Sea Cortez Pearl Blog

On this unfortunate occasion we find that hurricanes are more of a threat than a blessing. I will begin with my account of the damages caused by previous hurricanes on our pearl farm and jewelry stores… jewelry stores??? But you guys only have the one store in Guaymas, don’t you??? Well, yes…but it was not always the same.

Let us begin…

Hurricane “Jimena” – 2009

This incredibly destructive hurricane had devastating effects on the coasts of Baja California and Sonora…but its destructive efforts were most effective on the cities of Guaymas and Empalme (with some 220,000 inhabitants in total). The usual effects of a hurricane were not really seen in the area (strong winds over 150 Kph, tidal waves of 10 meters in height, etc.) but instead we had a tremendous rainfall, lasting some 36 continuous hours and exceeding 711 mm of water (some 28 inches). This amount might not be a great deal in certain places, but in the Sonoran desert (with an average rainfall of 210 mm or 8.26 inches) this was a deluge! This was basically the first time we saw actual waterfalls and new arroyos (temporary rivers) on our hills and desert patches…but the water came to our towns like a locomotive and wiped out our hydraulic infrastructure, our roads and streets, dozens of houses just fell down and hundreds more were flooded. Thousands lost all their personal belongings, half a dozen people lost their lives…

Driving around the cities of Guaymas and Empalme, watching the destruction of bridges, people going on without any tap water for weeks, and the lines of people waiting for help from the government you would have to imagine that the pearl farm had been destroyed as well. But no, our Pearl Farm survived and we had minimal damage there. We had worse problems with our main office and pearl store: aside from some leaks in our roof, the main problem we had were the 7 days without electricity.

But we did notice some interesting damage on the environment: the water in Bacochibampo Bay turned extremely cloudy (visibility of less than 30 cm, just inches from your face) and the bottom of the ocean changed from a normal gravel-sandy (very marine) bottom to a truly red-mud bottom. The coastal outline changed and some beach spots were left without any sand, but then again some rocky areas became small sandy beaches. Obviously, we had some chemistry change in our bay’s seawater.

Some years ago, around 2002, the Chinese pearl farms in the region of Hainan suffered massive pearl oyster mortalities (Akoya Oysters=Pinctada imbricata) due to the floods that occurred when a typhoon affected the area with intense rainfall.  The water’s salinity and turbidity levels affected them because:

1. the Chinese pearl farms were located near the mouth of the river and
2. in a very shallow area (depth of less than 2 meters).

Because the area was so shallow, the salinity levels in the bay decreased below the Akoya oyster’s tolerance level: pearl oysters are typically marine organisms, unlike edible oysters that are more estuarine and can even thrive under less salty waters. Bacochibampo bay is far less shallow (average 8 meters), we do not have a river discharging into it and it has a very wide, open, mouth that protects this local environment from a fast and sudden change of salinity.

On this occasion…we were spared. But we have not been so fortunate in the past.

The Cortez Pearl farm in Bacochibampo