Coronado Islands

The Coronado Islands (Islas Coronado or Islas Coronados; English: Islands of the Coronation(s)) are a group of four islands off the northwest coast of the Mexican state of Baja California. Battered by the wind and waves, they are largely barren and uninhabited except for a small military detachment and a few lighthouse keepers. The islands lie between 15 and 19 miles south of the entrance to San Diego bay, but only 8 miles from the Mexican mainland.

The Coronado Islands are a Mexican wildlife refuge; visitors may anchor, scuba and snorkel, but trips ashore are not allowed.

The Coronado Islands are part of the municipality of Tijuana, Baja California, as ruled in the books of the Baja Californian Government, published on December 20, 1959:

Article 7 - the state of Baja California is divided and understood as the following municipalities .... Tijuana.

c) The Municipality of Tijuana is made up of ..... in addition; The Coronado Islands correspond to the jurisdiction of the Municipality of Tijuana, which lie on the extremes of the municipality to the Pacific Ocean.

In September 1542 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo described them as islas desiertas (desert islands). In 1602 the priest for Sebastián Vizcaíno called them Los Cuatro Coronados (the four crowned ones) to honour four martyrs. Although they have been called a dozen other names (later fisherman upon seeing floating coffins, ghostly faces and shrouded bodies amid the rocks dubbed them: Old Stone Face, The Sarcophagi, Dead Man's Island, and Corpus Christi) they also have been provocatively called The Sentries of San Diego Bay even though they belong to Mexico.

In the 1920s and 1930s, during Prohibition in the United States, the cove on the Northeast side of South Coronado Island was used as a meeting place for alcohol smugglers. Since it was the time before radar, and as foggy nights are common, the large number of boats frequently resulted in collisions. There was so much traffic that a famous casino flourished there until well into the Depression. Only the stone foundation remains though the name Smugglers Cove, and more rarely Casino Cove, adorn modern maps.

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