East Cape Kiting and Windsurfing

The area around Los Barriles is world famous for its kiting and windsurfing. The main reason naturally is the WIND! How clever is that? Actually the best part is that the wind is generally parallel to to beach. Not offshore; not inshore. That means you can take off from the beach, go groove in the wind for awhile and sail back in without a bunch of brutal tacking maneuvers. During the winter, the wind is from the North mostly; summer it comes mainly from the south.

The most well known area is called "North Beach." It's located North of Los Barriles. Go figure. A newer hot spot is between Los Barriles and La Paz called "la Ventana." Great winds and less well known.



This video is from Exotikite. They have a school and store in Los Barriles. I can't recommend one school over another from personal knowledge but my grand daughter and her boyfriend both work for Exotikite. What are ya gonna do?

If you're a kiter or windsufer, check out the Lord of the Wind contest being held here in January. This is going to be huge, get your hotel reservations soon.

Stuff To Do Around The East Cape

 Some folks have the idea that there's nothing to do out here but fish and kite. In fact a buddy in San Jose del Cabo calls our area "Los BORE-ilas." Hardly.  Maybe a little slower paced but there's plenty to do.

How about I start with the obvious:  Fishing!!! Of course there's fishing. World class it is. You can charter a boat from several different hotels and private operators. Here's a list that I compiled in a few minutes with Google. It's pretty good and I've undoubtedly left folks off.

Agave Hotel
Baja Marlin
Hotel Buena Vista
East Cape Resorts
East Cape RV
Los Pescadores
Martin Verdugo’s
The Reel Baja

Several restaurants around town will cook your fish for you. (Googly, Googly Batman, I'm not going to do ALL the work for you.) You can also get your fish smoked over at Smokey's Cantina.

I'll tell you where the good hot springs are, where to dig a hot tub on the beach, where to kite, where to ride horses, where to rent quads, where to ride bikes, where to find the waterfalls and where to rock and roll. Just don't hold your breath; I'm a slow poster.....

The Best Bisbee East Cape Yet

In my opinion which is worth exactly what you paid for it, this was a great fishing tournament. There were plenty of fish caught, lots of fish released, and good stories too.

Congratulations to the Bisbee family and Clicerio Mercado. They put on a good show.

Thanks to the Spa Buena Vista Hotel and the Valdez family, Cabo Riviera for sponsorship and to all the participants. For the final results for the winners and winnings, go to the Bisbee's site.

Here's a few highlights:

Day one, Tom Lansing on the Dreamweaver weighed this monster 581# Black Marlin. It's right there in between the little girls with the blue jackets. Tom had a good tourney, check the photo at the bottom.

This young man whose name may be Jordan, sorry it's an age thing, while fishing on the "Awesome" brought in a nice 119 # Tuna to steal the prize from the boat who had already weighed a 118 pounder. The Awesome had the daily winner for about 45 minutes when Don Whittier (pictured below) brought in a 120# Tuna to take it from the Awesome. Wow. The thrill of victory 3 times and the agony of defeat twice. All in one day and in one category. That's fishing.

Don not only swiped the victory from the team on the Awesome, he won the Tuna class all three days. Hard fishing and a little luck. Congrats.

In case you don't recognize this illustrious threesome, on the left is the Governor of Baja Sur, Narciso Agundez who fished with Oscar Daccarett (in the middle and who has won a few tournaments during his fishing career.) And on the end is Martha McNab, a local Buena Vista girl who was recently accepted into the Royal Billfish Slam Club after catching all 9 species of billfish. She is one of only SEVEN ladies who have accomplished this.

Hey it's Tom again! Nice Dorado guys.

That's all folks. Can't wait for next year!

The Bisbee Offshore

The Bisbee got off to a great start today.  I put photos and info on my Cabo Riviera blog since they are sponsors of the Bisbee. So check out the action at http://caborivieraresort.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Bob

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.)

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!!!!