Mystery Boat Aground in Baja

Readers Debbie and Dennis Monahan were on their annual Baja fishing trip out of Agua Verde in late February when they came upon this boat. It was ashore beneath the rocky cliffs of Punta San Marcial with a hole in the bottom. As you can see, the name on the transom was Hanalei, with a hailing port of Seattle. Dennis estimated the length to be in the low to mid-30 foot range, but didn’t know the design. (The hull shape and stripes appear to be of C&C vintage, although we can’t be sure.) According to the panga guys Dennis talked to on February 28, the boat had gone ashore sometime the previous day after the solo skipper fell asleep. Reportedly, he had gathered together a few belongings, stepped off the boat and, as he was walking away, told the locals “Have at it!” or words to that effect. Dennis reports much of the gear had already been removed just a day after the grounding.

Monahan wasn’t able to get onto the local net for a couple of days after that, but when he did check in, the rumor was that the man who had walked away had been a delivery skipper contracted to take the boat from San Carlos to La Paz. And that the owner was more than a little upset at the turn of events. But by then, it was too late for Hanalei. On their way back to Agua Verde a week later, Dennis said the boat had been stripped of literally everything — and a huge rock had worked its way through the bottom.

We’ve polled the editors here, checked various article indexes and even gone through the records of the last few Baja Ha-Ha‘s, but could not find anything on a Seattle-based boat named Hanalei. So we’re stumped as to who she belonged to and how she really got in this sorry predicatment. Can anyone fill us in? Please contact JR if you have any further information.