Shared tales of Baja adventures
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/20041128-911-outdoors.h...
By Ed Zieralski
November 28, 2004
It's always good to get immediate feedback for a story, and that was the case with the Thanksgiving Day piece on Marshall Madruga's Baja Odyssey
through the Sea of Cortez.
Several readers phoned and others e-mailed comments. All were appreciated. Thank you.
Dr. Tim Barnett, oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told of a similar Baja trip he and his family made 30 years ago to Puerto
Escondido.
Barnett said it was "before the paved road went through, no docks, launch ramp, cafe or RV village. Just wide-open yellowtail off the concrete wharf,
purple hinge scallops in the narrow cut."
Barnett said they also stopped at Aqua Verde and found some interesting artifacts.
"If you enjoyed it this time, imagine what it was like 30 years ago," Barnett said.
Ken Woodward of Rancho Bernardo sent a detailed e-mail about an annual trip down the Sea of Cortez that he and two others first started taking in
1964.
"Beginning in 1964, three schoolteachers ? Don Huffman, Newt Stafford and I ? began a saga that would be repeated each summer for the next eight
years," Woodward said. "It all began with Don's purchase of an 18-foot plywood, center console, commercial fishing skiff with an 8-foot beam made by
Dale Woodward of Encinitas."
Ken Woodward said there was no navigable road down the Baja Peninsula at the time, so they trailered a boat to San Carlos Bay on the mainland of
Mexico, 90 miles directly across the gulf from the French mining town of Santa Rosalia. They had a 100-horsepower Mercury on their boat and enough
fishing gear and supplies for a three-week trip.
Woodward said they visited "desolate desert islands, beautiful bays and the many wonderful and isolated Mexican villages and towns along the Gulf."
In addition to stopping at Santa Rosalia, Woodward said the group visited Mulege, Conception Bay, Loreto, Escondido Bay and then made the 151-mile
jump to La Paz and finally Cabo San Lucas. They returned to San Carlos Bay by loading their skiff onto a freighter at La Paz for a quick trip to
Guyamas, Mexico, near their departure spot, San Carlos Bay.
Woodward said in 1969, instead of taking their annual trip down the Sea of Cortez, the men launched from Ensenada with the intention of
circumnavigating the Baja Peninsula and ending at San Felipe. They added Harry Philips to the crew and made it to San Felipe in three weeks.
"The peninsula highway was completed in 1973, and the plywood skiff eventually gave way to a fiberglass boat, campers and motor homes, and families of
our children and grandchildren," Woodward said. "And, stories over the years have been many, but for three of us those early years of traveling and
fishing the Sea of Cortez will be forever remembered."
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