Here are some of the sagas and images of 1996:

March

In the last week of March, Amigo Miguel, aka Mike Palmer made his first journey to Baja. We fished long and hard. The reward was Yellowtail out at the Seamount and Corvina down at Pompano Cove. It was quarter tide and easy to launch the boat. The weather was nice, although windy a couple days. Bwana Bruce, Eddie, Scott and Ingrid were there too. We caught a few Porgy.

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• A juvenile Brown Booby watches Mike undo a birds nest in his reel.
• Mike liked Yellowtail fishing out by the Seamount.
• We caught some nice ones, including this one of Mike's
• And this one of Captain Deano's
• Inshore, I caught a darn nice Corvina near Pompano Cove
• While Mike hauled in a pretty Mexican Hogfish
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May

Over Memorial Day, we had a crew and a half. Cathy and I had Chris and Maren down, and Jane and Hutch showed-up for a day or two. Pandro was there too, along with neighbors Bwana Bruce , Eddie, Ingrid and Scotty. One day, Pandro and I decided to run out a mile or two from Islote La Poma to check out the whales that we saw blowing everywhere. This was the start of a great experience.

• 100 foot long Finback whales were surfacing all around us after we cut our motor
• These two surfaced in unison
• This one spouted 30 feet away,
• Then he dove down
• We decided to troll in and ran across a huge school of large squid
• The first one soaked me when I brought it up; this one spouted up on Eddie
• The day before we got there, Eddie caught this White Seabass from shore
• Here, Chris mans the hose used for transferring water from the Delfines well to our drums.
• One day on the way back from the islands, Hutch took a break on shore
• The next day, Hutch and Jane talked to Ed by their tent
• On the beach, Darla, Donna, and Brad enjoyed the sun
• After a hard day fishing, Dean and Maren talked
• While everyone else listened
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October

In October, Pandro hauled down the guest trailer. Diving was good as usual, but fishing sucked. Ed and Donna, Bruce and Chuck were there too.

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• The new guest trailer

Thanksgiving

It blew out every day, but not bad enough not to have a good time. Just Bruce and I were there. I got a lot of stuff done. We ate and drank well.

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• Waves break over the south point, with our beached boats in the foreground.
• Some clouds blew over and made for a nice sunset over the Sierras

Christmas/New Year's

Pandro brought his half-brother Daniel down for Christmas. Yellowtail fishing was outstanding out by the islands. I inherited some rocket engines (G80s and G125s) at work. I built an Arcas rocket to make good use of them. We launched it at the Baja test range.

• The Launch Crew prepares the rocket for launch
• Liftoff, with Isla San Luis in the background
• Going 600 mph at burnout, the Arcas streaks up to 2000 feet in about 6 seconds
• Click here to see a MPEG movie of the flight (630kB)
• Cathy walks up the beach
• Dan had a great time fishing
• We all caught some real nice ones this day
• The Mad Gaffer gets ready to swing into action
• I make a call to my boating buddies
• Captain Deano weighs an almost 9 pound Yeller
• Another spectacular sunrise, with a different look
• Sunrise over Isla San Luis
• One morning, the fog was pretty thick. Weird for Baja.
• No more drum pumping. The water truck cometh, compliments of Luis from Punta Bufeo
• On New Year's Eve, Tonia threw a big party for everyone up and down the beach
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