Sometimes the getaway you envision simply isn't in the cards. You can plan every detail, allow extra latitude for mechanical and human failure alike; but you can't cover for folks that make bad choices, whether based on stupidity or just plain ignorance. Such was the fate of a 1996 Pothole Beach¹ excursion, foiled by a trio of screwball greenhorns.

It was to be a four-day outing. Crossing into Mexico at Lukeville, we would drive to Puerto Peñasco, proceed northwest along the gulf coast to El Golfo de Santa Clara near the mouth of the Colorado River, and re-enter the United States at San Martín, south of Yuma. Enroute we would stop off for two days and three nights at an old favorite campsite, Pothole Beach.

Along the way we would drive beneath crystallized sand cliffs fused by the arcs of countless lightning strikes, maneuver rocky points that separate vast stretches of unmolested, uninhabited beach-line. We would bathe in surf and bury our toes in the sand of miles of beach that is as close to virgin as can be found anywhere on the Sea of Cortez.

During the day we would steal past flocks of seagulls, pelicans, curlew, osprey and other bird species numbering in the tens of thousands; and with a little luck we would approach and photograph a sea lion or tortoise, as well as the ever-present coyote. By night, in the absence of artificial light, we would rely upon moonlight and a brilliant profusion of stars all but invisible in the city. And we would encounter fewer human beings than can be counted on one hand.

In addition to highway driving, the first day would include the 117 kilometers of deep sand required to deposit us on Pothole Beach by nightfall. The road leaves Cholla Bay west of Black Mountain, follows the beach about twenty km, and turns inland to cross a railroad track. It then proceeds northwest along the track for some sixty-five km before an abrupt left turn and a thirty-two km beeline for the playa, thus circumnavigating Bahia de Adair with its endless waterways and mud flats.

From there, Pothole Beach starts a short distance south, across three waterways that must be traversed at low tide. It ends about two km beyond in a sandy point overlooked by an abandoned lighthouse². The beach derives its name from a natural feature of the point, an ancient reef exposed by wave action in the tidal zone, which forms a series of caldron shaped tide pools several feet across and in some cases nearly as deep. With the backwashes of Bahia de Adair encroaching from the rear, the whole area is effectively an island except at unusually low tides.

¹Pothole Beach is the southeastern-most point on the coastline between El Tornillal, a remote fishing settlement some 30 miles southeast of El Golfo de Santa Clara, and Bahia de Adair, a gigantic shallow bay some fifty miles northwest of Puerto Peñasco.

²The abandoned lighthouse, viewed from the dunes behind.

 
Copyright (c) 1996-2010
Larry K. Fox

[ Home | The Chronicles | New Articles | Excursions | The Adventures ]
[ Change My Life © | The Ugly American © | Shadow Walker © ]
[ Desert Rat | Rainforest | Mortimer | Guest Articles ]
[ Labyrinth | Gallery Ring ]

[ Letters | Bibliography | Favorite Links ]
[ Maximize Browsing | Guestbook ]
[ Contact Us | WebMaster ]