March 21: A Panga Harangue: Isla Coronado to Puerto Escon"gringo"

Fishing regulations in Baja?? Who knew?!

Woke up and quickly went snorkeling/spearfishing to take advantage of the beautifully clear water. We had 20-30 ft of visibility, the best in a long while. Motored around the southeast point of Isla Coronados and started diving. We some some huge Cabrilla and grouper and Patrick and David started employing a group hunting tactic to herd the fish towards the spearer. A panga stopped by wit dive gear to tell us that we were near a thoroughfare for pangas and to be careful. We had seen them coming and avoided them by a good distance. After Patrick speared a nice spotted cabrilla, another panga stopped by again telling us that we were in a dangerous place and should have a dive flag. It is true, we should have a flag, and were not aware this was such a panga highway. They saw the spear gun and got a little upset with us for it was forbidden to use a speargun in the national park. We had no idea we were even in a national park, let alone a rule allowing regular fishing but not spear fishing. That must be why there are such big fish around… David saw the lady on the panga hop on her phone and feared that she was calling the authorities, whatever that would be in Mexico. So we scooted to our dinghy and quickly motored back to Blue Eyes. A couple passing pangas gave us a little bit of elevated blood pressure, fearing that they were the “authorities”, but after quickly getting underway, we left our fears at the anchorage. It took a little to shake the tone and attitude the lady in the panga had towards us, but we justified her behavior by this: how would we feel if we found someone hunting in Yosemite and simply said they didn’t know it was forbidden or that they were in a National Park?

Very important provision

Whale shark stare down

So we headed the 6 miles to Loreto for some re supplying. Loreto is a bustling town compared to Mulege, with the largest super market Justen has seen in Mexico. We stopped at a well supplied fishing/chandlery store. Secured a dive flag and some more fishing gear, but no hose for the dinghy. 

After finishing up groceries we headed south to Puerto Escondido to anchor for the night. It was surreal entering the nearly enclosed natural harbor, as we saw some 50-75 other sailboats anchored/moored. We are no longer in the desolate Nortern Sea. Some cruisers calls this port “Puerto Escongringo” and listening to the radio chatter and seeing the boats we now see why. We anchored in the larger bay and turned in for the night, to figure out paperwork tomorrow.

"America!": Repairing our gringo pride!