Isla Carmen and Isla Coronados

Saturday, May 28, 2011

026-6.641 N
111-17.049 W

Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!

First off, happy Memorial Day weekend. That's kind of a distant thought from here. We just hope that everyone has good weather, enjoys them selves and stays safe.

Surprisingly it's been a week since my last log and I need to catch up or I'll be way behind. When I last wrote we were in Puerto Escondido and we were headed to an island called Isla Carmen. For us there were 2 primary reasons for going there. The first was to see the abandoned salt mines and the second was to dive on a 120' shrimp boat wreck.

I hadn't realized how big of a business mining salt was in this area, but there are lots of (primarily abandoned) salt mines spread throughout the area. Basically these are large, flat areas divided into grids that were flooded with salt water and then allowed to dry. From what I can tell from the ruins, they would then remove the salt, dry it further and ship it. Clearly lots of people thought that this was a good business, and based upon the number of abandoned mines, they were wrong. However, the ruins provides an interesting opportunity to photograph what remains. It's a very stark landscape with the brilliant white of the dried salt and the rusting hulks of the equipment.

As I said, the other reason to stop there was to dive on the wreck of the 120' shrimp boat that met it's demise there. I can only guess that they hit nearby rocks and tried to beach the boat before it went down as it now sits on it's side in 27' of water. As a result you end up with a nice shallow wreck dive in warm water. Both Sue & I donned our tanks and were really impressed by the large number of big fish that have made this wreck their home.

From there we headed around the east side of the island to Isla Coronados. The east side of the island just blew me away by the incredible colors of the rocks. You just can't imagine how so many different colored rocks are mixed together. We're talking reds and yellows and greens and browns. If this were somewhere in the US it would be a major tourist attraction, but instead its on an island in the middle of the Sea of Cortez. But if you're a cruiser heading through the area, be sure to swing by and have a look.

One of the major attractions on Isla Coronados is the diving. According to one of our guide books, there are multiple dive sites on the E side and I found that it was very interesting diving with a combination of huge boulders and walls. The anchorage is beautiful, with great protection from everything but W. We anchored in 12' over white sand which gives you the feeling that you're sitting in a sea of emerald green. The only issue are the bees, which can swarm your boat if you provide them with a source of fresh water...such as rinsing off on the swim platform. Quite annoying.

From here we're headed N to Conception Bay. That will probably be a 2 day trip as it's 60+ miles and there's no reason to make it in one jump.

Anyhow, have a great holiday weekend!

-- Geoff & Sue

---

For the diver:

We dropped anchor on the east side of Isla Coronados so that I could check out some of the dive sites which are primarily located on that side. After a lunch spent rolling at anchor we headed out in the dinghy to see what we could find. After sounding some of the sites with a hand held depth sounder, I decided to dive at the 2nd point from the S, as it appeared to have a nice wall and I wasn't disappointed. This site had a nice wall descending to about 70' as well as lots of huge boulders.

We also took the dinghy from the W side anchorage to the N point. That dive site had large boulders descending to a sand/gravel base at 60' at the N end and rising to 35' as you move around to the E. Sue reported that the snorkeling was some of the best that she's seen in the Sea of Cortez. Both of these sites have lots of large fish.

Log ID: 1451