Last weekend forecasters had predicted that Hurricane Henriette would follow a more westerly path, with the eye of the storm passing some 100 miles or so off the Pacific coast of Baja where Todo Santos is, well that situation changed dramatically, as the storm had a mind of its own and changed course towards the northeast and slowly made its way to landfall at San Jose del Cabo in the early afternoon of Sept. 4.

The relentless rains started on Monday evening, with the winds arriving early on Tuesday, then throughout the morning the weather rapidly deteriorated, during the peak period of the category one hurricane the highest winds gusts were in the 80 to 90 mile an hour range, with storm surf reached easily five meters or more. Estimates of total rainfall from the system ranged from 7 to 14 inches, depending on location, more than enough to flood all of the desert arroyos and create a dangerous flash flood scenario. Of course utilities were lost, with some areas without water or power throughout the week, still waiting for work crews to arrive. As is the case after any significant storm, the area of La Playita, where the new Puerto Los Cabos marina is in the final stages of construction, was particularly effected, as the only access road to San Jose del Cabo was completely washed away, leaving them stranded, or with limited options for reaching much needed supplies, one of them being by using pangas to motor to Palmilla to buy such needs as food and fuel for electrical generators.

Perhaps by next year the new bridge crossing the San Jose del Cabo arroyo will finally be completed, with the high end development progressing in this area, people will need some way to reach their million dollar homes and yachts that are moored inside the marina. For the local residents that have endured year after year of inconveniences, this will finally be a way of getting back to their normal lives more rapidly following such floods.

Besides some major clean up of fallen palm trees, branches, signs and mud slides, overall the new marina project seemed to hold up just fine. Some of the areas where panga fleets were still operating off the beach while patiently waiting for the new slips to be completed, were basically destroyed by Henriette and in the coming weeks they will be looking for options as where to base their operations.

Before the storm ocean waters were averaging 80 to 85 degrees, but immediately following the storm temperatures had dropped to 70 to 75 degrees and as usual there was now plenty of debris floating in the water, so maybe once the fleets resume operations they will be able to find schooling dorado.

Out of La Playita there was no sportfishing activity this past week, a handful of local pangueros did go out fishing in order to put some food on the table and reported cooler and dirty water conditions, with not much surface action, but fair counts of bottomfish, including triggerfish, pargo and cabrilla, though they also said the current was strong and did not make it easy to fish the rock piles. We are anticipating that fleets will back in action this coming week and as the water continues to warm and clean back up, we expect action will be once again up to local standards.