The Coffee Shop, Part 1

We were sitting around the coffee shop one day taking another morning to solve the world's problems all over again. (This actually was my coffee shop that my now ex-wife and I opened in 1997. I'll tell you about it someday. Great place).

We had been reminiscing about the good old days of Baja before the land was worth anything and the developers came. The good old days were when the phones worked poorly when they worked, the grocery stores had about 5 products and every time a storm blew through, you were stranded with no gas, no water, no lights, nada for days or even weeks. (There was always beer and birria (goat meat) though). If you actually had some gas, you had to drive through flooded arroyos to get anywhere because the few bridges that existed were washed out.

Those were the good old days. Go figure.

We drifted in and out of subjects mainly abusing our friends who hadn’t made it to coffee that morning. Finally someone's indignation flared up over the abundance of poor drivers, another daily subject that we endlessly flog. Someone else complained that nobody ever gets stopped for speeding and how dangerous it was to drive the highway to Cabo from San Jose. When the weekend came, it got worse because not only do you have speeders in the left lane you have drunks in the right lane weaving slowly towards home.

After we had voiced every possible opinion and a couple more, a local Mexican friend had finally heard enough, "I'll tell you what the problem is. You Americans don't know how to drive drunk." (Now there's a sobering thought) "In the U.S. you're scared to get stopped by the police so you act sober and drive 60 mph when actually, you're HAMMERED. Here, before there were drunk tourists on the road, we drove with our flashers on and crept along the shoulder (where a shoulder actually existed) at about 20mph. Everyone knew you were drunk and avoided you. It was a good system"
While I was trying to wrap my brain around that concept, Señor Oso weighed in with his latest issue: "What's the deal with space?" Space? I wondered how we made the quantum leap from drunk driving to space.

"You know, you're driving along with some space in front of you and out of nowhere, somebody jams their car in YOUR space that you’re trying to maintain for your own peace of mind and it turns out he's only going another block and has to jam himself back into the space he came from. Or how about parking space? Nobody builds parking space here for their business. Ya gotta park on one side of town to get groceries on the other side." Ahh, that space. I've wondered that myself actually. Maybe space really is the final frontier.

If you come down, DRIVE CAREFULLY. The fine folks here in Baja Sur have developed their own driving culture that is sometimes completely at odds with the way we Americans as a whole, learned how to drive. Pay attention, don't get in a hurry and you'll be fine. I have plenty more to tell you about driving. Wait 'til you hear what the left blinker means.

To be continued...........

From Alaska to Baja

When people ask me where I came from, I always expect a surpised look or comeback. I say "from Alaska" and the response I get is usually "Wow, you sure went to extremes!" Of course it seems that way but actually the similarities far outweigh the differences. When we think of Alaska, we think of majestic mountains, beautiful lakes and rivers, fish and wildlife and of course snow. Alaska is all of that and much more but what doesn't come to mind immediately is that if you're not near one of the 3 major cites, you might be living a pretty rustic lifestyle.

Of course the same is true here in Baja California. When we drive highway one down to Los Cabos, there's a lot of bleak areas out there that you don't want to get stuck in. On the Baja you might have a real problem if you don't have a spare tire or enough gas.

The problem could be compounded several times if you're not prepared to wait out in the heat. There's miles of remote roads in Alaska also but if you're not prepared for a breakdown, you could easily suffer from hypothermia, frostbite or even death.

Thousands of tourists flock to Alaska every year to fish. Sound familiar? The sportsmen up there have exactly the same complaints about fish management as we do down here. "Well boys, looks like the nets are gonna kill every fish in the ocean."

I can tell you one thing that doesn't change no matter where you go. Fishermen and fish lies.

When I first got to Baja, some friends took me fishing. I didn't want them to think I was a babe in the woods so I mentioned that I had fished for years in Alaska. One pal looked at me and said. "You caught SALMON right?" The word "salmon" came out of his mouth like you would spit out old gum. So I clammed up about catching salmon in Alaska and let my thoughts drift back to fishing in Baja. It wasn't long before my rod went down. Great! This was my chance to at least demonstrate that I knew how to reel in a fish. I grabbed the rod, set the hook, checked the drag and proceeded to almost get yanked out of the boat. "HOKEY PETE," I yelled calmly, "This might be a good one!" El Capitan walked over, pulled some line off the reel and mumbled something like "Tuna, maybe 30." Yeah right. I'm hooked up with Moby Dick and he's saying a 30# tuna? Shut up already. After what seemed like forever, I got my fish to the boat. There it was, a monster all right. All 30 pounds of it. I broke a sweat over a 30 pound tuna??? I was casting about in my mind trying to come up with an appropriate comment but I was distracted by excessive laughter. Then it hit me. Ball players love to come down here for vacations, right? We've seen 'em! Great big guys with way too many muscles. They all swim and snorkel. You see where I'm going with this right? Come on, how could a 30# fish put up such a fight? You put two and two together and bingo! There are NATURALLY OCCURING steroids in the coastal waters of the Baja peninsula. Seriously! I've caught hundreds of salmon, all the types that call Alaska home, but even the 60+ pound Chinooks couldn't hold a candle to a small tuna. What else could it be??

When I lived in Fairbanks sometimes I would think to myself, "What happens if the whole financial system collapses?
I'm gonna freeze here in the dark!!!!"

Not anymore........

Nos Vemos

Los Barriles

Los Barriles captured a special place in my heart several years ago. It is the first place I visited in Baja sur and still holds good memories. We found Los Barriles because that's where the hotel Palmas de Cortez, is located. Our travel agent had actually tried to talk us out of going to Mexico so we bought a travel magazine and stumbled across the Palmas. We stayed in one of their old, romantic, palapa roofed rooms complete with fire-place. (At the time I couldn't even remotely imagine it being cold enough to want to build a fire. You know, being from Alaska and all.....) No locks on the doors nor danger in the streets and no problems. Every day we snorkeled, swam, walked the beach and relaxed. In the evenings I read to my kids. The hotel was all-inclusive and one of the kitchen staff clanged an old-fashioned cowboy triangle every day at lunchtime. Lunch was supposed to be about 1:30 if I remember right and by 12:30 we were already leaning towards the kitchen. After a week there, I was completely enamored of Baja Sur or at least the little bit of it I had grown familiar with.

That was 20 years ago. The area has grown since then but Los Barriles is still a pleasant little town. It's perfect for those of us who aren't quite so enamored with the night life in Cabo. Of course on the other hand, if you do get a little carried away,
everybody and I mean EVERYBODY knows about it the next day. So watch it, ok? The streets really do roll up early here and in fact 9pm is referred to as "Baja midnight." Remember what this joker did the other night?>>>

FYI: I haven't found any great web sites for Los Barriles but my friend Mary whose picture is featured as a musician at the Roadrunner Cafe earlier in this blog, has a nice site for her condo. It's got some good info so check it out.

When I came in '89 there were very few restaurants; I think Tio Pablo's was still a hot dog stand. The Plaza del Pueblo, where our restaurant and the bakery are located today, had not been built yet. But fishermen had been coming long before a paved road was built so there were already several hotels along the coast: Rancho Buena Vista,(circa late '50's) Hotel Buena Vista, Rancho Leonero, Punta Pescadero and of course the Palmas. Many of the hotels had their own landing strips for private planes since it took 4-ev-er to drive the 1000 miles of bad or NO roads. In fact, the airstrip was still being used at the Palmas when I was here before and the strip at Punta Pescadero is paved and well-maintained to this day.

The wind-surfers had discovered by '89 that the wind is perfect just North of Los Barriles. Wind surfing (and now kiting) is a winter activity here. The surfers and kiters start breezin' into town by January and are becalmed by mid-March. Fishing gets better in the spring so as the wind-people are being blown somewhere else, the fishermen are drifting in. These are 2 distinctly different groups of sportsmen who can occasionally be at odds with each other. It has to do with surfing where boats are anchored or maybe it's anchoring boats where people surf. One or the other. Of course there are some bi-sportual folks like my guitar playin' pal Big Jim who do both. (Maybe if your first name is "Big" it just goes without saying.)

Roadrunner Cafe & the new Bakery

Well I suppose in the interest of keeping peace at home, I should give you a tour of my wife's restaurant and her bakery. She opened a diner-style cafe, the Roadrunner, in Los Barriles 3 years ago and has just opened a bakery in the same plaza, Plaza del Pueblo.

The diner is a real cute little place with red and white tiles, booths, barstools and music playing most of the time. We actually did the tile work ourselves as well as quite a bit of other things including building the table tops.

When there are enough musicians in town, she occasionally offers music on Sundays. It has been very popular and a lot of fun.

She also hosts special events either inside or out on the covered patio.

The bakery idea started forming in Donna's mind a few months ago. I tried to talk her out of it for my own selfish reasons but was getting nowhere. I pointed out that she was self-taught and really didn't know exactly what she was doing. She countered with something like "then you don't have to eat any of my baked goods." That called for a change of tactics. One day after I had formed a new path of attack, all neat and logical, one of our local restaurant folks walked in and started ordering bread by the gunny-sack full. She liked that idea a lot better than mine.

So there's a new bakery in the Plaza del Pueblo. Come check it out.

East Cape Bisbee Awards Banquet

Just one more post about the Bisbee...... The awards banquet was fabulous. Very typically Baja; it was supposed to get started at 7pm but didn't really go until 8. I lived in Alaska a long time so I know about regional scheduling offset...... The food was delicious thanks to the crew at el Hotel Buena Vista, and the service was genuinely pleasant. The Governor of Baja California Sur, Narciso Agundez, was there with an entorage to congratulate the winners. Clicerio Mercado, an old friend from the restaurant business and the coordinator for the Bisbees in Mexico, announced the awards in Spanish and Wayne Bisbee announced in broken English. (By the way, Clicerio is a philathropist and has spent countless hours helping the orphans of Cabo San Lucas. I love this guy.)

I had a little more than passing interest this year. My employer "Cabo Riviera Resort" sponsored the event. We are building a beautiful marina that consists of channels and islands so that you can dock your boat next to your house. It'll also have a Pete Dye golf course. I have no doubts that someday the tournament will be based from the resort. We'll see.

So the guys from "Tracking International" interviewed Dave, Clicerio and me on the beach. If you're completely masochistic, go to my Shutterfly site and page down until you see it.

This was another great tournament. No controversy, great sportsmanship and a chance to hang out with like-minded folks. LOTS of fish released. Only 2 legal blues were caught but in my estimation it was still a great success.

Here's the final results:


2009 Bisbee’s East Cape Standings


53 Teams, $274,350.00 Cash Awards
101 Billfish Caught, 95% Release Ratio
Top Marlin
Cap’n Jake – Kent Andersson – 341.0 lbs. (blue) – $19,391.40
Mi Corazon – Keith Jones – 310.0 lbs. (blue) – $7,824.60
Top Dorado
Sails Call – Alfredo Lucero – 57.2 lbs. – $9,072.00
Top Tuna
Fisherman – Daniel Fisher – 174.4 lbs. (yellowfin) – $9,072.00
Top Release Teams
Alegria 1200 points (2 blue, 4 striped marlin, 2 sailfish)
Off the Hook 1100 points (2 blue, 5 striped marlin)
Hang ‘Em High 900 points (3 blue marlin)
Marlin Jackpots
Day 1 & Day 2 – Mi Corazon – $116,960.00
Day 3 – Cap’n Jake – $58,480.00
Gamefish Jackpots ‐ Dorado
Day 1 – Sails Call – $8,925.00
Day 2 – Dottie B II – $8,925.00
Day 3 – Lucky Hooker – $8,925.00
Gamefish Jackpots ‐ Tuna
Day 1 & Day 2 – Slippery Lizzard – $17,850.00
Day 3 – Fisherman – $8,925.00

Felicidades la familia Bisbee!!!!

East Cape Bisbee Tournament is in the books

Well the fish are all caught, there's nothin' left but the shoutin'. My neighbor's boat had the second biggest Blue Marlin which was caught the second day. Since no marlin were caught the first day, his boat took 2 days worth of prize money worth over 100,000. Gary Graham has a nice write-up at his blog "Baja Fly."

This tournament is held every year about the last week in July at the Hotel Buena Vista which is about 100 yards from my house. If you're near the East Cape during this time, it's well worth coming down around 3 to 4 pm to watch the boats come in.

My wife Donna and I are going to the awards banquet tonight. It's always a nice affair with good food, great ambiance and a few yucks.

I had a chance to visit with Bob Bisbee for a while and I'm not sure you can find many more people with as much blue-water fishing experience. That's not to mention his dedication and time spent organizing the various bill fish tournaments that are held around the world. Nice man too.

The next one up is the Bisbee's Black and Blue that is held every fall in Cabo San Lucas.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog "The Baja." I moved to San Jose del Cabo, BCS in 1997 and have lived in Baja full-time since then. I've survived several hurricanes, summer heat, winter cold (haha) and lots of interesting relationships. I'm going to share with you travel info, places to go, things to see, how to enjoy a routine police stop and many local personalities.

And to start with, we're in day 3 of the EAST CAPE BISBEE tournement. It's been slow but my neighbor Andrew who won this deal in 2006 is atop the leaderboard with a 310# blue marlin. There's only an hour left before lines in so he could very well have this thing in the bag. The tourney includes prizes for dorado and tuna. The top tuna is 100# and the dorado is around 57# I think.