Baja-based rowing team trains at the Salton Sea

Just before dawn on Thursday, under a canopy of steel gray sky, members of the Baja California-based Junior Olympic rowing team walked to the shore of the Salton Sea for their first training session of the day.

Two-by-two, they carried their long, thin-hulled watercraft to the beach's edge and dipped their oars into the smooth-as-glass, silvery-surfaced sea.

The team consists of 29 student-athletes ranging from 13 to 19 years old and four adults, including three coaches. They are all spending two weeks living and training beside the sea.

On Thursday, assistant coach Edgar Cruz climbed aboard a small aluminum fishing boat, revved the outboard motor and cruised alongside two teams of young rowers, each manning one oar.

As they pulled their oars in unison, they seemed to glide effortlessly across the water —but Cruz notices something slightly off in their stroke — the oars weren't coming up high enough on the backsweep.

"When you're going backwards, don't touch the water," Cruz extolled the athletes in Spanish.

The athletes, who train as the Baja California Rowing Team, based in San Felipe on the Sea of Cortez, are spending two weeks at the Salton Sea at the invitation of the Friends of the Salton Sea State Recreation Area.

Last year, when the team's head coach, Joel Loyola and his wife, Lorena Posada, visited the sea, the owner of the hotel where they were staying suggested they contact Connie Brooks, Friends of the Salton Sea State Recreation Area executive director, who facilitated the group's trip.

The team is camping out — about 100 yards from the shore — at the Salton Sea Discovery Kids Camp, created and operated by the Friends group.

The state park waived the fees and the group raised money to help offset some of the costs of the trip, donated camping gear and hosted a visit to The Living Desert on Thursday.

There are no zoos or malls in San Felipe.

"San Felipe is a small fisherman village," Posada said. "Most of the kids' parents are fishermen and are from modest means."

But the sport's elite junior rowing athletes hail from this village — the center of the country's junior rowing program. Coaches scout for rowing team prospects at the local schools.

Loyola, a former member of the Cuban National Rowing team, was recruited by the Mexican state government of Baja — which funds the team — to start a junior rowing program in San Felipe. Soon after, the Baja California Rowing Team was born.

"We were founded in 2005 and the last six years we have been the national champions in Mexico with the most gold medals won," Posada said.

The team of mostly student athletes, who are currently on school break, are missing a few days of school to train two hours a day, twice a day.

Homework is not excluded.

It's nothing compared to their intense schedule back home, where their first training session runs from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., she said.

"Then they go to school," Posada said. "After they finish school they go back to train at 2:30 in the afternoon and go until 6 — every day but Sundays."

The team is training for upcoming national and international competitions.

"Three or four athletes here are preparing for the world championships of indoor rowing that is going to take place in Boston," Posada said. "We have two kids that have already qualified for the Pan American Games in Toronto. After that, if they qualify, they will be trained to go the Olympics."

Posada said the conditions at the Salton Sea are ideal for training.

The water is choppier in the Sea of Cortez.

"Where we row it's very wavy," Posada said. "The water here is perfect. This is the kind we have to train in. This is similar to the water we compete in."

"The kids love it," she said. "They can row for miles and not bump into any boats."

Around 8 a.m. on Thursday, the team lined up for a breakfast of eggs, refried beans and tortillas, served up by coaches Loyola, Cruz and Joel Lopez.

The athletes said they're enjoying their time at the sea.

"The weather has been very good for training, and the distance, we were able to do it with one turn, and that makes it easier training here," Cristobal Marquez, 16, said in Spanish.

Rowers will cover about 16 kilometers — or 10 miles — during each training session.

With a 35-mile span from end to end, there's no need to go back and forth, back and forth as they would in water with tighter area constraints or crashing waves.

One turn — five miles out, five miles back — will get the job done.

Living and training together in close proximity — of course, the boys and girls' tents are in separate sections — has helped build camaraderie.

"We've been growing more united as a team," Cristobal said.

The rowing contingency heads back to San Felipe on Saturday, but they already have plans to return to the Salton Sea.

"Connie has been great," Posada said. "We have never received so much attention and help before, in this amount. We cannot wait to come back."​