Safely tied up in the marina I took off to explore town. It’s not a big town and you can walk all of the streets in half a day.
I love the place, it’s unlike anywhere I have been in before, but some of it similar to the area I grew up in on Merseyside, where decaying industry was all around.
Santa Rosalia was just desert scrubland until a rancher discovered copper in the ground, he couldn’t make money from it, but the French company Compagnie du Boleo moved here in 1884 and built the town and started large scale mining and processing here. The town has a French influence, and although you can see much variety in the houses and shops, they were all built to serve the mine and the company.
The mine (El Boleo) was profitable until the 1950s when the French pulled out, the Mexican government took over rather than let the 10,000 people in the town down. There was nothing else here, and given how scarred the place was due to the mining, there was little chance of tourists visiting. The mine ran at a loss until the 80’s when the government finally called it a day. It must have been hard here until 2010 when a Canadian & Korean consortium reopened the mine and with modern technology were able to make it profitable. Initial delays caused the Canadians to pull out and the mine is operated soley by the Koreans now.
Just a few days ago I read in the Mexican press that Mexico’s often controversial president has announced the the mine cannot be expanded once current reserves are finished, causing the Korean company to say they will pull out in the next year causing much unemployment here once again.
While here I pulled down the Genoa, and put up the traditional, and newer Yankee and Staysail sails. I’m going to be doing a fair bit of sailing I hope along the mainland coast and wanted the best sails up.
Halfway through my stay here Dirk & Sylvia arrived, on Sunday I helped them replace the forestay wire inside their furler. They will follow me across to the mainland in a few days time.
Not much else to comment on, so I will just dump a load of pictures of the town here with some info in the captions.
The harbour wall is mostly build from compressed blocks of Copper slag waste.
Tonight around midnight I will leave for the 75 nautical mile passage over to the mainland, hoping to arrive in San Carlos tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.
My first night passage in a long time, so I’m stocking up on munchies for the passage.
Paul Collister