Our Story
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Mark has been fishing the East Cape since the late 70's, early 80's. Mark and friends (Mark A, Bruce A., Barth H.) used to trailer down and camp at Verdugo's when it was still a "mans" fishing world.
We met in '88, married in 90 and I really had never fished except for an occasional Sting Ray at Mission Bay as a kid with my family. Mark continued fishing East Cape with friends he'd met through business. His love for Baja grew. I stayed home with the kids while he fished, we always looked forward to his return and stories of the one that got away. In 2002 we purchased a fishing boat, a 26' Skipjack "Downtime". We spent many days hanging out in Mission Bay, and took it out fishing when the fish were biting. Lots of great memories created with good friends and family. The year we bought our boat, a good friend and one from the "Fish Brotherhood" passed away after a long illness. He and his brother kept their boat in the marina we soon called home. In fact, when we bought our boat, we kept it in their slip since their boat was in Los Barriles, BCS. We played musical slips for a month until we obtained our own slip. Fast forward, in 2008 we take a vacation to Los Barriles staying at the Palmas de Cortez. This is the first time Marie has been south of Ensenada in Baja. We spent 5 days enjoying the pool, swim up bar, fishing, some very sad karioking at Tio Pablo's, and a snorkeling trip up the coast. Mark retires building our dream retirement home as his last project. We moved in December 2009 and come July of 2011 we're off trailering to Los Barriles. This is better known as the trip of two's. Two trucks, two boats, two quads, two dogs, two men, two boys, and Marie. We pulled up at the rental home, Casa Bella in Spa Buena Vista looking like the Beverly Hillbillies. With daylight left, the boys took off for the water. Within an hour they're back, our grandson had been stung by an Agua Mala (nasty jellyfish). That's how we met our first Baja friends, Ed & Ella. They lived in the house across from our rental. We learned much from our new friends. Before our departure from Los Barriles, we rented a storage unit where we kept a boat and two quads for future use by "the group" of guys who bought the boat. Fast forward to 2013, Mark & I take a two week vacation. We stay at the Los Barriles Hotel (storage unit on site). We met up with all the friends we met in Spa previously and enjoy our time. It was after this trip back home in San Diego I was perusing the Homes & Land of Baja website. Coincidently Mark was doing the same thing. So, we decided that it was time to get serious about looking at properties in Los Barriles. We narrowed our search down to roughly 5 properties we wanted to look at and booked our airfare down. |
Again, we took the quads out and drove through every neighborhood looking at homes we saw for sale on line as well as those that weren't listed. We finally contacted the sales agent to look at the few we were interested in. Buena Vista, Rancho Leonero, Los Barriles, and Punta Pescadero. Although it was way out off the beaten path, we chose Punta Pescadero for the beautiful cove, unobstructed views, an air strip (Mark thought he'd get his pilot license), a hotel next door, and a military outpost within walking distance.
We submitted our offer with a 3 day window of acceptance since we were leaving. We left, no word from the the seller. Back in San Diego, we decided to drive to Elk Grove to visit Mark's Grandma, it was now April. I opened my iPad and to my surprise there was an email that stated "Offer Accepted"!! This was more than a month after our offer. I guess we were meant to have this place. June of 2015 we're on our way south to close the deal, accept the keys to our new "Baja" home. The original agreement between Mark and I was, we could live this far out as long as I got stairs to the beach and a swimming pool. Once we moved in, it became clear quite quickly that there was no respite from the morning sun unless you opened the garage doors and sat in the driveway with your coffee. Additionally, there was nowhere to entertain guests in in-climate weather unless you put up the hurricane screens that blocked the view of the sea. We decided to live with it the way it was for a year to see all seasons. Once Mark decided there was no way to remodel the existing home without giving up the ramp to the beach, his plan was to build a new house on the empty part of the lot. On my birthday of 2018 Mark had the local builder over to discuss plans for a new build. It wasn't until 2019 that building actually commenced. March 10th of 2020 we flew down for 10 days to check on the building...COVID hit. Travel shut down, everyone was in a panic. We stayed for 5 weeks, then finally we decided to fly home. We did a turn around and drove back down with our dogs. Everything was now in slow motion...no one was supposed to be working, parts became scarce; we moved in using the electrical hook up from the existing home. After much finagling, the electric company finally approved our meter and installation of same. Here we are 3 years later, Covid is in the rear view mirror. Friends are coming down to visit and experience everything Baja has to offer. |