The Legend’s Journal

Monthly Field Notes from Baja

Dear Friends,

Welcome back to The Legend’s Journal.

Sorry this one is late. The last few weeks were off the grid, between hurricanes, trips, Baja Rally and me coming down with a cold I had a hard time getting it out. But with at least another 2,000 miles of Baja this month we got plenty to talk about.

Here is what is inside.

A story from the trail about starting a new tradition in a small Baja fishing town. A new gear review. The world’s geekiest deep dive into Hurricane Polo. A story about another storm, the one that helped start the first settlement in the Californias. And a look at the next adventure you can join us on. Local artist Alejandro A. B. is drawing what the words cannot.

Pour something good. Dust off the map. Hope you enjoy!

Nathan W. Stuart

STORY FROM THE TRAIL

We made a new Tradition!

Almost three years ago in Bahía de los Ángeles we decorated my friend’s panga with a bunch of Christmas lights. We tried to get a few friends to join us for a bay cruise, but when nobody showed up we went anyway. We were just a blip in the dark on the big bay. I’m not sure if anyone saw us, but we had fun.

Last year I wanted to get more boats involved, but nobody has power on their boat, and nobody in Bahía has easy access to Christmas lights. I posted about it on our Instagram, and before I knew it people had donated over 6,000 pesos. That’s what you see in the picture above: 6,000 pesos of Christmas lights. I had a customer trip that month, so we added Bahía to the itinerary, loaded the truck up with lights, and started the long bumpy off-road route to the bay. Let’s just say Santa has it easy in that sled of his. I don’t think central Baja gets a lot of love from the North Pole. The reindeer don’t like the heat. So it was left to Santa’s underpaid elves.

Once we got to Bahía, the town mayor helped us hand the lights out to every boat that wanted in. We counted the boats, rationed off the lights, and had a pretty amazing night with the whole community involved. One thing that makes Bahía special is that there is no marina. Every boat comes and goes at the ramp, and at the end of the day it gets trailered back to the house. So everyone decorated at home. When it was time for the parade, there was also a parade through town, all the boats lit up, before they launched, looped the bay, and ended on a beach in town.

This year I’m hoping we can raise more money for a big Christmas tree on the beach where the boats land, some glow-in-the-dark buoys, and a few games that glow. I also hope that as this grows it becomes an event that actually draws people to Bahía on these days. It is the slow season. The whale sharks have usually left, and the fishing has slowed down. These captains and their families pretty much live on the money they make from May to October, and the same goes for the hotels and restaurants. If this turned into a busy weekend leading up to Christmas, it would be a big blessing for all of Bahía.

We have a GoFundMe this year for the event, to help us get the tree, the buoys, and the games. Anything helps, and it goes a long way toward spreading the Christmas spirit.

If you’re not doing anything December 22, come down and hop on a boat for the biggest panga parade in central Baja. It’s a tradition now, and I hope it outlives us all.

Got a trail moment of your own from a Legends trip? Hit reply, we read every one, and the best make it into a future dispatch.

GEAR WE TRUST

Why I don’t carry a spare anymore

Price: $200 Expedition Kit | Complete 4x4 & Overland Tire Repair | GlueTread

I have been running Baja for a while now. Gaia says I have put down 66,000 km of new tracks, and in all that time I have taken a bunch of sidewall damage. Sometimes I just need to plug it. Sometimes I need to patch it. In all those miles I have never had a blowout.

That was not always true. I used to have blowouts. One trip I had two of them between the highway and La Bocana, Santo Tomás. Budget tires, probably not aired down the way they should have been, and I was driving my old ’84 4Runner like I stole it.

Most of the credit now goes to Falken. I keep a pretty fresh set on the guide truck and usually swap them before they drop below 50 percent. Airing down helps. The last 10 percent is probably me getting better at driving and staying off the sharp rocks.

When GlueTread sent their kit, we really tested it. I took an old tire from a tire shop, drove out to the middle of nowhere in southern Baja, stabbed it with a knife, then punched two or three more holes in the sidewall with a screwdriver. I patched all of it and drove back to civilization.

The kit comes with everything but an air compressor. The sidewall plugs are what I want. I much prefer them to the patches tire shops down here glue on the inside of the tire. That glue fails, and the tire usually starts leaking again within a few months. A plug is harder to beat. The physics are on your side.

What sets GlueTread apart is the sidewall patches. You can close a huge hole in the sidewall and drive out. We tried it. It worked very well.

It also comes with emergency Colby valve stems, which are handy when a rock on the trail takes out a stem, and valve cores for the leak you cannot find. Be very careful with their glue. I do not know who made a pact with the devil, but that stuff burns and it works extremely well.

After that test I started questioning how much I want to lug around a huge 35 inch tire that does not fit under the truck and weighs about 110 pounds. That said, we always ask customers to bring a spare, and I highly recommend the Expedition Kit by GlueTread, because you never want to be that guy. I have enough connections down here that even with a catastrophic failure I could get a tire and get back on the road pretty quick.

I have a YouTube video of the whole kit and how to use it:

Years Tested: 1

Would We Buy It Again? Yes

Baja Weather

A Look Back at Polo

If clouds, wind, and a pile of numbers are your thing, this next part is for you. If not, skip the deep dive.

I mentioned in the last Journal that the Eastern Pacific’s game of Angry Birds was getting more accurate, and sure enough Pollo made landfall just south of Las Barrancas, in Comondú, late Monday night, September 28 local time (6:00 UTC on the 29th). That is south of San Juanico and well north of Bahía Magdalena, about 70 miles south of Mulegé and 80 miles north of Cabo San Lázaro. It came ashore as a Category 2 with sustained winds of 105 mph and recorded gusts to 127. The National Hurricane Center later put the landfall wind in a 105 to 110 mph range, so 110 is the high end of what they settled on.

If Pollo had a baseball card, the stats are pretty impressive. Polo became a tropical depression on September 20 and a Category 5 on September 22. CNN and other reports put that jump at 42 hours, and some analysts called it the fastest depression-to-Category 5 on record in the eastern Pacific. Peak winds were 180 mph, safely offshore from mainland Mexico, with a low pressure of 892 mb. That is the second-lowest pressure ever recorded in the eastern Pacific, next to Patricia’s 872 mb in 2015. It is also the first eastern Pacific hurricane to reach Category 5 three separate times. At the beach it was not the strongest Baja landfall on record. Odile in 2014 still holds that, a Category 3 with 125 mph winds just east of Cabo San Lucas. Polo at 110 mph is the strongest hurricane to make landfall this decade beat only by Odile 12 years ago! It is also the clean example of a hurricane crossing the whole peninsula and staying a hurricane. It dropped to Category 1 over the spine, still sending hurricane-force winds of at least 75 mph from the Pacific to the Sea of Cortez, then made landfall in Sonora near Guaymas as a hurricane. Newton in 2016 stayed a hurricane while crossing southern Baja, then lost it and hit Sonora as a tropical storm. Pollo did not.

Hurricane Polo’s tallest cloud tops were about 52,000 to 56,000 feet (16 to 17 km). At the top, satellite readings were about −112°F (−80°C). At the ocean surface underneath, the water was about 88 to 90°F (31 to 32°C). These numbers are hard to fathom. The storm topped out at the edge of the atmosphere, with a temperature range of nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit from its frozen cloud tops to the 88°F eye. Its tropical-storm wind field was about the size of Portugal. I’m sorry I’m needing out a bit on the power of nature!

Moist air is pulled in at the surface, rises in the eyewall, and cools as it climbs. Cooling forces the moisture out as cloud and rain, so by the time that air reaches the top it is very dry. Some of that dry air then turns inward and sinks into the eye. As it sinks, it compresses and warms, which is why Hurricane Hunters measured about 88°F inside Polo’s eye at roughly 8,000 feet roughly 35 to 40 degrees warmer than the surrounding tropical air at the same altitude. Warm, dry, sinking air evaporates cloud, so the eye stays clear while the eyewall around it stays a solid wall of storm.

Highway 1 saw some damage, mainly the Mulegé–Santa Rosalía stretch. It is not a full peninsula closure. The worst washout was around kilometer 157, before Palo Verde, between Santa Rosalía and Heroica Mulegé. An arroyo cut the pavement there on September 29. Mulegé mayor Edith Aguilar also reported damage at about kilometer 43 before Palo Verde, northbound to southbound. Crews put in a temporary bypass while the main cut was still running.

Treat the Palo Verde / Santa Rosalía–Mulegé section as the one that was actually closed, and check Protección Civil or local reports before you roll that stretch. Dirt roads in the storm path were still flooded or washed out in many places, including access toward San Juanico, La Purísima, San Isidro, and Las Barrancas after the El Pabellón arroyo rose. Conditions have been changing day to day.

Looking forward we have another hurricane Rachel Cataory 3 sitting just south west of Cabo and likely another one on top for next week coming up from mainland Mexico. This warm water from El Niño continues to be the perfect incubator for these storms.

LULLABIES, LEGENDS & LIES

The Chubasco that Undermined the Church

This week, with so many hurricanes off and on the coast of Baja, it is hard not to think about the storm that accidentally started the first secular settlement in all the Californias.

In 1740 a hard chubasco crossed the Gulf and slammed the coast around Mulegé and San Ignacio. The sea tore pearl oysters off beds that had never been touched and stacked them on the desert shore from about the 28th parallel north. Much farther north than anyone believed they could find pearls.

The Cochimí of Misión San Ignacio knew how much the Spanish soldiers liked things that shined. The Indians showed up with load after load of oysters they had found in the desert.

The Jesuits had kept those beds quiet on purpose. For decades they blocked secular private enterprise on the peninsula and treated pearls, mines, and cattle as threats to mission control. Income, labor, and the Indians themselves were supposed to stay inside the mission world. A beach full of oysters was the last thing they wanted a soldier to see.

They had a lid on the oyster beds until the storm blew it off. Manuel de Ocio, blacksmith, Loreto escort, son-in-law of the captain, saw the opportunity. He quit the army, crossed to the mainland, bought canoas, hired Yaqui divers, and came back as a private man.

In 1743 he rode into Guadalajara with about 127 pounds of PEARLS!!. The next year he came back with 275. That fortune bought cattle, a store, and silver ground in the cape sierra. In 1748 he planted Real de Santa Ana, the first civilian town in the Californias, in the hills that would become San Antonio and El Triunfo.

That’s how a storm started the first private settlement in the Californias.

FEATURED EXPEDITION

Loreto
January 10-15 2027

Southern Baja Cape Overlanding Adventure

For years, Loreto has been the place we pass through on the way to somewhere else. A fuel stop. A quick meal. A waypoint between destinations. The truth is, we never gave Loreto enough time.

That changes now.

This six-day, all-inclusive expedition is dedicated entirely to one of Baja’s oldest and most historic regions. Rather than racing past it, we are slowing down and finally going deep into a landscape layered with history, dramatic terrain, and some of the richest marine ecosystems in North America.

From the rugged mountains of the Sierra La Giganta to the turquoise waters of the Sea of Cortez, this journey is designed to immerse you in the natural and cultural treasures that make Loreto one of Baja’s true gems. Travel remote backroads through towering canyons and volcanic landscapes, explore ancient cave paintings and historic sites, and experience the kind of wide-open scenery that reminds you how much of Baja still feels untouched.

January may be the finest month of all to experience Loreto. Daytime temperatures are comfortable, skies are often crystal clear, and the Sea of Cortez comes alive with marine activity. These waters are regularly visited by the largest mammal on Earth, the blue whale, offering the possibility of witnessing one of nature’s most extraordinary migrations alongside dolphins, sea lions, and abundant marine life.

Drive down in your own rig, or fly into Loreto. We have overland rig rentals we can have waiting at the airport. Contact us for details.

This is Baja at a slower pace. Less about rushing toward the next destination and more about truly understanding the place beneath your tires.

No rig of your own? No problem. We offer fully equipped 4x4 overland rentals for all of our adventures. Contact us for availability and details.