Rocky Point to El Golfo de Santa Clara, Mexico
Wednesday May 21
The official run was staying two nights in El Golfo, but we elected to
go back to Rocky Point on Wednesday. Since we definitely did not get
enough beach running on Tuesday, we got up early to catch low tide
(8AM) on Wednesday morning. We left El Golfo at 7AM, and low tide
gave us clear beach running for about 20 miles SE from El Golfo. This
was fantastic! The beach at low tide is typically 200 - 300 meters
wide with smooth hard-packed sand. There are just enough soft spots
and wet spots to keep the drive interesting. We saw a few folks
camping, but for the most part we had the whole beach to ourselves. We
saw all manner of wildlife, and lots of dead stuff. The biggest of
the dead stuff was a 15 meter long dead whale. The whale was
interesting to look at if you stayed on the upwind side. Since there
are at least 5 types of whales in the Gulf of California, I'm not
prepared to say what kind of whale it was - it was certainly dead. We
followed the beach the whole way down to the estuary, and then
back-tracked back up to where the road leaves the beach. After we
crossed the salt flats again, we hopped on the paved highway back to
Rocky Point. We got back in early afternoon in time to hit one of Bob
M.'s favorite taco shops for lunch. After that we hit the carwash to
clean the heavy salt off the trucks. Then we were forced to spend the
rest of the afternoon at the resort on the beach or in the pool. The
wind had stiffened so there was fairly heavy surf. More Mexican
seafood at El Rincon de Sophia that evening.
Motel Villas del Sol where we stayed in El Golfo.
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The sand is packed hard by the surf.
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Mike is at the front end of the dead whale, and he is upwind.
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We spotted a pod of dolphins just off shore.....
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and it is very hard to catch the dolphin with the shutter delay of the digital camera......
so we barely see one here......
and here.......
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Finally here is a visble dolphin (just beyond the surf on the left if you zoom in).
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A south wind has a good surf going on Sandy Beach.
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This web page maintained by John M. Hill:
jhill@as.arizona.edu
All contents copyright © 2008 John M. Hill. All rights reserved.
John's 4x4 page
Last modified: Tue Jul 15 18:52:39 2008
