Santa Rosalia is an old copper mining town.  It was the first city in all of latin America to have electricity.  The homes there are made of wood, which makes them look fancy compared to the rest of Mexico.

Santa Rosalia has a stone jetty to create its harbor.  It’s old and crumbling but provides excellent protection.  One morning we ate breakfast at a place in town that had a large photo of the harbor from 100 years ago: it showed dozens of clipper ships and steamers filling the harbor and surrounding ocean.  It’s easy to imagine what it must have been like.

The guide books show two marinas and an anchorage, which would make you think that the harbor is pretty good sized.  Don’t believe it.  Singlar has a facility there for about 20 boats and there’s another ‘marina’ towards the  north end…believe it or not it’s an honor system marina.  We anchored near this marina in the NW corner of the harbor.  There’s room for 2 or three boats back in there.  That’s about it.  It’s 24 feet of water and murky.  We dragged a little bit, then set well.  We used the honor system marina as a dinghy dock.

I walked to the Port Captain’s office to check in and they looked at me like I was crazy.  No one there spoke English and they tried to tell me that if I was at a marina I didn’t need to check in.  I explained I was at anchor and they didn’t seem to understand what I meant, so they waved me out.