The Fishing Trip of a Life Time....

We trailered our 28' Grady White 282 Sailfish powerboat to the Sea of Cortez. My husband, son, two Pembroke corgi dogs and me spent 30 days living on the boat, fishing and diving the Sea of Cortez. Our trip began when we left home in Santa Cruz, California on Tuesday June 20, 2006.  

On Thursday the 22nd we crossed the border into Mexico. Our group leader made a mistake and led us thru the center of the town of Nogales Mexico. The electrical wires in Mexican towns tend to hang low.  My husband had designed a custom brush guard for the hard top of our boat. If wires hit it they were pushed up and over the boat. The last boat in our line, a 28' Skip Jack with a flybridge, hit and knocked down a telephone wire and an electrical wire. The electrical wires feel onto a Mexican police car with two officers inside. They were not happy. They stopped and detained the driver of this vehicle and his wife. They were finally released 9 hours and $6,000 dollars later. The rest of us continued our trip south arriving in San Carlos Bay around 2:30 pm.

San Carlos is a beautiful and modern facility.  The Docks are modern with locking electronic card activated gates. The bathrooms are clean with showers. The walk around the marina includes, hotels, restaurants, cafe's, giftshops, bait/tackle shop, and yacht broker. The launch ramp is new and wide, there are attendants at the ramp to help you launch and wash your boat down for about  20 peso's. After launching our boat we took our truck and trailer to a local storage yard that was fenced and had on site security  for $75 for the month.

On Saturday the 24th we began our journey. We fished our way north to Concina Bay, a 35 mile run. After about an hour of not catching we tried dropping our lures further back and almost immediately began catching dorado. We caught 2 bulls and 6 females, all were released. At about 4 pm the our group all began arriving at Concia Bay.  

We spent the next 30 days living aboard our 28' boat. Most nights we anchored in private coves or in coves at offshore islands. Ours days were spent fishing our way to our next nights stop. The dorado fishing and humbolt squid was epic. We fought and released uncountable fish. Our dinners usually consisted of fresh fish fix in a variety of ways. Even our two dogs enjoyed eating fresh fish.

We stopped for 3 days in Loreto to fish in the Vagabundo's Dorado Tournament. This was a 3 day tournament into which we entered a 32 pound fish. The winning fish was 54 pounds. The last night of the tournament was a fiesta with lots of fresh fish and margaritas. The next day we reprovisioned the boat with food, drinks and ice. We then  headed 15 miles south to Puerto Escondito to refuel and get our fresh water tanks filled.

The next day our group continued our trek south to La Paz. On July 10th we arrived at Marina De La Paz Our group of 4 boats were able to get slips next to each other for the next 2 nights. We spent the time fixing boat problems and exploring the city. The restaurants were great and the people very friendly and helpful. Even the Tommy and Lily (the two pembroke corgi's) loved La Paz. We took them to eat at a sidewalk cafe and the cook brought out a bag of carne asada for them to enjoy.

On the 12th we began our journey back north. The dorado fishing was better heading north than it had been on the trip south. We ran into large schools of dorado. It was fun to throw a lure over the side to catch one of the bulls circling the boat while my son or husband fought one we'd picked up on the troll.

We arrive back in Loreto to pick up one of our members who'd stayed behind waiting for a new prop to arrive from the USA. We all got stuck for about 4 days here because this person had the prop sent ground instead of air. Finally it arrived and we all continued north to Santa Rosilito.

We refueled and explored the town having a great lunch before returning to our boats. In the late afternoon we crossed to San Marcus Island to spend the night. Early the next morning we left the comfort of the island and headed out to sea. The crossing would be 68 miles to San Carlos Bay. The weather was hot and sunny and the water was flat. We made the crossing in about 2 hours. The last 15 miles we slowed to trolling speed to try fishing. We didn't get any fish but we got a awesome show from some passing whales.

We got a slip in the marina and arranged to have the bottom of the boat cleaned. The next morning we pulled the boat out of the water and took it to the storage yard where we had it detailed and secured for the night. We finally got to sleep that night in a bed with air conditioning. The next morning was July 23 and we began our trip home. We had all survived and had memories that would last us for a lifetime. Never again will I look at small comforts, like ice and freshwater, quite the same.

I was very pleased with the custom demo rods I took on the trip. All of them performed fantastic and all caught lots of fish. The rods I took along were,  2 Calstars (one with Fuji guides in a spiral wrap and one wrapped conventionally with aftco roller guides), a Calstar GF410 IGFA, 60-80#(wrapped with All American Neptune spiral wrap roller guides), Forecast Tuffstick 20-40#(spiral wrapped with Fuji guides),and a Seeker 15-40# (spiral wrapped) fast action live bait rod.

.