Fishing Trip to the Sea of Cortez

Hi All,

I was invited to join 7 other guys on a deep sea fishing trip. The one person you know is Jim Barnwell. Jim is retired but works part time for a wealthy land developer in Mexico; Jim is in charge of his charitable foundation. Anyway, the developer, Larry Large, has a yacht that he keeps on the upper portion of the Sea of Cortez.

We all met in Tuscon on Friday, October 5. Larry had his private plate then fly us down to old Mexico to the town of Porte Pinasta (the folks in Arizona and California call the town Rocky Point. It's an up and coming tourist town - nice beaches and expensive condos. The town is a typical Mexico tourist town - there are the folks that have, and in Mexico, they're not willing to shave with the have not's; and then there are the rest of the folks, living like a 3rd world country - shacks for homes, dirt floors, no running water; no toilet facilities. Pretty sad when you see it.

We stayed there until we boarded the yacht on Saturday. It's a beautiful boat - 112' long and 25' wide. There are 7 berths in the hull of the boat - each berth had a double bed and it's own bathroom and shower. Larry's estate room is on the main deck - very large (no pun intended). The 5 man crew's quarters are on the upper deck where the pilot house is located. There is yet another level on top of the crew's quarters which has a horse shoe shaped seating area which provides a beautiful view.

We cruised all of Saturday; usually were cruising at 8 knots (optimum speed for fuel consumption) and finally stopped Sunday morning in a cove off of a deserted island. Some of the guys went fishing on a small dingy - the rest of us just hung out.

We did this for the next 4 days - cruise, fish, eat 3 square meals a day and have cocktails all day. The crew would come around constantly asking if they could refresh our drinks, get us something to eat - in general, make us as comfortable as possible.

We finally got back to Rocky Point Wednesday - flew back to Tuscon and on back to Denver. I got to sit in the co-pilot seat on the way back to Tuscon - that was pretty neat - the pilot was more that willing to answer all of my questions aboat the plane, instruments, FAA regulations, custom regulations, etc.

When I finally got home, it took a couple of days to get rid of my sea legs - I felt like I was listing to the right when I walked.