GHOSTS - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

IF SHIPS have ghosts and if ghosts
have children the ghost ships of Port
Isabel must be restless and confused and
the children wrought with uncertainty concerning
their ancestry. The nearest maritime
office for boat licensing and registration
was in San Diego. By water that was
1 500 miles away—south over the unpredictable
Sea of Cortez and back along the
west coast of Baja California. Furthermore,
it was difficule to operate the flat
bottom boats upstream under the force of
cross winds and the bore tide from the
Gulf offered a real danger. It a craft survived
this peril, it might ram a mud bar
in the shallow river or encounter flood
waters from up-stream rains that could
destroy it in minutes.
Those charged with keeping supplies
and passengers moving on the Colorado
River and with the transporting of rich
ore to ocean going vessels in the Gulf
found it expedient to convert and improvise
usable parts of unrepairable boats for
the use of other vessels. To accomplish
this, they established a boat building and
repair facility at the head of the Gulf and
another up-stream at Fort Yuma, or Colorado
City, as it was called then. Registration
and official papers from wrecked
river craft were commonly transferred to
newly constructed boats in order to avoid
a true adventure with
The Ghosts
y Marlin Childers
the difficulties involved in official commissioning.
With this co-mingling of
parts and papers, how was a self-respecting
ghost ship to know with certainty its
family tree?
This disregard for maritime laws can
be condoned when you consider the extreme
conditions under which commerce
operated on the Colorado River during
the 19th century. These things Captain
John R. Myers and I reflected upon on
the way back to Yuma, Arizona after a
harrowing trip to the abandoned shipyard
on the Colorado delta.
Captain Myers, U.S.N., better known
as "Dick" to his friends, became curious
about the little-known delta lands during
his duty at the El Centro Aero Space Recovery
Facility where he was the Commanding
Officer. Later he was transferred
to Phoenix and our plans to explore it
were interrupted until I revived his interest
with a telephone call to suggest he
join me on an expedition to seek out the
lost 19th century Port Isabel.
V( e met as scheduled and on our first
night out camped at the top of the cliffs
overlooking the mud flats a few miles
below El Doctor, Sonora, Mexico. We
barbecued a steak, and while the campfire
flickered, reminisced of other trips into
little-known areas around the mouth of
Port Isabel
the Colorado River. Many had been without
incident, but on several occasions our
physical and mental capacities were pushed
to their limits. Little did we realize
that the trip ahead of us was to be more
trying than any previous sojourn into this
land of mud.
For years I had read about the former
port of call at the head of the Gulf of
California. I had seen it documented on
old maps, but there were no roads nor
distances from known points to locate the
former repair facility and the exact location
was impossible to determine.
Discouraged, I had given up hope of
finding the former port when Dr. Richard
Merriam, a geologist from U.S.C.,
showed me an aerial photo with a white
rectangular area which could possibly be
the location of Port Isabel. A few days
later, with Jim Adkins and Jim Bailey of
El Centro, California, I flew down across
the delta and over the mud flats. We followed
the well-defined San Jacinto fault
and located the rectangular white zone
that appeared on the aerial photo. The
area was surrounded with debris foreign
to the area. We felt certain this was the
former boat repair depot.
As we flew from the delta land, I felt
confident I could return to the Cliffs by
the old road to El Gulfo and find the
November, 1966 / Desert Magazine / 25
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