Recently a customer asked:
Long ago, windsurfers and a few kiters were the only boards on La
Ventana waters. Looking at our iwindsurf.com sensor archives the average strength (since who would trust aging memories) it is clear that really powerful El Norte winds were more common 20+ years ago.
These huge El Norte winds started in the middle of the night, with 30-knot blasts that rattled window winds for 1-3 days.
Since these El Norte winds blew the entire fetch of the Sea of Cortez they generated huge swells in a size range that has not been seen as often in recent years. Back then people would talk about the “Elephant March” as they viewed the horizon with binoculars.
Here is an ancient video that has some clips of a Golden Triangle day.
On those days, you could really enjoy real backside wave/kite sailing at “The Generals” or at the “La Bufadora” like you see in this photo.
But back then, like today, most water people just kited or windsurfed the waters off the La Ventana out several 1000 feet outside. But if you squinted your eyes, on really big days, you could see a few tiny colored sails on the far ESE horizon over a mile outside.
To me, it seemed crazy to windsurf that far from shore since there were nice smoothes to ride just 1/4 mile from shore.
True, the swell was smaller than Los Barriles and much smaller than Cabo Pulmo since the inbound swells had to refract to reach the inner waters off La Ventana.
But as fisherman this area far outside interested me. Back then, at dawn, one could often see a long row of stationary Pangas fishing in this area. Locals told me that tasty Huachinango were located in this area.
That fact got me thinking that there might be a deep water reef in that area.
If that was the case it would explain why those brave souls were venturing so far from shore.
So, one mild wind day I headed out to that area and found that the water went from blue to green indicating shallower water. But I was the only one out there and there was nothing special about the
swell.
But about a week later I returned on a big El Norte. As the big inbound swell felt the shallow water it became larger and steeper. I quickly became one of those fools doing figure 8’s endlessly in that area some were calling the “Golden Triangle” It is rare but it is worth the wait.