire, plus a damaged suspension that supported the heavy Lance camper. He replaced it by ordering parts from the
States and having them shipped to Santa Rosalia the next day by bus from Tijuana.
It was an example of Madruga's resourcefulness, but the miscommunication with his support crew was the first of many, and something that eventually
wore him out.
In Loreto, however, he was revitalized with a new crew and spun story after story about the first part of his trip that started in 40-knot winds after
launching at Puertecitos below San Felipe.
He told of hooking "unstoppables," fish, mostly leopard grouper or other toughies, that he "couldn't stop or turn" on 80-pound Power Pro braided line
and 60-pound monofilament leader. He talked of sierra "blowing up on bait," catching them on light line.
At one beach, below Santa Rosalia, Madruga said he spotted 15 to 20 large sea turtle shells next to the remnants of a charcoal fire, where it appeared
the turtle meat had been cooked or smoked. It is illegal to kill turtles in Mexico, but it's being done.
When the Floridians abandoned him, Madruga calmly drove to Loreto, gave the guys their stuff, collected his boat and hauled it back to Bahia San
Nicolas. Once there, he fished with Cudberto Bastida Guzman, a young Mexican who helped Madruga when he buried his truck up to the axles in deep sand.
They became fast friends.
The two new buddies caught two sailfish off Isla San Ildefonso, along with a 35-pound broomtail grouper, the largest grouper of the voyage.
"Those catches right there were the highlight of the trip," Madruga said.
That the fish came after his big disappointment with the Floridians gave him new purpose.
Steinbeck and his marine biologist friend, Ed Ricketts, spent six weeks on a 4,000-mile journey exploring the Sea of Cortez in 1940. They traveled
from San Diego, around Cabo San Lucas and eventually to the upper reaches of the Sea of Cortez on a collecting expedition. The voyage covered six
weeks in a 76-foot boat, Western Flyer, with a crew of five.
In "Log From the Sea of Cortez," Steinbeck writes about his adventures and misadventures and raves about Puerto Escondido, saying it was the richest
collecting station they visited.
"If one wished to design a secret personal bay, one would probably build something very like this little harbor," Steinbeck wrote.
Of all the places Madruga saw along the Sea of Cortez, he liked Puerto Escondido the most. There is a concrete launch ramp that was refurbished by a
group led by San Diegan Ty Miller, who runs a sportfishing and bighorn sheep hunting operation out of Loreto.
Miller has a saying: "Either you love Baja or you hate it. There's no in between."
It's hard not to love a place like Puerto Escondido.
There are mangroves and sandy bottom stretches, long sections of shoreline with huge fallen boulders, coral reefs and a ripping tide. Tropical fish
can be seen from the dock, and we caught dorado, leopard grouper and pargo just outside the harbor.
Miller docks his sport boats there and owns the Driftwood Internet Cafe at Puerto Escondido, a gathering place for Americans who moor boats there or
live in nearby villages such as Tripui. There's gourmet coffee and connections to the States.
At Tripui, a mile from the harbor, there's an American RV-trailer park being rebuilt after a stove fire in one of the units back in June burned 135
palapa-covered units, 50 boats and 50 vehicles.
Only one place survived. San Diego's Ron Pearson had just built a new Baja home at the southeast corner of the lot. It was made of fireproof
materials.
"It was almost like the entire place was cremated," said Pearson, whose wife, Chris, helped save people and pets, except one dog, amazingly, the only
fatality.
Traylor and I motored south and had no luck fishing. We had some MC Swimbaits get rocked and return without tails. We had fish "blow up" on lures,
only to lose them. We hooked a few "unstoppables."
Toward the end of our short journey to Agua Verde we somehow wrapped fishing line around the prop. I spotted a sandy beach and advised Rick we needed
to land and unwrap the braided line.
When we got to shore, I took a swim in the spa-like saltwater. Rick tended and fixed the motor while I took my camera and shot pictures of an
abandoned, ransacked trailer shaded by a palapa. Beside the trailer was a mysterious gazebo-style pen that had animal skulls and bones and a giant
turtle shell.
When I showed Rick the shell, he was curious, but wary when I told him of the pen and bones.
"This stuff spooks me," he said. "It's that voodoo thing and all. We shouldn't mess with this stuff."
We returned the shell to the pen in its exact indentation in the sand. I suddenly felt what Rick was talking about. There was more to that pen than we
probably wanted to know.
I also checked for Amazon maidens. There were none.
At Agua Verde, Marshall was glad to see us. Like the Floridians, we had trouble reaching him on the satellite phone and VHF radio. By the time we did
make contact with him, we were just around the bend from Agua Verde and told him we'd be there in less than a half hour. He had already hired a
Mexican pangero to go out and search for us.
Agua Verde is a small fishing village with homes, a school and a small store. Madruga told us that the drive in from Highway 1 was over the worst Baja
road he'd ever been on.
"But it was a two-hour drive through some of the most impressive scenery I've ever seen in Baja," Marshall said. "With the mountains and canyons,
there were times I felt like I was driving in the Grand Canyon. The roads are so narrow and fragile that a guy with a pick could go out there and cut
this town off from civilization in an hour."
Young girls showed up with homemade pastries. I bought a bunch and emptied pesos into their tiny hands. They went away giggling and squealing and then
brought more goodies and made another sale.
Down the beach, boys played soccer with goals made from driftwood and fishing nets.
The sun was setting. I spotted an osprey perched on a piece of stick-up driftwood. He was eyeballing bait fish working the inshore waters. This was
the Baja I'd come to see, the one so few ever do.
Magical and mystical Baja never looked more remote than the next night as I lay in a blue and white panga on the shoreline of Bahia Coyote, staring up
at the Milky Way Marshall and I had just raced nearly 100 miles in the tin-cup 15-foot Klamath Bayrunner over what Marshall said were the second-worst
seas he'd had. But we managed to fish some, and I even caught my first roosterfish during one particular frenzy under diving birds.
We also met two American kayakers, Terry Richards of Mojave and Sandra Arco of Lancaster. They were paddling from Loreto to La Paz and were hauled out
on a remote sandy beach. We stopped and visited. We all seemed glad to see other people doing such nonsense.
Later we spotted two boys hand-lining needlefish ? barracuda-like fish and super abundant in these waters ? in a cove adjacent to a small village.
Marshall threw them a bag of lures, and their eyes lit up.
Despite the rough seas we covered the distance from Agua Verde to get to Punta Coyote to meet Rick well before sunset. Marshall hooked and released a
small dorado in 15 feet of water close to the beach.
Rick's assignment that day was to drive very carefully from Agua Verde to Highway 1 and go to the edge of La Paz before U-turning and heading north to
meet us.
We had times prearranged for contact via satellite phone and the boat's radio, but we never heard from Rick.
When we arrived at the sandy but littered beach of Punta Coyote, there was no Rick, no Ford F-250 pickup with the cozy camper. The curious fishing
family merely took a few looks at us and went back to their lives.
Darkness fell and it didn't look good. I tried to stay positive; I had faith in Rick. But Marshall blew. As he wrote in his journal:
"I was ticked off and cussing up and down the beach at Punta Coyote about this situation. It was probably due to a build-up of stress up to that point
because of irresponsible, undependable individuals who don't do or say what they are going to do. Rick getting lost was the last straw. I finally blew
a fuse. I was at the point of considering picking up everything and heading home, ending the trip early. But my goal wouldn't have been reached, and I
wasn't going to let that happen."
Just after dark we spotted some lights coming our way on the dirt road from La Paz. Could it be Rick?
It turned out to be a Ford Econoline van with California plates and a big "Vote for Kerry/Edwards" sign in the passenger windshield.
Inside was Jim Schulz, a devout Democrat from Santa Barbara who has been coming to this very stretch of beach, this same Mexican ranchero, for 27
years.
"Are you here to rescue us?" I asked, half-kidding.
No, he wasn't. Schulz told us that he'd built a home on Isla Partida, a small island southeast of Punta Coyote.
Schulz always drives down with a bag of tennis balls and occasionally tosses them to kids he sees along the way.
In the morning, a young pangero from Isla Partida would come and boat him to his villa.
"Would you guys like a beer?" Schulz asked.
"I'd love one," I said.
"But you have to vote for John Kerry," he said.
I took the brew, crossing my fingers behind me. Politics, even here.
Rick finally made contact on the satellite phone. He had missed the turnoff to Punta Coyote and now was at the other end of La Paz. But he realized
his mistake and was driving the 50 miles or more to reach us.
Suddenly the panga on the beach looked comfortable, and I stretched out in it and fell asleep.
When I awoke a half hour or so later, Marshall had stuck a bright strobe light on a pole on the beach that I'm sure NASA picked up from space.
Schulz said there was no way Rick would make it, not on that road, not at night. There were spots completely washed out and, in pure Baja fashion,
marked with nothing but a few rocks piled in front of the washouts.
But Rick showed true grit. When he got stuck, he sought help from some pangeros who dug him out of a sandy wash. That part of the Baja spirit remains.
Locals are always ready to help. It was the Baja we'd all gone to see.
By the time Rick reached us, Marshall was cussed out and didn't say a word to him for missing the turn.
The camper was there. We ate quesadillas by starlight and drank a few cervezas that truly never tasted better. I toasted Rick for his perseverance.
At dawn, we awakened to Schulz being transported to his island getaway. Marshall and I prepared to make the trip to La Paz in the truck. Rick would
man the boat by himself, no easy chore.
We gave our ranchero host, Jose Raul, some money and some gas as a way to thank him for the use of his land.
Later, in La Paz, Rick talked of how the Sea of Cortez nearly swallowed him and the boat. The seas were rough, with white caps visible from the
mountain road Marshall and I drove.
"At one point, I yelled, 'Is that all you've got?' like yelling at the Sea would do anything," Rick said.
The Sea of Cortez, the land of magic, myth and great beauty, only understands one language, that of the adventurers who seek the unknown and the
dreamers who see Amazon maidens dancing by firelight.
-------------------------------------------------
Marshall Madruga plans to travel to various boat shows this winter and spring to talk about his experiences in the Sea of Cortez. He can be reached by
phone at (619) 222-0301 or by e-mail at: marshallmadruga@marshallmadruga.com
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