Santa Rosalia and Northers

Oct. 17th - Oct. 25th: Santa Rosalia is one of our favorite Baja towns. It just doesn't fit the mold. It was built by the French in the late 1800's for copper mining. Now the French like to live in French style, so most of the construction is clapboard "tropical". The town could be built in a jungle in Malaysia and it would fit. Except it's in Baja where there's no lumber, but that didn't stop them. It's really very neat.

There's also Gustav Eiffel's "modular" church that he built for a world's fair in the late 1800's and the mining company brought it down, just 'cause.

Finally, the town's people have a great sense of town pride, while remaining exceedingly friendly. They celebrated their 122nd anniversary as a town this last weekend with 3 absolutely lavish days of festival. Gotta love it!

Now for the other side: Hurricane Kiko had been building for several days off Acapulco/Zihautenejo and had a possibility of coming north up the Sea. Not a good thing. Net, we stayed in Santa Rosalia until we had a better idea of Kiko's course and therefore our options. Kiko decided to go out to sea to the west and that was good.

In the meantime, a very high pressure was building over the 4 corners area of the U.S. That usually portends Santa Anna's in Southern California (it did) and "Northers" in the Sea of Cortez (it did). The challenge was Kiko. Kiko has been acting as a vacuum cleaner sucking up air, while the High pressure over the 4 corners has been acting like a popped balloon. The effect was wind flying down the Sea of Cortez following Kiko.

We've had 3 days of winds in the 30's and 40's, much longer lasting than typical for a norther. To add to the challenge, the marina here in Santa Rosalia is a picture perfect place in calm conditions, but not well built for rough conditions. Net, in the worst of it, we were seeing water breaking across the docks which connected Wirewalker (the furthest boat out) to the shore. A little disconcerting. We had lines to all the dock cleats and also tied to the pylons, just to be sure.

Would we stay here again? In a heartbeat! We love the town and the folks in the marina here are as kind and helpful as you'll find anywhere in the world. What the facility lacks in structural heft, the workers make up in effort and support. They are great!