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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64852
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Yep, one of us would hop out the Wagoneer and look or listen for any traffic... as there were sections of the old, old road that were one lane wide,
and dangerous to try and back up or down to a turnout.
Many crosses lined the edge of the old road, with wrecked cars in the canyon below... The old road got REALLY bad after 1974... When the
Transpeninsular Highway was completed, all cargo and tourist traffic for Gonzaga Bay came up from El Crucero/ Calamajue... and then the new Laguna
Chapala-Puerto Calamajue road (1983)... as a faster route than south from San Felipe.
Any maintenance on the road below Puertecitos ended, and it was suitable almost only to off road racers!
The newer road was built in starting in '85-'86 and joined the '83 Puerto Calamajue-Chapala road at the place we now call COCO'S CORNER!
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willyAirstream
Super Nomad
Posts: 1786
Registered: 1-1-2010
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Thanks for the great report David. I'm heading down Sept 1st and can't wait!
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64852
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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You're welcome!
The full trip report begins here, with Part 1: http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=46866
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deanoid
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: 7-29-2007
Location: San Diego County/Las Encantadas BCN
Member Is Offline
Mood: Baja withdrawal
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Thanks for the report David. Sounds like not much has happened on the road construction front since I was down there over Memorial Day. I suspect
they're actually working out of view and when the next section of road opens, the entire stretch to Cinco Islas (25.1 miles) will be done.
Primarily, this reply is in reference to Skipjack Joe's post above. I've been going down to the Gonzaga Bay/Encantadas area numerous times per year
since 1990. We already catch too few nice bass. I personally don't think the new road will do anything other than perhaps expedite what's already been
occurring for over a decade. The real problem is the commerciales fished out San Felipe. With that fishery done, they then came down south to visit
us. To top it off, the shrimp trawlers hit this area pretty hard and we all know what that does.
The crash of the fishery down there started in 1997 by my estimation. A band of scallop divers showed up and settled at Coñejo Feliz. They established
a small town of 50 - 75 people. When diving got bad, they used their time-off to rip-off everyone from Gonzaga Bay to Los Delfines. I've always wanted
to do an estimate of the number of scallops they took from the area, but never have gotten it together. A 5-gallon bucket, tape measure and some
(fairly) simple math is all that would be required. My rough estimate of the take was in the high hundreds of thousands. You just can't remove that
amount of biomass from a small area without consequences. My theory is that that started the crash of the entire food chain. Scallops are amongst the
most prolific of breeders of shellfish. Their larvae are free swimming in the water column for about six weeks, I've read. Young fish, other filter
feeders and whatnot feed off them. One thing's for sure, the rocks in the tidall zone in our area were formerly covered with mussels. Their predators,
the black murex snail and Caracol Burro (I don't know either the english or latin name for them) were plentiful. Now, there are no, and I mean not a
single one, mussels anywhere near my campo. Murex are very rare. I haven’t seen a Caracol Burro in over 15 years.
The other onslaught of commerciales came in the form of gillnetters. They've increased in number and permanence every year since about the same time.
We no longer catch corvina from shore, except on rare occasion. The bass are smaller and fewer. Last Christmas-New Years, there were so many pangas
out at the islands gillnetting Sierra that I just gave up fishing out there. Every time you'd see birds working or a boil, 25 pangas would speed to
the area and set nets. Funny thing is, according to the Punta Bufeo folks, there's not even any market for Sierra in Baja, but there is in Sonora, so
the fishermen were running them all the way over there.
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64852
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Thanks deanoid, your observation is good... Tourist sportfishing is not destroying the fish population... Anyway, there are almost no tourists
anymore... good roads or bad.
Welcome to Nomad!!
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