Site Tracks Ins and Outs of Baja

If you’ve been traveling the Baja California peninsula recently, you might have encountered some unpleasant surprises.

You might have been among those stopped on Mexico 1 in the El Rosario area, turned back by an on-again, off-again citizen blockade, which has been trying to force the Mexican government to pay overdue wages to road workers and to put at least some of the town’s hard-earned tax dollars back into the community.

Or maybe you were among the unfortunate souls whose boats were seized recently in San Quintin or La Paz by fisheries officials who have suddenly decided to crack down on those without proper paperwork.

These same officials might have slapped you with a $250 fine for fishing without a Mexican license, even though--once at your destination--you couldn’t find a place that sells them.

Perhaps you’ve had none of these problems, finding yourself instead with another, stuck on a desolate stretch of highway under a brutally hot sun, because the gas station you had planned on filling up at had no gas left.

If any of these things have happened to you, they might have been avoided, had you logged onto the Amigos de Baja web site at https://www.geocities.com/thetropics/4888.

This column is rarely used to promote or review addresses on the Internet. But given the interest Southlanders have in that vast, desert frontier south of the border, and the unpredictable nature of the peninsula, we’re making an exception because, unlike most web sites, Amigos de Baja is not self-serving. Instead, it’s a source of valuable information Baja travelers might not be able to find elsewhere.

“If we have anything going for us, it’s that we only print the absolute truth with none of that market hype, and no promotional stuff,” says Earle Robitaille, who apparently created a monster when he first went on-line last spring. “It’s gotten so big, it’s getting in the way of my fishing and I tell you, it’s [upsetting] me to no end.”

Robitaille, 66, is only joking, of course. The retired chief of the Huntington Beach Police Department fell in love with Baja more than 40 years ago, and he enjoys keeping fellow Baja-lovers informed nearly as much as he does traveling down there himself.

Well, maybe not, but he has no choice. The Amigos de Baja web site--which is maintained and updated every Wednesday by Robitaille, his son, Eric, and Eric’s girlfriend, Trish Ramsey--receives more than 60,000 hits a month. Robitaille himself spends 25-30 hours a week keeping the site up to date.

Most visitors are interested in the comprehensive fishing reports from around Baja, which are obtained from a network of fleet owners, Baja residents and frequent Baja travelers.

Robitaille is so concerned about the accuracy of his reports that he won’t even accept advertisements on his site from fleet owners because he says it will sacrifice his credibility.

In fact, his site has no ads, yet, and is funded solely by Robitaille, who says he may not be able to afford the constant upgrades in software for long.

One of the most popular features is the newly created On-Line Discussion Center, which allows visitors to post questions, converse with one another and generally compare notes about trips to various Baja locales.

It also allows Robitaille to post breaking news--such as the recent road closure, which has since been at least temporarily resolved--without waiting for the regular Wednesday update.

“It’s going hog-wild,” he says of the new feature. “It’s just going crazy. We’ve had system crashes every weekend for the last four or five weekends because our server just can’t handle it. Now we have to find a new server that can handle it.”

All this has been a little overwhelming for Robitaille, who acknowledges he had no idea what he was getting into when he had Ramsey design a web page a year ago.

Amigos de Baja started out as a group of 15-20 Baja buffs who would share their experiences via fax.

“I became keeper of the fax,” Robitaille says. “After a trip, they would call me and I would let everyone else know with a fax. Then people started moving and I started looking at my phone bill, and I thought, ‘This is ridiculous.’

“They all had or were getting computers, so we started doing it by e-mail. We picked up the name ‘Amigos’ and everything was addressed ‘Amigos.’

“Then we started up a web page and within a week we were off and running. People eventually started e-mailing us asking all sorts of questions: about the weather, road conditions, Mexican regulations and a lot of general stuff like that.”

Since then, Robitaille has compiled a contact list of 70 people south of the border. Through them he has become even more connected to Baja.

Through his site, he has warned travelers of the dangers of traveling alone, sharing a recent story of a Northern California man and wife who were ambushed and robbed by machete-wielding bandits who broke into their trailer while they slept along a desolate section of road south of El Rosario.

“We’re only trying to keep people out of trouble down there, and to let them know where the rip-offs are,” Robitaille says.

It was Amigos de Baja that more recently tracked the progress of Tropical Storm Blanca, which appeared to be headed for Cabo San Lucas before fizzling into a mere depression Thursday morning.

It is Amigos de Baja that tries to slip one past its visitors from time to time, just to keep things loose.

An example:

“A rather prim and proper New England lady who was an accomplished fisherperson decided to book a trip to the East Cape of Baja. She wrote to the campground for a reservation.

“Due to her upbringing, she could not directly inquire about the toilet facilities. She came up with the old-fashioned term ‘Bathroom Commode.’

“However, she found that she felt embarrassed using that term and she shortened it to BC in her letter. She asked, ‘Does the campground have its own BC?’

“Senor Garcia, the owner of the campground, couldn’t figure out what BC was intended to mean. After a lot of deliberation he concluded this obviously proper lady must have been asking about the local Baptist church. He immediately sat down and wrote her a reply:

“Dear Madam . . . I take pleasure in informing you that while the campground has no BC, there is one located only nine miles away, and it is capable of seating 200 people at a time. Due to its distance from the campgrounds, many of our guests take a sack lunch and make a day of it.

“The last time my wife and I visited the BC was over two years ago, and it was so crowded at the time we had to stand the entire time we were there. I am sorry to report I do not go as often as I would like, but this is not due to lack of desire on my part.

“As we grow older it seems to become more of an effort, especially in cold weather. I will be happy to take you on your first trip to the BC and sit with you as you come to admire this facility. I would also be happy to introduce you to all the other folks who will be there. This really is a friendly community.”

BITING THE BULLET

Eagle Rock’s Jake Medina is resting in good condition at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla and is expected to recover from a gunshot wound to the back--and a collapsed lung--suffered when a .22-caliber rifle in a storage compartment discharged Monday morning aboard the Conquest out of Fisherman’s Landing in San Diego.

U.S. Coast Guard investigator Bernie Ramirez says the investigation is continuing and that only when it is complete will he know what, if any, punitive measures will be taken against Conquest owner-operator Joe Chait.

And landing operators on the San Diego waterfront are thanking their lucky stars that Medina wasn’t killed.

If there is anything good to come of what appears to be a freak accident, says Bob Fletcher, president of Sportfishing Assn. of California, is that it will make skippers think twice about storing loaded guns on their vessels, which is legal but certainly not advisable.

“We are in the process of drafting what is basically a strong recommendation against it, both to protect the future health of the industry and the health and protection of the public,” Fletcher says.

ALBACORE UPDATE

Not many thought the popular longfin tuna would still be here, what with a warming sea, but Thursday’s numbers don’t lie:

The American Angler out of Point Loma: 80 albacore; the Shogun out of Seaforth: 55 albacore; the Amigo out of Newport Landing: 31 albacore for only 13 people.

To make things a little crazier, there are 50-pound bluefin nd even larger bigeye tuna mixed in with the albacore, and schools of yellowfin tuna are surfacing occasionally just south and sometimes a little north of the border. There are even unconfirmed reports of Dorado showing off Point Mugu.

And yes, it seems there are a lot more exotics on the way: the Shogun, fishing at Guadalupe Island off Baja, is en route home with 166 yellowfin, 14 albacore, 40 bluefin and a smattering of yellowtail and bigeye.

All this and the effects of a predicted El Nino aren’t even being felt yet. Or so the experts say.

NAME GAME

What’s the most popular name for a boat?

It’s Obsession.

So says the Boat Owners Assn. of the United States, anyway. The group should know; it produces lettering for its 500,000 members. Rounding out its top 10 most requested vessel names for 1997:

Osprey, Wind Dancer, Odyssey, Therapy, Serenity, Fantasea, Escape, Wet Dream and Liquid Asset.

AROUND THE SOUTHLAND

There are still openings for the Penn University freshwater and saltwater fishing symposium--featuring instruction by local experts--Saturday 9 a.m.-noon at Orange Coast College. Cost is $35. Details: (714) 432-5880.

Montana fly-fishing author-guide Dave Ames will be the guest speaker at the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers’ meeting June 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Encino Glen in Encino. Details: (818) 789-1919.

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro is offering a Meet the Grunion program, followed by an old-fashioned grunion hunt, June 22 at 9 p.m. at the beachside facility. Anyone wanting to catch and keep grunion must have a valid fishing license. Cost is $1. Details: (310) 548-7562, ext. 7017.

The San Gabriel Valley chapter of Quail Unlimited is hosting a snake avoidance clinic for dogs June 28 at Gameland Kennels in Norco. Pat Callahan will be conducting the clinic, which he says could save the life of your dog by teaching it to avoid rattlesnakes in the field. Cost is $50 and 60% of the proceeds go to QU. Details: (818) 287-5060.