Puerto Magdalena is a sleepy little fishing village inside Bahia Magdalena–and by sleepy I mean, I fell asleep practically as soon as we got the anchor set. But also, it’s really laid-back and incredibly isolated. The whole town goes dark around 10pm every night, when they shut the generator down and there is no way to get there by land. Which had me kind of stumped for a few days, because every morning, just before it gets light, you can see truck headlights bouncing from one end of town to the other, picking up people and towing pangas down to the beach. Kenny off of Pioneiro told us he was relaxing there at anchor one day when he looked up and saw a brand new Ford F-150 coming across the bay and heading for Puerto Magdalena. On top of the water.
Turns out the only way to get a vehicle into Puerto Magdalena is you dig some deep channels on the beach in San Carlos at low tide and park two pangas in them. Then, you put some strongish boards across, linking the pangas, and get a few more to make a ramp. Next, drive your new truck up onto the boards that span the gap between the pangas and when the tide comes in, you and your buddy in the other panga drive the whole mess across the bay to where you live. For real. It’s like synchronized swimming for kickass workboats. And also? Freaking awesome. I’m petitioning the International Olympic Committee to add it to the next Olympics. Their decision to drop Greco-Roman wrestling (seriously, what could be more iconic than that?) makes it pretty clear they’ve got no problem throwing tradition out the window in favor of viewership. I’m willing to bet more people would pay to see synchronized panga truck delivery than, say golf.
Theoretically, there’s a Port Captain you’re supposed to check in with when you get to Puerto Magdalena, but when we walked up the hill to his office, we found a bunch of notes stuck in the door that said things like, “Greetings, we’re the sailboat DreamyTime from some really cold place in Canada and we’re planning to stay in your lovely bay for 5-7 days.” or, “S/V Pretentiocity–Newport, California, USA 3 days max. So we added our little note and hiked back down the hill to explore the town. Took about 5 minutes. The beach is completely made of shells, really cool ones. There are a couple of little tiendas which are more like paying for groceries out of your neighbor’s fridge than going to an actual store. A little school which is always in need of donations, one church, a zillion pangas, and maybe 75 houses. There’s a water purification place and a bunch of shy, nice people.
There is one restaurant, kind of, that is sometimes open and we sat and talked with some other cruisers who’d just ordered their food. After a while, the town sheriff came over to say hi and we asked about checking in. He told us the Port Captain doesn’t live in town and only comes over a couple times a week and not to worry. A couple of days later, we met the Port Captain. His name is Gregorio, and he is also the fuel panga guy. Our checking in consisted of signing his guest book after we finished buying fuel from him. Cool beans.
The beach is all shells. Like really cool shells, with no boring ones for filler.
Completely flat dried fish we found on the beach.
Rusting hulk of I don't know what.
Looks kind of cool, though.
Awesome working toy panga, complete with a net and lobster trap.
Another toy panga.
He didn't really want us playing with his abalone shells.
It's more of a government shack, than a building, really.
Ruined wall of a building.
Top view of the ruin.
Landfall sitting at anchor off of Puerto Magdalena, as seen from the closed Port Captain's office.
One of the trucks in town, pushing this boat into the water.
Fishermen working on their gear.
The whole town of Puerto Magdalena is basically built on the beach.
