Vessel "Corine" at anchor in the CSL outer anchorage with a view of the numerous condos and hotels constructed and under construction. The advantage of the outer anchorage is that at least in the summer time it is cooler and for certain cleaner. For the discreet, it is cheaper. Normally, the Captain has 24 hours to check in with the local authorities however, this rule is interpreted loosely in CSL, no one in the past has has said anything after two or three days and then departing. This of course can change.
Normally, cruisers patronize the restaurant and bars behind the Pemex fuel dock or at least some of them. Some care must be exercised since the area is infested with tourists, they swarm ashore from the cruise ships, clog the streets with their presence, buying a bauble from every shop and in general making a pain out of themselves. The author prefers the happy hour and fare at the Crazy Lobster a few blocks from the waterfront. This is an open air restaurant at one time owned by an expatriate American Lawyer who decided to return to the U.S.A. and return to the practice of law. The business was sold, present ownership unknown but the business is well managed. Another favorite is the Giggling Marlin, also a few blocks from the water front. This enterprise is mostly patronized by fishermen but a few cruisers can be found there, as well as a few tourist.
The local marina, a part of the American owned Almar Marinas chain, has a lock hold on the slip situation and they are taking advantage of this situation by the sky high slip rates, about $60.00 per night for the author's 35' boat, or it was this amount a few years ago. More than likely there have been additional slip fee increases since. Obviously there is a need for more competion in the form of another marina, there have been several attempts in this regard. On the south side of the inner anchorage a local enterpriser, an American, had constructed approximately 20 slips with a Pemex fuel dock however, this complex of slips and the fuel dock were blown away by the hurricane of September, 2001 and as of 1/15/02, there had been no effort for replacement. There have been persistent rumors as well as at least one local newspaper article to the effect that a building permit application had been filed, filer unknown by the author, for the construction of a new marina, possibly a few miles up the coast in the direction of La Paz. If this marina were ever constructed it would be a 'Godsend' for the cruising community. According to the newspaper article, the marina construction was being contested by an environmental group but the author suspects the American manager of the local marina would actually be behind the resistance.
The enterpriser as mentioned above, owns and operates in addition a site seeing boat for tourist, a wooden sailing vessel of late 19th or early 20th century vintage of about 90' and square rigged. This vessel when not in use was moored on a buoy in the outer harbor. According to the local gossip, there is considerable animosity between the local marina manager and the enterpriser. At the approach of the September 2001 hurricane, the enterpriser, knowing very well he would not be able to rent a slip in the local marina for protection, had his lawyer rent a slip for him with the permitee being a boat on the way. This ruse was discovered by the marina manager after the hurricane had passed and the last info the author had on the matter was that it was in litigation. The author thinks the marina manager's case is somewhat weak to say the least. The author does not repeat gossip, the above came from a very reliable source, another cruiser.
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
By Ben Fox, Associated Press
SANTA ROSALILLITA, Mexico — This remote fishing village on a wind-swept point has no electricity, no running water, and not a single paved road.
But it will have a marina for yachts courtesy of Mexican authorities who are shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to lure U.S. boat owners to the rugged coast of the Baja California peninsula.
Construction crews are hauling boulders to form stone jetties that jut out from shore at Santa Rosalillita like giant parentheses shrouded in coastal fog. The new marina, 410 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, will be the first stage in Escalera Nautica, a proposed network of 22 new and upgraded ports on the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez.
If all goes according to plan, the number of pleasure boaters who cruise these waters would grow nearly tenfold to 76,400 by 2010 as the network of marinas, hotels, and other amenities make it easier to travel to and from Mexico in a yacht, according to government projections. "This project will create enormous amounts of development and obviously a lot of jobs," said Alejandro Moreno, tourism secretary of Baja California Norte, one of the peninsula's two states. "It's a great opportunity."
Not everyone shares his enthusiasm. Environmental groups fear large-scale development will compromise a unique desert and coastal ecosystem that is prized by surfers, sport fishers, kayakers, and others for its rugged beauty. "This type of megaproject is totally inappropriate for this region," said Patricia Martinez, director of Pro Esteros, a wetlands advocacy group in the port city of Ensenada. "There is no need for so many marinas, especially in such environmentally sensitive areas."
Some of the most biting criticism comes from American yacht owners, the project's target market. "The numbers are absolutely ridiculous, pure fantasy," said Richard Spindler, founder of an annual San Diego-to-Cabo San Lucas sailing event and editor of sailing magazine Latitude 38. "They would have to empty every marina in California to get 75,000 boats."
Sailors argue that Mexico would be better served by adding new berths to the marina on the Sea of Cortez in the city of La Paz, which can get crowded in winter and early spring.
Still, many residents of remote Baja California villages like Santa Rosalillita welcome Escalera Nautica or anything else that would bring basic services and ease their dependence on boom-and-bust fishing. "If it brings, water, electricity, and jobs, it will be a good thing," 40-year-old fisher Armando Uribe said as he loaded his truck after a night of trying to catch halibut and shark in the Pacific.
In some places, where fisheries have collapsed from overuse, the benefits of Escalera Nautica are considered obvious. "The lobster is gone. The abalone is gone. All we have left is tourism," said Anita Grosso de Espinosa, a 94-year-old restaurant owner in El Rosario, along Baja's main highway.
Mexico's federal tourism agency, which is responsible for such glitzy resorts as Cancun and Ixtapa, bills Escalera Nautica as the country's largest tourism project in 20 years. Government agencies have budgeted $360 million over the next six years — including $8 million for Santa Rosalillita — and hope to attract more than twice as much in private investment for hotels, restaurants, and other amenities, officials said.
The principle behind Escalera Nautica, which translates as nautical staircase or ladder, is that better infrastructure will induce more sailors to explore the peninsula, which runs 1,000 miles from the border city of Tijuana to the resort of Cabo San Lucas, and to venture to mainland destinations such as Mazatlan or Guaymas. Authorities plan to build ten new marinas and expand five more to complement the seven that already exist in the region.
Of the new marinas, Santa Rosalillita is furthest along in construction. It has already caused significant beach erosion and killed marine life by stirring up mud in the village's small bay, said Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, Calif. Moore, who was conducting research on the project this month from his catamaran anchored off the beach at Santa Rosalillita, questions whether many would visit the remote village. It has no hotel, one restaurant, and is only accessible by a spine-jarring dirt road. "This is not a tourist resort. This is a windy promontory that's almost always foggy and cold," Moore said as he stood on the shore beside the new jetty.
Government backers assert that hotels and other amenities, largely funded by private investors, will come as the project progresses. They also said they will take steps to protect the environment. "This is going to be a sensitive project," said Pedro Delgado, planning director for the tourism ministry for Baja California Norte. "We are not trying to develop another Cancun or Cabo San Lucas."
Such assurances don't convince Mexican and U.S. environmentalists who hope to derail Escalera Nautica or at least limit its scope. Opponents have succeeded in persuading Mexico to halt construction of a new road in a nature preserve until further environmental studies are completed. The shiny blacktop, surrounded by rare species of cactus, comes to an abrupt end in the desert east of Santa Rosalillita.
Environmental groups also persuaded Mexico to reduce the number of proposed berths to 100 from 1,800 in the tiny Sea of Cortez village of Bahia de Los Angeles, said Serge Dedina, director of Wildcoast, a U.S. organization that seeks to track and protect the endangered sea turtles that feed in the waters off Baja California. "We're not going to stop all of it, but we're definitely going to mitigate the most egregious environmental impacts," Dedina said.
Copyright 2002, Associated Press
ENVIORNMENTAL GROUPS SAY MEXICO OVERESTIMATES DEMAND FOR MARINAS
By E. Eduardo Castillo —
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Environ-
mental groups asked the Mexican gov-
ernment on Jan. 16 to modify a tourismproject that calls for building 22 newand upgraded ports along the Baja
California coast.
Representatives of the international
environmental groups WILDCOAST andGroup of 100 asked thegovernment toinvest the money instead on improvingand expanding existing infrastructure in the resorts of LosCabos, La Paz,Ensenada, and Mazatlan.
Homero Aridjis, president of the
Group of 100, said the so-called
Escalera Nautica project would destroy
the region's fragile and unique ecosys-
tems.
WILDCOAST co-director Serge De-dina said environmentalists hope officials "avoid the construction of
megaprojects in isolated areas."
Mexico's federal tourism agency,
responsible for the resorts of Cancun
and Ixtapa, says the project is the country's largest in 20 years.
The idea is that better infrastructure
in small, currently undeveloped towns
will encourage more people to explore
the peninsula, which runs 1,000 miles
from the border city of Tijuana to the
resort of Cabo San Lucas.
Government agencies have budget-
ed $360 million over the next six years
and hope to attract more than twice as
much in private investment for hotels,
restaurants, and other amenities.
Officials believe the ports will
attract more than 60,000 yachts and
boats from the United States by 2014.
But the private EDAW Inc. firm, hired byWILDCOAST and Group of 100, determined from a study last month that nomore than 10,000 boats would visit theports.
The Mexican government "is looking
for foreign investors for a project that
is not viable ... there isn't the necessary
demand," Dedina said.
"Large-scale marina development
will undermine the ruggedness and
stark natural beauty that draw tourists
from the United States and other parts
of the world," Dedina said. "And, if actu-ally completed, the marinas will likelysit mostly empty, providing no economic benefit to local communities."
Aridjis said Baja California is a
wasteland of failed government prc
ects. "In Loreto, an abandoned
FONATUR marina bears witness to the
lack of demand for new marinas in the
region...We hope this market analysis
will convince them to re-examine the
existing development proposal arrrangment instead focus on bringing needed infrastructure like water and electricity inthe region. Once these marinas arebuilt, the damage is done and cannotbe undone."
Alejandro Rodriguez, the project
director, said he would examine the
study and the groups' recommend
tions. But there are no plans to cancel
the project, he said.
The Log News Service contributed to
this report.
Plans for Mexican peninsular Include Hotels and Marinas; One
Problem:getting there.
By Joel Millman and Jim Carleton
From an article taken from the WALL STREET JOURNAL
1-25-03
A new billboard erected by Mexico's state tourism agency here touts the millions of pesos on their way to this spot on the Baja Peninsular 400 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican border. The money will promote resort development as part of a project, the goverment promises, that will have "over 100,000 beneficiaries." A single spray painted word asks, "Quien?" That cheeky grafito means "who?" in English-poses a $100 million question that could nag planners of Mexico's Escalera Nautica for years to come. The "Nautical Route" --a chain of 22 goverment franchised ports and marinas to be built or expanded along 2,000 miles of shoreline in northwestern Mexico-- represents the country's most ambitious tourist development since the spetacular success more than a generation ago, of Cancun.
Now ranking amoung the Carribean's busiest destinations, Cancun would be hard to duplicate anywhere, much less along the craggy, desolate Baja Coast. Nevertheless, Mexican officials say that Escalera Nautica will be successful as well as ecologically safe. Best of all, they say, the estimated $1.9 billion cost to build it around the Sea of Cortez can be financed by private developers. But can it? Luring the vacation dollars of rich gringos from the U.S. Southwest has been the dream of Mexican tourist officials for years, since the 1973 completion of a two lane highway running the length of Baja's rugged spine. First by Car, then by recreational vehicle, and now by yacht. Tourism projects have always been launched under the same mantra: "Build it, and they will come".
Yet for 30 years, starting with a chain of government owned motels, then a chain of recreation-vehicle courts, those schemes have failed as developers have been unable to overcome Baja's biggest obstacle of relative inacessibility. Now a new report from a respected U.S. research firm throws some cold water on the planning behind this latest Baja venture.
According to the study by the San Francisco based EDAW Inc., which was commissioned by the philanthropic David and Lucile Packard foundation on behalf of some enviornmental and business groups in the region, demand for that kind of nautical tourism envisioned by Escalera Nautica is overblown by 600%.
For example, Mexican officials say the project will attract more than 60,000 big boats annually from the U.S. by 2011, although only around 3,000 such vessels travel there today; the EDAW report concludes demand will only support about 10,000 annual boat visits to the Baja area over that time. The reason, boating in the U.S. Southwest has largely stagnated. With so many aging babyboomers having taken up the pasttime, EDAW researchers foresee little reason for greater numbers to attempt sailing to Baja--a voyage that entails rough seas and treacherous currents and can last for weeks.
Mexican officals defend their projections, saying they take into account other variables such as overflow from California's filled-to-capacity marinas, anyway, the weather is better here: "Maybe you could have six months in Mexico and six months in the U.S". says Alexandro Rodriguez Mirelles, an official at the agency Fonatur supervising the Escalera Nautica project.
Given that Baja's main attractions are the unspoiled and unpopulated deserts and beaches, enviornmentalists hope they can talk the government into pursuing a radically scaled-down version of the project that would take advantage of these assets without undermining them. They worry that construction of marinas and other infrastructure would despoil a largely prestine landscape and threaten rare creatures like sea turtles.
"We support development in this region, but if we build infrastructure that is not needed, the damage will have been done." says Lorenzo Rosenzweig, chief executive officer of the Mexican Nature Conservation Fund, whicj has scheduled a January 22 meeting in Mexico City to review findings of the KDAW report with government officials.
Santa Roseillilita was chosen for the first step for Mexico's ambitious plan. A windswept village midway down the peninsula, its first street lights came just this past year--four solar operated lamps erected between a public basketball court and a row of outhouses.
Yet the spot was selected as the western terminus of one of Escalera Nautica's most dubious presumtions, a so-called Asphault Canal that would allow U.S. boatowners to save a weeks sailing time around the tip of Baja by trucking their vessels overland to the other coast.
The problem: Although Santa Roselillilta lies at Baja's thinnest point, it has neither a hospitable harbor, nor adequate road access linking it to the Cortez shore. The EDAW report concluded the the "canal" makes little economic sense, given that most boats would press on to Cabo San Lucas, at most three days south.
"This project is a great powerpoint presentation, but to build a marina here makes no sense either enviornmentally or economically." says Serge Dedina of WildCoast international conservation team in San Diego which monitors the health of the Baja coastline.
Pointing to the power shovels dredging the silt from the half-completed new marina, Mr Dedina says constant beach erosion means the marina's operator will have to pay the continual upkeep--this is a "port" that today lacks electricity and telephone service, to say nothing of food, lodging or medical facilities or fuel storage.
"Yachts" We see maybe one a month." says Sixto Alvarez of the Rafael Ortega Cruz Fishing cooperative, sitting amid a collection of rotting skiffs behind the cooperative's decrepit ice house. The packing shed is abandoned he explains, because all of the abalone here have been fished out.
Hard to reach by road, Santa Roselillilta is almost equally inaccessable by sea. This part of the coast lies along a stretch the yachsters call the Baja Bash, where high winds and dangerous currents make sea travel north to San Diego arduous, if not impossible. A transit marina, in other words, would count mainly on traffic going in one direction and would require the connessionaire running a transport service to pass on to boat owners his cost of bring empty trucks back after a trip.
"As a delivery skipper, I'm not the least worried about losing business," says Craig Kimbal, a yacht hauler who charges up to $2,000 to bring vessels around Cabo San Lucas and into the Sea of Cortez from the West Coast. Operators using the Asphault Canal might be able to charge an owner as little as $1,000, Mr. Kimbal calculates, but the owner would still have to get himself and his guests over to the other side with additionl expenses for food and lodging. "The whole idea is to have fun on the water--not to save time." Mr. Kimbal says.
Nevertheless, Fonatur officials say Mexico is committed to spending up to $70 million for the transpeninsula highway and $15 million apiece for new marinas on either coast--just for this link for the Escalera Nautica project. Its the linchpin that will lure other developers to the Sea of Cortez, starting at Puerto Escondido, where Fonatur says it has committments from golfer Greg Norman to design two golf courses for a new developmen with Boston venture-capital group Advent International, plans for the $200 million resort call for a 1,400 room hotel and state of the art marina.
"To say we are committed is premature," says Diego Serebrisky, Advent's representative in Mexico City "We are only at the study stage, We have promised to study this idea, but so far that's it."