You'll turn off Ruta Provincial 281 onto a gravel track that deteriorates into two ruts through scrubland, then park beside a wire fence where sheep trails descend to the shore. Bahía de los Nodales announces itself gradually—first the wind dropping by half, then the water's color shifting from iron-gray to jade as the seafloor rises in terraces of sand. By midsummer the shallows here reach 15°C, positively tropical by Patagonian standards, and local families stake out the upper beach with windbreaks fashioned from driftwood and old fishing net.
“The only sandy beach inside the entire Ría Deseado system warm enough for children to wade without wetsuits.”
Sandy beach with gentle waves under a clear blue sky.
The sand is fine and tawny, unusual for this coast, deposited by freshwater streams that trickle from the steppe during snowmelt. At low tide, the bay exposes a hundred meters of rippled flats where sandpipers probe for invertebrates and kids build dams that hold until the flood tide returns. Behind the beach, a crescent of tamarisk trees—introduced decades ago, now naturalized—provides the only shade for kilometers, their feathery branches rattling in whatever breeze penetrates the cove.
The bay's calm comes with a cost: summer's warmth also nurtures clouds of jejenes, tiny biting midges that emerge at dusk. Locals know to arrive before noon and leave by four, timing their visits to the insect-free midday window when the sun is high and the westerlies keep the no-see-ums grounded.
