 |  |
by David Zoby
In this faraway part of Baja, the saying goes: Bad roads bring good people.
Oscar Lopez, an aquaculturist who works at the oyster farm in Estero de Coyote, helped us with the boat. We clambered over the gunwales and stowed our fishing rods in the bow. I was fly fishing, while Melinda was using a light spinning rod. As the boat plowed out and cut through the maze of mangrove islands, it was apparent that the birds alone were worth the journey.
Great herons, snowy egrets, brown pelicans, willets, and ospreys burst from the mangroves or flapped laboriously to lift from an exposed sandbar where they had been digesting their recent meals. The turquoise water was alive with baitfish: mullet, sardines, and a delicate species of anchovies that I hadn’t encountered here in the past.
Oscar had a specific channel in mind. He had caught six snook - locally called robalo - here a week ago. And too many corvina to count. Talk like this made me giddy with anticipation.
Oscar beached the panga and anchored it in a shallow lagoon. Melinda and I followed him to a deep cut in the mangroves. The sandy shelf dropped off into green water that suggested depth. A large sea turtle looked us over, then scuttled off.
Sure enough, the creek was packed with corvina, a silvery fish that readily attacks a fly. We caught too many to count, releasing them all because it was still too early in the day to keep fish. There were no snook. But there was a fish that resembled a jack, something Oscar called a “palometa”. These oval-shaped fish resembled piranhas and aggressively swarmed anything we cast to them. They were brutally strong, often bending my fly rod to the point where I thought it might snap if I didn’t back off. They had two terrifying spines on their bellies, which I avoided. Oscar helped Melinda release them until we decided to move to another location.
The halibut were not in their usual spot, so Oscar motored up a tidal creek. The current was ripping out toward the open sea. Something about the way the clam shells reflected the seawater rushing over them made the shoreline suggest the Caribbean. Just one hundred yards behind us, the Pacific Ocean boomed with breaking surf. Yet on this little protected cove, I was reminded of a Rocky Mountain stream. Oscar found a lobster trap that had been washed ashore in a recent gale. He turned it on its end and sat down. Melinda beachcombed along the Pacific.
Oscar and I talked about the mangrove system, which serves as a nursery for many fish species. The oyster farm and the trip into the estuary are all part of the emerging efforts to diversify the economy. Most of the income in Abreojos comes from the small scale fishing and lobster industry that is famous for its cooperativa. Fishermen work in teams to harvest their catch, which is primarily sold to Asian markets. The cooperativa has spread income equality throughout the village. Through sustainable harvest techniques, they have managed to maintain a healthy fishery. Fishermen have insurance, retirement, and other benefits not typically associated with fishing. In fact, Oscar went to college on a scholarship from the cooperativa.
We kept two corvina and a cabrilla for dinner. Back at the oyster shack, Oscar demonstrated how the technicians sort and mark the oyster packets. The juvenile shellfish were not much bigger than buttons on a shirt. While he filleted our fish, Oscar told us he attended a technical university in Tijuana. That’s where he learned about aquaculture, and that’s where he picked up English. He sent us home with two pounds of fillets. The scraps he threw upon the beach. A sand-colored coyote slunk out of the mangroves, grabbed a carcass, and darted back into the shadows.
At the rocks in Abreojos, boys stood knee-deep in the frothing shorebreak and cast their lines. They brought in halibut and tossed them into a waiting cooler. The pangas that work the lobster season were all tucked away on the beach. The January sunset came early. We decided to drive over to the seaside village of La Bocana to see if the chef at the restaurant there would prepare our catch.
La Bocana sits adjacent to another estuary. This village, like Abreojos, thrives on the lobster, abalone, and fishing industry. Lately, they have been experimenting with ecotourism and other sustainable activities. At the beachfront restaurant at Cabañas La Bocana, the hostess took our fish and disappeared into the kitchen. Our waiter, Gilberto, brought us drinks and asked us how we wanted the fish.
Twenty minutes later, our fish, cut into fingers and fried, arrived at the table. There were tortillas, salsas, vegetables, and a salad. There was no way we could finish the heaping platter of fish so fresh it tasted like the sea. It turned out that Gilberto was not into fishing as much as he was into art. He took out his cell phone and showed us some of his recent work.
One was a mural at a local coffee shop, Destino Bocanero. The mural depicted local fisherman, mangroves, diving ospreys - everything we had been witnessing these last few days.
“Could we see it tonight?” I asked.
Gilberto gave us directions, and we sped off into the night.
At Destino Bocanero, a young couple was sitting at a two-top. The porch area was whitened clam shells. Party lights were strung among the palapa. And there it was, the mural Gilberto had sent us to see. Hector Ojeda and his wife, Elsa, were having tea. They greeted us and let me stumble through my low-level Spanish. I explained that we wanted to see the mural and check out some coffee as well.
In perfect English, Hector offered us herbal teas and Mexican coffee. He invited us inside. There were custom gifts in the shop, including T-shirts, mugs, caps, and estuary-themed items. Elsa, a teacher with a masters in sustainable development and an interest in marine biology, designed the shirts for her brand, Pacifico Norte. One depicted a grouper with mangroves growing out of its back, an ode to the estuary, which is the nursery for these great fish. Everything in the shop was a celebration of the landscape and the fishermen - the Bocaneros - who carved out the community along this windswept coast.
“We’re interested in sustainable ecotourism that celebrates the area without changing its roots,” said Hector. He spoke of a community where art, fishing, and conservation can coexist. The delicious coffee, the conversation, the artwork - we sat and talked until our drinks were gone.
On our way back to Abreojos, I pulled off the road and cut the lights. The blanket of stars fell all the way down to the sea. The moon’s reflection was fat and yellow on the black ocean’s lid. We could see the lighthouse at Abreojos doing its job, warning sailors of the dangerous rocks there.
Abreojos, in Spanish, means open your eyes. Here, this might be less about caution than telling us to slow down, take a break, and see the raw beauty in the world.
