Rosarito Mexico

The ripples of the U.S. real estate boom began washing up on the shores of this beach town a few years ago. Californians, feeling flush from the steep run-up in housing values stateside, pulled equity from their primary homes and snapped up vacation properties in northern Baja California as if they were buying $10 lobster dinners. Ground zero was this mid-sized community about 20 miles south of Tijuana, where developers sold hundreds of condominiums on spec.

In a town better known for sand and surf, the latest lure is celluloid. Fox Studios Baja, which brought the world "Titanic," opened its new movie theme park Sunday, giving visitors an inside look at the making of films--including that romantic blockbuster, whose value as a marketing hook here has seemed, well, unsinkable. The park, called Foxploration, is modest in size (with seven acres and room for 3,000 visitors) and in thrill potential (there are no rides--nary a turning teacup).

A sinking ship is fast becoming the unofficial logo of this seaside town. There it is on a big new sign boasting the "original Titanic burger." And down the road on a seafood stand called Mariscos El Titanic. A recently opened glass shop features faux portholes below its name, also Titanic. And, oh yes, there's a "Titanic" museum.

From the lobby bar of the hillside Marriott Residence Inn Real Del Mar in Baja California, you can step out onto an open-air balcony, look west over the red tile roofs of the hotel's suites, down toward the lushly carpeted first and 17th fairways of the championship golf course, beyond the beach town of Rosarito, and out into the Pacific where the Coronado Islands rise like barren mountain peaks from the sea. Or, you can turn around and look at Leonardo DiCaprio.

Sharp Corp. of Japan is doubling its investment in a television and vacuum cleaner assembly plant in Rosarito, Mexico, to $60 million, while two of its suppliers together are investing $40 million in new facilities, Mexican officials said. The appliance manufacturer previously said it would open a plant in October about 20 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border to assemble 1 million TVs and 1.5 million vacuum cleaners a year.

Livio Santini is blessed: He owns 26 acres atop an ocean bluff ripe for houses and condominiums, just when this beach town's cachet has never been higher. And he is cursed: A dozen rustic bungalows, long occupied mostly by Southern Californians, block what would be a multimillion-dollar ocean view from his property. He wants them out. The residents, whose homes sit on seaside land owned by the Mexican government, have dug in.

Health advocates who have crusaded against binge drinking by young Americans in Tijuana are now taking aim farther south in Rosarito, spurred by a plug in Playboy magazine calling it one of the top spots for collegians on spring break. Rosarito, still aglow in cinematic celebrity as the filming site for "Titanic," is listed as a "Superhot Spot" amid a review of better-known spring party destinations, such as Cancun, Mexico, and Daytona Beach, Fla.

When I was 7 years old, my cousins and I waded into the surf in Baja California. I got caught in a riptide. When my toes could no longer find the sand, I swam. But the commotion of waves quickly drained my strength, so I rolled onto my back and floated. Each time I looked up, the shore was farther away and finally I didn't have the energy to lift my head, so I just stared at the blue sky. Then the color faded. My terror lifted. Time dissipated.