THE NAUTILUS. 



Vox,. XVI. JULY, 1902. No. 3. 



CRUISING AND COLLECTING OFF THE COAST OF LOWER CALIFORNIA. 



BY FRED. BAKER, M. D., SAN DIEGO, CAL. 



Cruising on our southern Pacific coast is less indulged in than 

 along the Atlantic seaboard, because there is a marked dearth of the 

 land-locked harbors into which our eastern yachtsmen can run al- 

 most every night, or in case of a threatened storm. Nevertheless, 

 two years ago, tempted by our summer promise of continued good 

 weather, a party of seven, including my wife and two children, 

 started from San Diego harbor for a run down the coast of Lower 

 California in the staunch little schooner " Lura." 



A late start made it advisable to anchor over night at the mouth 

 of the harbor, but this gave a chance to get under way at daylight 

 for a beautiful run of seventy miles to " Todos Santos " bay, on the 

 sloping shores of which lies " Ensenada," the capital of the northern 

 department of the Mexican territory of " Baja California." 



As we ran we left broad to the starboard the Coronados, a group 

 of seven small islands belonging to Mexico, but lying only twenty 

 miles off San Diego, and a common terminus of our short cruises. 

 They, like most of the off-shore islands, are bold volcanic masses, 

 the largest, though less than three miles long, rising 880 feet above 

 the sea, in many places sheer for hundreds of feet. This is a type 

 of all the coast line for several hundred miles south. Bluffs and 

 headlands, with here and there a narrow or broad valley sweeping 

 down to the sea, but above all and crowning all, the foot-hills and the 

 great mountains of the Coast Range. 



