Exploring

Cabo Pulmo 191112

I woke in the morning at 5am and spent some time reading before going back to sleep. My throat hurt and I felt dehydrated when I got up but I assumed it was due to the beer I had the night before. I left most of my technology behind for this trip. I used my phone for taking pictures and my dad's ebook reader to read 5 books over the course of the trip. I don't normally have time for reading and it was nice to get back to it.

The sky was clearer than the day before and we decided to take the kayaks and paddle board out to do some snorkeling. The moms kept up a continuous stream of chatter as they walked down the stairs onto the path towards the beach. "Oh! look at the sun!" "Look at the waves!" "The trees!" "Oh! look at that!".

Moms Away! 00:29 (7.3MiB)

There was a pretty brisk breeze coming from the north and I thought we were going in that direction because I knew how hard it is to paddle home upwind but the moms launched first and tore off down the beach to the south in their two seat kayak. They were almost out of site by the time Amanda got in the water on her own single seat kayak.

We pulled out onto the beach and did some snorkeling. The thick book of house rules said we had to buy a special armband and stay 2.5m away from any coral and fish but the water was so shallow we would have had to hover a meter above the surface. The instructions also said you had to wear a life vest when snorkeling (all the chartered snorkel trips had people in vests) but this defeats the point. We weren't hassled for not buying wrist straps or wearing vests but we saw dive boats telling people not to swim too far from the beach.

While we played in the water the clouds returned and the wind picked up. A waterspout reached down from a dark cloud over the ocean but never touched the surface.

Kayla and Rian walked down and met us on the beach. Rian was drugged up and feeling a little better and Kayla was off for the afternoon. She worked throughout the week during out stay in Mexico and was usually only available in the afternoon. We stood around talking for a while then I left them to paddle back upwind.

I was making no progress in the headwind, even when I sat on the board to reduce my surface area. All sitting accomplished was the wind blew the spray into my eyes. Eventually I decided to just carry the heavy board down the beach but when I got to shore I discovered the cheap paddle board was filled with 20 kilos of water and I could barely lift it. I had to drag it along the beach in the shallows, wrestling with it as the waves pushed it against my legs.

I eventually got it back to our beach and with a furious effort carried it about halfway back to the toy box before I had to stop and rest. Karen wanted to help but I think it would have crushed her. The board had a drain plug but it was glued shut.

Soon after we had put everything away and gotten back to the house Amanda announced she wanted to hike to the top of the tallest mountain just outside of town to look for gilded flickers and harris hawks. I was sore and tired but I grabbed my binoculars and lizard sticks and we headed out.

The sun came out and I was having a hard time in the heat. It seemed I was more tired than usual. I realized later it was the beginning of a cold which kept me down for a few days and ruined my ears for the rest of the trip.

To get onto the mountain road we walked through the front yards of some alarmingly run down shacks. They looked like ramshackle hobo cabins or the workshops of serial killers. I don't have many pictures because I thought they might be inhabited.

Climbing the rocky path up the mountain we got a better look at the vegetation. The landscape was covered in cardón, cholla, acacia trees, and other plants with a needle fetish. Over all this were creeping vines covered in yellow, blue and red flowers and a fleet of butterflies of all shapes and sizes.

Near the top of the mountain we chased a whiptail and even caught it briefly before it wriggled out of the noose. Amanda chased it around a fallen cardón cactus beside a colorful tableau of rocks and trees that could have been designed to be a lizard habitat. It was like looking at a level on a videogame.

00:29 (7.2MiB)

Hiking down the hill Amanda came to a halt with an excited cry that she had seen a big lizard clinging to one of the bushes beside the path. We whipped out the lizard sticks and I captured the moment she caught a beautiful juvenile spiny tailed desert iguana. It was very pretty and the adult iguanas we saw later were much more drab. Our reptile book says they are either native to the area or were brought in for their meat.

Back down the hill I jumped into the ocean to rinse off the sweat and took a nap. I woke dehydrated and feeling weak and certain I had a cold. I drank three liters of water and a pot of tea.

We had chicken mole tacos for dinner and Rian, who had gone out for a walk on the beach, didn't return until well after dark.

Polo, our handyman, came around to check our batteries and cautioned us to conserve power. I tried to explain we had been out all day and everything was turned off.

In the evening before going to bed I sat out on the patio with this journal and tried to remember the events of the day. While writing I happened to glance up and saw a line of satellites spread across the sky. Apparently spacex had launched another series of starlink satellites that night. I called out Joy and Karen and we all marveled at the sight. They stretched in an irregular dotted line across the sky for a distance seen between your hands if you held them out two or three feet apart.