Seawind Rally Days

As the world is held hostage by the swine flu the Gato Loco crew is joined by their Seawind friends for some days together in the Loreto area. Everybody is good on our boats.

Tuesday April 28th near sunset Gato Loco with Bill, Lowell, Frankie & Kerry joined Ralph & Helen on MoonDrifter in Bahia Salinas. Watching to the south of the anchorage two more Seawind 1160’s slowly appeared on the east shore of Isla Carmen. Shortly before sunset, Cubo Lista with Kurt, Laurie, Roy, Debbie & Mark on board and SeaEsta with John & Patsy on board dropped anchor in the huge bay with a long white sand beach. Kurt and Roy can now relax after making passage from Cabo over the past two days. They arrived in good shape after picking up the ladies and Mark who arrived from San Diego mid-day before making it to our first nights anchorage. Winds today were light and are forecasted to remain light over the next days with warm days and cool evening, perfect except for the light wind condition. No time was wasted to join the Cubo Lista crew for evening war stories of our journeys. BTW: Cubo Lista was loaned to Kurt by Bob & Jenny Wolff and hails out of Durango Co. Thanks to them for letting their beautiful boat join the Loreto Seawind Rally. Maybe they can be here next year.

Wednesday morning started with a shore excursion to the old village that used to harvest salt from the Sea of Cortez. The operation shut down in 1980 and the village is in disrepair but very interesting to visit.

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Our overnight anchorage lies east of the salt operation. The building in the foreground was attached to the decaying pier where salt was loaded on barges to be exported.

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Lots of rusting equipment and crumbling buildings full of interest items give a glimpse of life in the village and how the operation worked.

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Helen walks out of the doctors office fit as a belle. Next door was city hall and then the local Tienda store. Ralph has the best knowledge of the operation and acts as our tour guide while we try to piece together how the whole village worked. Ralph’s theory is the operation was shut down when ice plants began producing enough product to no longer need salt for preserving fishing catches.

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Living quarters still have items as if it’s a museum.

Don’t try walking on the stairs to the offices that overlooked the loading piers. The old pier is only pilings and will probably be gone in the near future..

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North of the village is a huge shallow salt lake that appears to be natural. Other dry salt basins are evident where they dry sea salt product..

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Professor Ralph left gives us the tour. Mark, who’s an editor for Cruising World, is taking notes and trying to think how to make a story out of this ghost town.

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Lower right, Debbie floats half out of the water in the salt pond. She & Laurie enjoy a therapeutic swim later.

There are some restored building on the beach front and it is a kayak hostle. Looks like only one family lives on the island now.

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Beautiful little church is in fairly good shape and is full of original furnishings. Debbie tried a little singing and said the acoustics were great.

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500 meters off shore in 30ft of water is a barge wreck. Swimming the wreck we found her lying on her port side with large ports to the cargo space on the top decks. No one had the nerve to enter a port but I’m sure she was full of fish. Some cargo spaces were exposed by large holes. No apparent reef in the area and guide book doesn’t report how she was sunk.

Bill found a lobster skeleton but not luck on any live ones.

Another light wind day out of the NE as we head for an afternoon stop at Vee Cove, one of Gato Loco favorite stops. Unfortunately, the narrow cove would be a little tight for 4 cats so we’re only here for some swimming and sightseeing.

The cove sea bed is covered with balls of bait fish. The black in the water is small 2-3″ fish. One panga fishing boat came in and netted some while were there and the pelicans were feasting with huge splashes all around our boats as they dive for lunch.

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We couldn’t resist staging a Seawind group photo taken from the west cliffs of the cove with crews collected on Gato Loco for some afternoon cheer. Water temp is perfect for snorkeling the sea walls and caves. Sea cave floors are covered with large rays. We’ve noticed them in the past and seems to be their habitat. Dolphins are surfacing outside the cove towards the NE corner of Carmen. This is the Vee Cove we remember!!

The day is slipping away and our plans to sail to Isla Coronado change as we opt for La Lancha 2 mile west where there is plenty of room for us to anchor 4 cats.

Vee Cove

Until the next Update… The GatoLoco Crew

BTW..
Cox.net’s new enhanced email is spamming our emails so check your spam folder and set email up to allow email from lowellmcculley@prodigy.net.mx I think if you add our email to the contact list on the web mail our mails will make it through.