Rocky Point: Arizona’s Closest Beach Resort

Arizona RVers looking for an ocean beach and relief from the summer heat can travel west to the California coast, but there is a closer alternative—a beach resort in Sonora, Mexico. Puerto Penasco, better know to vacationers from the U.S. as Rocky Point, is just 60 miles from the Arizona border town of Lukeville.

Americans began coming to Puerto Penasco in the 1920s, and in recent years, the resort town has become increasingly Americanized, as visitors from the north have bought property and as new homes and condominiums have been built.

Puerto Penasco’s beaches, sometimes rocky, stretch for miles. Although summer temperatures are hot, the clear, warm coastal waters invite visitors from California, Arizona and New Mexico to shop and dine, as well as sail, snorkel, parasail, scuba dive and swim year-round. Later this year, the road from El Golfo de Santa Clara to Puerto Penasco will be completed—reducing the travel time for visitors from the west.

Long before Americans discovered Rocky Point, retired Lt. Robert William Hale Hard of the British Royal Fleet sailed along the coasts of Sonora and Baja California in 1826, searching for pearls and precious metals. On marine maps, he identified the area as Rocky Point. Later, Mexico’s future president, Gen. Lazaro Cardenas, changed the name to Puerto Punta Penasco (Port Rocky Point). Americans dropped the Port and Mexicans dropped the Punta.

During the early 1920s, Americans traveled from Tucson, Phoenix, Gila Bend and Ajo to catch enormous flying fish. Commercial fishermen traveled up the coast from Guaymas, Mexico to El Golfo de Santa Clara at the mouth of the Colorado River north of Rocky Point to find protection from storms and a beautiful and tranquil estuary. Once potable water was available, they began fishing the waters around Rocky Point.

Prohibition in the United States gave rise to bars, clubs, hotels and casinos where thirsty Americans were welcomed to the border towns. Capitalizing on the craze, John Stone, who owned a hotel in Ajo, decided to build a hotel-casino in the Rocky Point area. He had a well dug and sold potable water to the fishermen and local residents. He built an airport and established Scenic Airlines. But then Stone had a falling out with the fishermen and left them high and dry—burning down the hotel and blowing up the well.

In 1936, President Cardenas visited the area, took pity on the poverty-stricken residents, and made plans for a wharf for cargo vessels, a railroad to unify it with Baja and the rest of the country, and a highway to the United States. The well and the old Stone Hotel were revived, urban development began, and luxurious hotels, shops and restaurants grew up.

Today, resort property and condominium sales have become big business in Puerto Penasco. Playa Las Conchas hosts an enormous development of American-owned “mansions” on the white sandy beaches overlooking the Sea of Cortez. People on the Malacon and Old Port streets offer free dinners, reduced-price dinner cruises, or gas certificates to get tourists out to the Mayan Resorts—Mayan Palace and Grand Mayan.

Places of interest in Puerto Penasco include Lupita’s Candy Store, Santana’s Coffee Shop, Curios Wendy (if you can’t find it there, it doesn’t exist), a small aquarium, Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, and the 25-year-old Desert and Ocean Studies Center (CEDO).

CEDO is a nonprofit natural history resource center and biological field station that studies the Upper Gulf of California and the surrounding Sonoran Desert and promotes conservation. It monitors weather conditions, conducts research and works with the fishing community to encourage sustainable fishing practices. There is a concerted effort by both Mexican and American business interest, biologists and ecologists to develop Rocky Point and at the same time protect the ecosystem that attracts so many visitors to this resort area.

Information about CEDO, its programs, tours and hours for the Earthship Visitors Center can be found at www.cedointercultural.org. Information about food, lodging, weather and points of interest is available at www.rockypointonline.com. For additional local information and local color you can go to the Rocky Point Times newspaper at www.rptimes.com.

The Trailer Life Directory lists a number of RV parks in Puerto Penasco. We stayed at Playa de Ora and Playa Bonita, both with beach frontage where we could see the sunset. From the RV park at Playa Bonita, it was a short waterfront walk to the Playa Bonita hotel and the Puesta de Sol restaurant. There, we enjoyed a wonderful shrimp dinner while watching the sunset and listening to music.

Marilyn McDonald is a writer who lives in Oregon and Mexico.