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Nautical Stairway to Altata, Sinaloa
by Capt. John E. Rains
New marina planned for Sea of Cortez isn’t waiting
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When Carlos Soto and his father Luis look out across their family’s estuary near Altata, Sinaloa, they don’t see just the sandy-bottomed shallows and miles of mangrove islands.
In their minds’ eye, they see 120 yachts berthed in 10 floating docks that curve around the north seawall of the marina they’re building. They see a busy fuel dock and eight marine shops, including a haulout yard. They see 100 vacation homes lining three channels -- each home with a private slip out front.
Tired of waiting for the government’s Escalera Nautica, or Nautical Stairway plan, to pave the way for them, the Soto family and their neighbors in the villages of Altata, Avándaro and Tetuán Nuevo are going ahead with their plans for marina development. They’re not waiting for any hotel chain to (maybe) build a panga-type marina someday, in the 10th or 11th phase of development. They’re aiming straight for a real marina.
“Who knows?” was Carlos’s answer when I asked him if the Nautical Stairway plan, which someday is to build a marina at Altata, is still alive.
They’ve given over their land, estuary waters and beloved fishing rights to become one of Mexico’s newest “ecological developments” -- sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? They get to develop -- sensitively -- a specific 10 percent of the 85-hectare project in turn for protecting the remaining 90 percent of it forever as an eco preserve. If they build it, will you come?
That’s what the area residents are hoping.
Where’s Altata?
Altata is in the state of Sinaloa, about 115 miles NNW of Mazatlán. The next state north is Sonora, and the popular San Carlos-Guaymas cruising grounds. The next state south is Nayarit, home of San Blas, Punta Mita and a good chunk of Banderas Bay northwest of Puerto Vallarta.
Altata lies 260 miles SSE of San Carlos, and 115 miles NNW of Mazatlán. Logistically, that makes it a good location for a marina.
First, it would be handy as a rest and refueling stop for smaller and midsize recreational boats, both power and sail, because they often have a hard time spanning the 375 miles between San Carlos and Mazatlán. With no known refuge along those shallow, poorly charted coastal waters, most yachts opt to cross the Sea of Cortez back to the Baja California side around La Paz before crossing again to reach Puerto Vallarta.
Altata lies on the same latitude as Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida, just outside La Paz harbor. The rhumb line from La Paz to Altata is about 130 miles.
What’s There Now?
Nothing yet. Don’t call for a slip reservation until 2007.
Puerto Altata long has been a shrimping and fishing port tucked into the north end of Bahía Altata. The bay’s narrow seaward entrance, Boca de Altata on the charts, lies about 10 miles southeast of Puerto Altata, and the channel is marked, dredged and maintained. The separate Lucenilla Peninsula, where the new marina will be built, lies 2 miles closer to the bay’s entrance, so its channel will diverge from the larger one about 8 miles in.
The “eco” part of the eco-development refers to miles of soft white sand dunes and virgin mangrove forests that, like nearby estuaries being studied, provide nesting grounds for dozens of seabird species, spawning grounds for three kinds of shrimp and clouds of salt-marsh butterflies, as well as three kinds of mangroves in about a dozen or so different habitats.
There are probably quite a few sea turtles nesting in Altata’s dunes, because we often see them offshore along this stretch. Huge manta rays and sunfish are common on this wide coastal shelf as well. The bay is undoubtedly a tranquil paradise for nature lovers, kayakers, snorkelers and sportfishermen.
Half of the villages around the bay are vacation getaways for the city of Culiacan, located about 25 miles inland, so some beaches already have palapa-type seafood restaurants and local sportfishing boats. About 40 small farming villages dot the low coastal plane behind Altata. Culiacan has an international airport, a university, train lines to the United States and Guadalajara, plus big air-conditioned grocery stores.
Bahía Altata is elongated and sheltered behind a 15-mile long, 2-mile wide barrier peninsula. According to drawings of the marina development, the slightly higher ground of the Lucenilla Peninsula will shelter the yacht basin from prevailing northwest winds, and several mangrove islands in front of the yacht basin should work as a green shock absorber against wakes and whatever fetch develops within the bay.
Destination and Rest Stop
The new marina at Altata will make for a long overdue rest stop, enabling more yachts to transit this little-known eastern side of the Sea of Cortez, and to do so more safely. It could become a popular destination marina for weeks -- maybe months -- on end, if the nautical services emerge as planned and if the natural ambiance is protected. This whole region’s coastal plain is low and gently sloping, so it probably won’t be thought of as a hurricane hole.
Slips in Altata
The Soto family’s business is called Servicios Litorales para Inmuebles Portuarios (SLIPS for short), meaning coastal services for port properties. The marina project is called El Desarollo Ecological de Altata, or the Ecological Development of Altata, but you can think of it as Marina Altata for now.
When I met the Soto family in San Diego in January, they were in town for a marina development convention and to meet with their dock construction firm from the Pacific Northwest. The Sotos promise their marina will be of “international quality.” I’m planning to check it out by boat when the marina and fuel dock are a little further along.
For more information, you can call Carlos Soto in Culiacan at 011-52 (667) 717-9174, or e-mail him at serlito@prodigy.net.mx. The Web site is www.slipsmexico.com.mx. Meanwhile, it’s good to see the villagers step up to the plate and take the first swing at a yachtie marina.
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This article first appeared in the May 1, 2005 issue of Sea Magazine. All or parts of the information contained in this article might be outdated. |
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