We came across these couple of playful humpbacks the other day. I ended up with some pretty good pics of them.
I’ve been so very busy with work, I’m hoping that it levels out here soon! There’s not enough time in the day, I’ll tell ya.
Santa Rosalia is a nice little mining town on the main highway south into Baja. It’s around 2/3′s of the way down the peninsula and there isn’t a whole lot going on. The nice thing about it, is that there isn’t the glitz and glamour like Cabo.
I’d rate it as a nice place to make a pit stop on a road trip, but not a whole lot more.
We had a day at the dock in Puerto Escondido yesterday. The usual routine is that we stop in here in the middle of the night to pick up some water and drop off some trash, but this go around we got to hang out for a few hours in the daytime. It’s just south of the town of Loreto, and it’s their technical port of entry. Really it’s a dock in the middle of no where, but that seems a little harsh since it’s in the middle of some beautiful country.
There’s not a whole lot to do here, but look around at the beauty. That’s alright with me…..
The Cabo marina was the slowest that I have seen in my travels here. The talk of the town is just how slow tourism has been. It’s such a cool place, with tons to do and see. Like I’ve said before, it makes me sad that it’s not booming like it once was.
Go to Cabo!
I got over to the beach for a little bit last night, with the hopes of getting some good time lapse footage. The new intervalometer works well, I am really enjoying using it. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some time here soon to put together a little video using the stills. It an interesting concept, very fun to play with. I’ve been talking to our Video Chronicler on board about it and he’s been giving me some pretty good tips. Especially good tips about shooting stars and nightscapes that I’ll put into motion when I get off the boat here in a couple of weeks.
The weather has been pretty rough lately, very un-Baja. There has been very little sun shining and it’s been pretty windy. I think that we had a grand total of two guests want to go snorkeling yesterday, which is VERY strange. The only comforting thing about it is I know further north folks must be into some very cold and wet weather. If it’s like this down here, it must be pretty good up north!
We found a couple of the largest mammals on the earth yesterday. I didn’t get the prestigious fluke shot, but it sure was cool to see them anyways. It’s really humbling to see an animal moving along side that is so huge. We don’t get to see these very often, so we got a special treat!
We have been spending quite a bit of time in and out of La Paz the last couple of weeks, and we will for the next week as well. All of our trips lately have just been in the Sea of Cortez, so we have been starting and stopping in my favorite Baja city.
The people here are pretty funny, really. The whole town is either in rip roaring party mode, or a near catatonic state. Right now, the New Years festivities are still going pretty strong and people are out having a good time. I’m sure in the next two weeks it will go back to it’s normal sleepy state. Just the way I like it.
It’s almost like the weather man didn’t want La Paz to be left out of the holiday spirit. While by no means cold by many peoples standards, it was a chilly 10 degrees Centigrade yesterday. It’s funny, because all the Gringos are wearing shorts and sandals, while all the Mexicans are wearing coats, boots, gloves and I even saw people with baclava’s and beanies! I guess it’s all relative to what you know!
Another curious thing about this time of year here. Many of the business’s close for WEEKS to do a year end inventory. It’s insane to me to think that they can do this, but I hear it’s an old practice. Once again, it’s all relative to what you know. I’ve added this as more of travelers note than anything. If you drive or cruise down to baja at the beginning of the year, don’t expect to easily find parts for your vehicle or boat. This could be a big deal!
We found some nice Dolphins to play with off of Espiritu Santo yesterday. They are pretty fun to watch!
It almost rained last night. I do believe that there’s only been a handful of times that I’ve been here in Baja while it was raining. Over a three year period, that’s a pretty uncommon thing. The clouds and the weather are making for some really nice backdrops, of which I’ve proceeded to not get very many good pictures of. The above picture with the zodiac coming back from the beach turned out pretty good.
The place the picture was taken is called puerto Gato, and is all privately owned by a Mexican Diplomat. The caretaker, Manuel, is a very nice fellow and I’m quite jealous of his job. Hanging out keeping an eye on a beautiful island in the sea of Cortez would be a rough life, but at least there’s lots of visitors to check in with and that is probably pretty entertaining at times.
