The adventure to the Chilean ship.

[efuentes]

A long, long time ago, a hurricane brought to the northern beaches of Santa Maria Island in Sinaloa a big ship, somehow it avoided all the nearby sandbars and landed in a truly remote spot in the Island. Back then, a trip was planned and we arrived by boat to the ship around 1978-1979.

Since then, I see the ship by airplane or on Google maps on occasion, even tried to put together a group to go there last year without success.

So, last week my son and I decided to repeat the 30 year old trip, but this time the hard way. (Stealing somebody else words, by the road less taken.)


A general area map, the ship lays on the northern part of the island.

The big ship as seen from the sea.

 

[efuentes]

About the only way to get there is to grab a small boat and just go there, but I have always envisioned a better plan, hop aboard my Cherokee, ask for permission to go across a big piece of desert land called "El Guachapori", jump across the small canals dividing the island in kayaks, across half a mile of BIG dunes and walk 3 or 4 miles of virgin beach.

So off we go to our destiny.

Crossing El Guachapori, by the high dirtroad.

The Jr. with its attitude shot. Way in the back you can see the ship.

Getting closer to our crossing point.

 

[efuentes]

Once at the planned crossing point we unloaded the Kayaks, of course, the small canal turned out to be a mile long, but well, who is counting ....

Getting ready to leave, the no turning back point.

After fighting some wind and currents, we made it to the other side, hid the kayaks in the bush and proceed to cross the dunes, not so nice at 104 degrees..

 

[efuentes]

Yep, that dot its the ship, so we walked ...

and walked ....

and walked ....

The ship only grew bigger after a while, but still unreachable ...

And then, Success ...

The proud and run down father ...

 

[mtnbike28]

cool trip.

That looked like a fun father/son trip!

Jay

 

[efuentes]

About the last thing that I expected to find there was people, somebody watched over the ship for a few years but it was gone a long time ago, so we were surprised when we found and old Volkswagen beetle straight out of Mad Max at the ship, turns out some enterprising fisherman were trying to get steel off the ship to sell at Topolobampo, and had crossed the car in a small boat to help them carry the load.

We happily accepted a ride aboard the bettle thinking how improbable was that we could hitch a ride in an uninhibited Island in the middle of nowhere. It was the right decision because the tide was moving up and the place where we left the car could get hard to access at high tide. We crossed back the dunes, hop on the kayaks (It tried to bail out by then, but my son wouldn't have any of it) after a while we where at the car licking my wounds (And pride) But happy.

Overall a very nice day trip to a surprisingly remote but close place.

Saludos

 

[Ireland]

That is very cool, thanks for sharing:beer: :beer: :beer:

 

[robski]

Looks like a great trip. Thanks for sharing.

 

[SOAZ]

there is something so intriguing about shipwrecks. thanks for sharing.

 

[Mc Taco]

Beyond cool. Thank you both.

 

[efuentes]

Thanks for your comments guys, anytime you are down here, just drop me a PM.

Saludos

 

[CLynn85]

Very cool trip. What better way to spend some quality time with your son. Thanks for sharing.

 

[p1michaud]

Chasing ships...

Very cool trip. Thanks for sharing the story and photos!
:victory:

 

[Hltoppr]

Very cool!!!

I love the VW bug!

-H-

 

[articulate]

What a cool adventure with driving, kayaking and hiking to an interesting destination. Great story.

What's up with the lunar rover to the right of the ship?