“At the time, we were in high tide and the boat actually ended up going pretty much all the way under water several times, and filled up with sand,” said Lamb. “And then it got buried in the sand, so it’s been quite a fiasco to get it out today.”

Captain Eric Lamb has picked up hundreds of abandoned smuggling boats off the beaches of Southern California. The company he works for, Vessel Assist, does the work for US Customs and Border Protection. (Photo: Katie Euphrat)

Law enforcement agents—and people who work with them, like Lamb—have seen a spike in illegal traffic here. A record was set in 2012, with more than 200 documented smuggling attempts between the US-Mexico border and California’s Central Coast.

Lamb has dug out, towed, and trailered many of the boats left behind.

“In the last nine years with this company we’ve pulled probably well over 150 boats off the beach up and down between here and LA,” Lamb said.

And he is not just pulling boats off the beach. Ironically enough, some smugglers actually call Lamb’s company for a tow, when they’ve broken down or run out of gas at sea. And he says he can tell when a client is in the smuggling business, such as when he gets a call from a boat at three in the morning and the crew is five miles off of Imperial Beach, just north of the US-Mexico border. When that happens, Lamb alerts the authorities.

Lamb is also seeing smugglers get more sophisticated. Open-hulled boats called pangas used to be the vessel of choice. Smugglers would typically take off from Mexico’s border state of Baja California, race up the coast at night, and drop off their cargo, drugs or people, on deserted beaches.

At a boat yard near the Mexican border, a worker slices through the fiberglass hull of a captured smuggling boat. The word “Ensenada,” the port city in Baja California, is printed on it in hand-drawn letters. A kid’s life jacket and a Fanta bottle filled with water suggest it was used to smuggle immigrants. Soon, workers here will shred the boat and dismantle the motor.

Not too long ago, these abandoned or seized pangas were auctioned off. But the same boats showed up again and again. So now authorities just chop them up.

“They’ve managed to just about deplete the fleet in Ensenada,” Lamb said.

But smugglers have retooled their strategy, too, and are now using other boats, including craft normally used for pleasure or yachting, to run their illicit business. And they’re getting bolder, going farther out to sea and further up the coast, dropping their goods or people hundreds of miles up California’s coast.

Coast Guard Member Terrell Horne III was killed when suspected smugglers rammed his boat off the Central California coast. He’s the first law enforcement officer to be killed since maritime smuggling picked up along the California coast in 2008. (Photo: Lt. Stewart Sibert/USCG)

Lt. Commander Matthew Jones oversees the Coast Guard’s enforcement in San Diego. His crew patrols the coast daily with helicopters and boats, searching for suspicious activity. Jones says Horne’s death hasn’t altered how the Coast Guard operates.

“I don’t think it’s any more dangerous than it was before,” Jones said. “Horne’s death was a tragedy, an absolute tragedy, and it certainly makes us all re-examine what we’re doing to make sure we’re doing it safely and effectively.”

But that’s not so for Eric Lamb, who works with Vessel Assist. As maritime smuggling increases, he finds his business increasingly nerve-wracking, especially when he approaches boats stranded at sea.

“I’ll be out there, no one else, just me,” he said. He know that they can “shoot me, throw me over the side, load everything in my boat and they can go anywhere they want.”

Still, Lamb says he loves his job, will stick to it—he’s just moving his radar higher.

The failed Nautical Staircase has become the poster child for over-ambitious development dreams in Baja California.

“It was planned with the expectation that real estate was going to continue growing,” says Saúl Alarcón, executive director of the Mexican environmental group Terra Peninsular. “So they said, ‘well, let’s put some marinas in key places because we’re developing the entire coast. So eventually we’ll have thousands of people with yachts coming to Baja California.’”

During the pre-2008 real estate boom, many developers — and Americans in search of a plot of paradise — invested in this part of Mexico, with its miles and miles of then unspoiled, breathtaking coastline. The crash of 2008 put many of those projects on ice.

That was bad news for developers, but Serge Dedina, head of the US-Mexico conservation organization WiLDCOAST, says the economic downturn has been a boon for Baja’s natural resources.

“When the Baja boom was happening, it seemed like environmentalists were fighting all kinds of projects, from marina development projects, high-rise development projects and mega-resorts,” Dedina says.

Now, though, conservation groups have been able to turn the tables a bit. They’ve been buying up discounted coastal land from speculators, establishing conservation easements on private land, and working with the Mexican government to form new protected areas.

“We’ve been able to preserve some really world-class coastal biodiversity areas,” Dedina says, “areas where gray whales go, and where you see whale sharks. So that’s really exciting.”

Baja’s warm lagoons are crucial breeding and birthing areas for thousands of migrating gray whales. The area is also vital habitat for other animals.

Hundreds of willets feed in the mud flats of San Quintín Bay, on Baja’s Pacific coast. The bay is home to tens of thousands of shore birds and migratory waterfowl.

“It’s one of the last wetlands in North America with, I’d say 80 to 90 percent of the habitat is still in good shape,” Alarcón says.

The local government had hoped to turn part of the bay into a marina. A resort and golf course were also in the works. But now Alarcón’s organization is working with the Mexican government to turn nearly 300,000 acres here into a Biosphere Reserve.

It’s also bought up a nearby area of now-rare coastal sage scrub. And it’s helping local farmers establish low-impact agricultural practices. Alarcón says such efforts are protecting internationally important resources.

“You have environment, habitat, ecosystems that basically have disappeared in the rest of North America,” Alarcón says.

The real estate bust has given conservationists a new window of opportunity to save some of these. Of course the bust also means some dashed hopes for economic development.

Back in Santa Rosalillita, locals say the marina project would have brought welcome jobs and income.

Before it failed, it did bring some benefits, says local leader Javier Maclish—“a road and electricity.” But otherwise, Maclish says, the project has hurt his town. He says it caused beach erosion that has made life more difficult for local fishermen and has even forced some residents to abandon their homes.

Otherwise, quiet has returned to places like Santa Rosalillita. But it may be just a lull in the action, and conservationists like Saúl Alarcón may well still have to scramble to protect more land.

“Unfortunately, what happens in places like Baja California is people who are not from Baja California think that it’s empty land. And it has been always this case,” Alarcón says.

Activists say new development plans are again popping up along the peninsula. And Alarcón says it’s not just tourism and retirement homes anymore.

“Mining and energy projects. it is now the next rush,” Alarcón says.

It’s not just Hollywood. According to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar, civilization as we know it only has about 11 months left. December 21, the winter solstice, is the end of a 5,125-year cycle known as the “long count” in the Mayan calendar.

A crescendo of New Age books and websites has helped fuel the rumor that this day will also be our last.

But in Guatemala most people say, forget about it.

“This is an Anglo perspective of the world,” said Ernesto Arredondo Leiva, a Guatemalan archaeologist.

He said some misinterpretations and careless predictions have morphed into a 2012 doomsday tale, which he attributes to some pseudo-scientific types engaging in spiritual sport.

“They have their own ideas, and then they use pieces of articles that they’ve read or parts of knowledge that we know from science, and they just grab it and make a soup with it,” Arredondo said.

Mayan scholars and archaeologists agree there’s not much evidence showing the ancient Maya predicted a cataclysmic event for 2012.

In fact, the date is mentioned only once – on a 7th century Mayan monument in Mexico. According to one modern translation, the Mayan hieroglyphics carved into that monument mention December 21, “as a time when one of the Gods will come back and he will be present in a big party or a big event,” Arredondo said.

That seems to be where a lot of the rumours got started. Some people don’t take gods coming back to earth lightly.

The problem is the scholar who translated the glyphs later said he thought his interpretation was probably wrong. After all, the monument was broken and part of the text was missing.

But what do modern-day descendants of the ancient Maya have to say about it?

In a walled-off corridor alongside a busy road on the outskirts of Guatemala City, Carlos Cajchun Osorio recites Mayan prayers as part of a traditional fire ceremony. He’s a member of the Association of Maya Priests of Guatemala.

The Maya priests have “offices” here – side-by-side concrete cubicles, facing a row of chimneys. People with marital problems or just in need of a spiritual lift come to request private ceremonies where a priest will pray, and burn sugar, incense and candles as offerings to the creator.

According to Cajchun Osorio, there’s nothing in the ancient Mayan texts — at least, the few that survived the Spanish conquest — to suggest the world will be ending this year.

He said it’s all a big lie driven by foreign beliefs; it’s all about business.

And some people do hope to make money off of the 2012 craze. Moon Travel Guides has produced a special Maya 2012 guidebook covering celebrations in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.

In Guatemala, government ministries and tourism industry reps have formed a 2012 committee to promote tourism around the event. They’ve published a slew of glossy booklets and maps of routes where tourists can experience ancient and modern Mayan culture.

“We saw it as one-time opportunity,” said Maro Avecedo, executive director of the Guatemalan Tourism Chamber, and a member of the committee. “We hope it’ll be an opportunity for national and foreign visitors to come to Guatemala and learn more about Mayan culture.”

The group is also educating tour guides about ancient Mayan calendar cycles. On December 21, government-sponsored celebrations will take place at ancient Mayan ruins across the country.

Modern-day Maya who follow their traditional religion are also likely to celebrate that day, but not with good-bye parties.

Cajchun Osorio, the Mayan priest, said if anything, he hopes the end of this era – and the start of the next – may signify a positive change. He said it’s the awakening of the human race, but in a good way.

Many newly-arrived Iraqi refugees were engineers, doctors and other professionals in their home country. Here, they struggle to find jobs. (Photo: Jill Replogle)

But that is a challenge if you’ve just moved to the US from a war-damaged country like Iraq. More than 8,000 Iraqis have relocated to San Diego County since 2005, making it one of the largest Iraqi refugee communities in the country, and many of them are looking for work.

At a workshop, a dozen well-dressed men and women write down the names of everyone they know who could possibly help them find a job. Some finish quickly — they’ve only been in the country for a few months.

The workshop is a training session to help the new arrivals get ready for an International Night of Networking. The event is put on by some San Diego refugee resettlement agencies to connect high-skilled refugees with potential employers.

The group in the room includes several engineers, a nurse, an anesthesiologist and a dentist. “Iraqi refugees are a particularly well-educated group,” said Ralph Achenbach of the San Diego Refugee Forum.

“We see in that population, many with professional credentials, advanced degrees and accomplished careers.”

That doesn’t mean it’s easy for them to find jobs here in the US, at least not these days.

Salih Habib, an IT specialist and graphic designer from Baghdad, worked for several large American companies in Iraq, and served as an interpreter for the US military. Habib came to San Diego more than a year ago, but still hasn’t found a job.

“I don’t know why, maybe it’s hard luck,” Habib said, “or maybe it’s because of my age. I’m over 50.”

Habib and other Iraqi refugees face another barrier to finding a job.

“When you come here, you have to buy a car, because you can’t find a job without a car,” Habib said. “And you can’t buy a car, if you don’t have a job.”

Habib said he has applied for about 100 jobs, and only scored a handful of interviews. But he is hoping to make some headway at the International Night of Networking.

International Night of Networking

Dark-haired men and women in dress suits and sport coats, with stick-on name tags, wander around the room, trying to put their newly-developed networking skills to good use. In front, a projector flashes images of the job seekers, along with their names and professions.

One young man, who doesn’t give his name, jumps from employer to employer. He said he studied IT at Baghdad University, but employers here don’t recognize his degree, a common problem. Still, he gets a promising sign from a partner in a small electronics firm, who encourages him to send a resume.

For Habib, the night is “useful,” because he networked with people from two professional organizations of engineers. Habib said they gave him good ideas about more networking.

In this job-scarce economy, that serves as good news.

In the meantime, Habib said, he has applied for a security job and substitute teaching job. He also applied for a seasonal sales job at Sears, and said they offered him the job.

But that was a month ago, and they still haven’t called him to begin orientation. After more than a year of job hunting, Habib said he has starting to lose hope.

Hazim Jajo and his wife, Hanaa Ishaq (Photo: Jill Replogle)

Ishaq dictates a phone number to her husband from an address book. The two speak Chaldean, the language of Iraq’s largest Christian group.

They are trying to reach Ishaq’s mother, Shami, in Damascus. She’s 84-years-old and ailing.

Ishaq’s brother answers the call. He agrees to bring his cell phone to his mother’s apartment so she can get the call from San Diego; she doesn’t have her own phone.

“Okay, bye bye,” Jajo says, hanging up. He turns to his wife and says, “Her health situation now is very bad. Now she cannot see. She is suffering vision problems.”

Ishaq gasps, looking even more distressed than she did before they made the call. Her mother has been waiting in Syria for more than two years for the US to green light her refugee application. She lives by herself, surviving mostly on a small monthly stipend and food rations from the UN.

“I signed a sponsorship for her,” Jajo says. “Now it’s more than one year, and we are still waiting.”

Since 2007, the US has resettled more than 60,000 Iraqi refugees in this country. Many of them had already left Iraq; they fled to neighboring countries like Jordan and Syria with the hope of eventually moving to the US. But in the past year, the rate of resettlement has slowed dramatically.

Larry Bartlett, who heads the Office of Refugee Admissions at the US State Dept., says it typically takes six to nine months to process refugees, but the process has ground to a halt for Iraqi refugees in Syria since violence and unrest erupted there last spring. Bartlett says Homeland Security officers haven’t been able to enter the country to interview refugees, a requirement of the resettlement process.

“That program has been stalled for months,” Bartlett said, “and I think until that situation stabilizes we won’t be able to go back in and conduct interviews.”

Adding even more to the delays, the US government imposed additional security screenings last year. Now, US intelligence and other agencies run two background checks on most refugees; one when they first apply for refugee status, and one shortly before they board a plane.

Bartlett says it makes sense. “I have to say we have seen results. We’ve been able to deny people based on new information that’s cropped up just before travel.”

Bartlett wouldn’t give examples, but there have been reports in US media of suspected terrorists who entered the US as refugees before the new security measures.

Still, Hanna Ishaq wonders how her 84-year-old mother in Damascus could be considered a threat.

“Why she’s waiting long time? She’s an old woman and she doesn’t have to wait a long time for security clearance. What they want to check exactly I don’t know.”

People who work with refugees in the US say that the added security checks may mean that the Department of Homeland Security winds up denying asylum to some legitimate candidates. The number of Iraqis resettled out of Syria dropped by more than one-third in the past fiscal year — from 4,578 in FY2010 to 2,959 in FY2011.

Bob Montgomery, executive director of the International Rescue Committee in San Diego, notes that people who are fleeing their homes often don’t have time to collect documents like birth certificates and marriage licenses.

“The Department of Homeland Security has to take their story based on what they say. And I fear that if they’re unsure, they’re probably denying,” Montgomery said.

For Hanna Ishaq, and her mother Shami, their only option is patience.

Ishaq finally manages to reach her mother by phone. Shami tells her worried daughter that her faith keeps her going. Her daughter tells her to keep that faith until they are reunited.