Baja California

Great Expeditions is a bimonthly publication that describes trips not often found in the brochures at a travel agent's office.The magazine has tips, such as the autumn issue's advisory that some hotels in Baja California already are booked for the July 11 solar eclipse next year. Destination articles include Benin in Africa, Japan, southern Mexico, Chile, Galapagos Islands and Israel. The magazine is published in Canada, and a six-issue subscription costs $18. For a free sample issue, write Box 8000-411, Sumas, Wash.

MEXICO CITY -- Hurricane Felix killed at least nine people and damaged thousands of homes as it passed through Nicaragua. But the storm failed to produce the major flooding that many feared in neighboring Honduras, officials said yesterday. Little more than a day after it came ashore as a Category 5 hurricane, Felix was downgraded to a tropical depression. In the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, where 300,000 people were evacuated from low-lying neighborhoods, the rain stopped and life returned to normal.

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico -- Hurricane John ambled north toward the beaches of this resort city on the tip of Baja California today as local authorities moved to evacuate thousands of residents. John, downgraded to a Category 2 storm by the National Hurricane Center in Miami, carried winds reaching 110 mph and was expected to reach land "near or over Baja California" late today. The hurricane's center was moving southeast of the Baja coastline yesterday. Authorities declared a "red alert," ordering the port and airport closed.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras -- Hurricane Felix came ashore on Nicaragua's remote Miskito Coast early yesterday as a Category 5 storm, damaging about 5,000 homes in the region before moving west toward the heart of this country of 7 million people, officials said. Less than 12 hours later and more than 1,600 miles away in the Pacific, a second and much weaker hurricane, Henriette, struck the resort city of San Jose del Cabo on the southern tip of Baja California. The center of Henriette's eye reached the Baja mainland yesterday afternoon about six miles east of San Jose del Cabo's downtown.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The spirit of adventure will live o through four Spaniards as they ski, kayak and bicycle their way from the sub-zero temperatures of interior Alaska through the blistering heat of Death Valley and on to the tip of Baja California.The three men and one woman have dubbed their expedition, "From the Arctic to the Tropics" and plan to start the 5,000-mile journey Friday in Fort Yukon.The four will ski from Fort Yukon through Canada and the Chilkoot Pass to Skagway, then board kayaks and follow the coast to Vancouver, British Columbia.

ENSENADA, Mexico -- Gunmen dressed in black and carrying assault rifles pulled three families from their homes early yesterday morning and shot at least 19 men, women and children against a wall in what police described as a drug-related slaying.Last night, the authorities were still providing conflicting versions of events that occurred in a suburb of this city, 60 miles south of the California border.The executions took place in the concrete driveway of a two-story stucco home on a hillside in Vista al Mar, a cluster of houses a mile from the Pacific Ocean.

LOS ANGELES -- Mexican drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix - whose Tijuana-based drug ring has been connected with at least 20 murders in Mexico and the United States - was apprehended by U.S. authorities while on a boating trip off the coast of Baja California, officials said yesterday. Arellano Felix was being transported to San Diego onboard a U.S. Coast Guard cutter after being caught Monday morning onboard the vessel Doc Holiday about 15 miles off the coast of La Paz, Mexico, U.S. deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said during a news conference in Washington.

OCEAN OASIS Jot down some notes from the Ocean Oasis Field Guide at www.oceanoasis.org / fieldguide / . Check out the picture guides to the plants and animals living on the Baja California peninsula and the Sierra de San Francisco. From marine life to birds of flight, you can learn about more than 40 species. Swim around with the angelfish and hammerhead sharks, or take a break from the sun while resting under an elephant tree or Guadalupe palm growing in the region. Kid quest: Where are Pacific creolefish usually found?

Dr. Richard H. Pembroke Jr., a retired psychoanalyst who practiced at St. Joseph Medical Center for three decades and was an amateur astronomer, died of a heart attack Jan. 4 at Sinai Hospital. The Roland Park resident was 95. Born in Gassaway, W.Va., and raised in Park Hall in Southern Maryland, he was a 1928 graduate of St. Paul's School. He earned his undergraduate degree at St. John's College in Annapolis and completed his medical education at the University of Maryland. Initially trained as a pathologist, he served in the Navy during World War II and became interested in psychiatry, family members said.