January 10th - Miles and miles

This morning I spotted a Collared Forest Falcon.  I had heard the haunting call of this forest bird in the park nearly every morning but could never see it.  Meagan and I and some other folks walked 5 miles in the morning through the plantations.

Barking roof dogs along the way to plantations 

In the afternoon we walked back into La Peñita for groceries.  Took in hamburger night and early to bed for our trip to San Blas tomorrow.

It was a slow day for me today, after a long night of severe gastrointestinal distress (I'll spare you the horrible details of the warbling squirts).  Not from eating at a street vendor, not from drinking "local" water, but disappointingly, from eating bad fish at a relatively expensive restaurant, yesterday, in Chacala.  I laid about for the day, pounding water, electrolytes, and the occasional tylenol. While I am on the mend, I'm not up for tomorrow's trip to San Blas 8-(.

On a second disappointing note, we met friends of our friends who arranged for accommodations in Sayulita via the internet, and flew down only to find the place did not exist; no accommodation, money gone.  They are getting a room in the fine little hotel across the carretera from the park.

On a brighter note, between her early morning beach check for tortugitos, the plantation walk, including the better part of "Cardiac Hill", and a walk into town for supplies, Meagan achieved the 20,000 and 25,000 step award on her fitbit.  Impressively, Nancy made it, as well.

January 9th - Tortugitos and Chacala Beach

It was a very busy day.  Meagan woke up at 5:30 a.m. and went for a beach walk.  Not far along she encountered about 17 little turtles (loggerheads?) who had hatched from a nest and were stranded behind a mass of palm fronds and vines along the fence.  She picked them up and put them on the beach and they headed into the surf.  She then found another 6 or so more and ran them down to the beach.  Our neighbours were watching and cheering her on from their patio.  When we woke up I went down to the beach with her and we found 2 more and helped them over the tangle as well.  There were tiny flipper marks all over the beach where there nest mates had made the night time run for it.  Yesterday was the highest and lowest tides so far, makes you wonder if the hatch coordinated with that.  Also, friends of ours said there were 2 turtles laying eggs on the edge of the beach yesterday.

After breakfast at the park restaurant we headed for Chacala beach for a day of surf fun and lunch with friends.  Meagan and I went down into the surf and I only got slammed 2 or 3 times.  Meagan faired far better.

Get ready, it's a steam roller!

Chacala Beach

When we returned we moved Meagan into our rented fifth wheel a few sites over, had some drinks with friends, ordered pizza and all went to bed by 9.

January 8th - More spanish lessons and whales

Today, was Meagan's first day here and she was busy photographing the hummingbirds and the Cacique.  

We walked into town for fruit in the morning.   Then spent a leisurely day with the exception of our aqua fit at the pool and Spanish lessons both of which Meagan participated in.  Around 4 o'clock, two whales put on quite a show for a group of tourists who were the only boat out in the bay in the large waves. We think they were being territorial with each other.  One of them had his tail in the air waving it back and forth continuously about 12 times sending huge splashes of water flying.  We could see it from our patio so the folks in the boat must have been thrilled.  The other whale was just smacking his fin on the surface.  Out to supper in Rincon and we were all asleep by 9 p.m.

January 7- Gray Hawk & Meagan

Today we drove out onto another narrow road to investigate a flying slope for Cam.  This road proved to be a lot more easy going.  Along the way we saw a Gray Hawk who just gave us a disinterested look.

It was a lovely little drive through ranch and crop land.  

Not sure what this large leafy tree was but it was being cultivated perhaps a nut of some kind.

Meagan arrived at about 9:30 p.m. having had an interesting trip from Puerto Vallarta with a driver who was very knowledgeable about the language dialects, people, and attractions in this area.

We are very glad to have her here. 

January 6th - Birds & geomorphology

I had been trying to identify a new bird the past few days and it is a Blue Grosbeak!  I also spotted a large woodpecker which is either a Lineated Woodpecker or a Pale-billed Woodpecker.  Both resemble our Pileated back home.  There was also a flock of Brent geese (not Brant) flying over to the estuary today.

Regrets re: the poor formatting, but I wanted readers to see the details to which I refer below

I knew that beaches were dynamic systems, but I didn't realize just how much they can change over a short time.  I took an early morning picture to try and show what I mean.  When we arrived, the beach was an even crescent; the shoreline was an even curve which continued through the breakwaters.  The high winds around Christmas coincided with unusually high tides, which created the first ridge visible in front of the palm trees, in the centre of the photo past the second groin, a long ways up the beach.  A few days later we had strong south winds.  The waves came in at an oblique angle to the shore, and created a lower line of small, triangular sand formations. but only past the second groin, since the south part of the bay was sheltered by the cliffs.  Subsequent south winds deposited another 30 - 50 feet of sand beach at a still lower level, and again, only past the second breakwater.  Since I took this picture a few days ago, the lowest 30 - 50 feet past the second breakwater is being slowly removed, as the ocean continues to average things out.

The whale watchers boats were out again today, off the point north of us.  Nancy got out the binoculars and spotted the blows of a few whales, while distant, are our first personal sighting.  Dolphins are occasional, but more common.

Our apologies, Nancy & I both contribute to the blog, without mentioning authorship, we trust you can distinguish our voices.

January 2nd, 3rd, 4th, & 5th - The view from above

On Monday the 4th, we headed over to the flying site behind the beach at La Colonia, north of the park.  I put the little video camera on the Radian, put it up high on a clear blue day, and took a couple of videos of the area.

One of my landing attempts was balked on final by el vaquero riding out to the beach on his fine horse  I went around, so as not to spook the horse.  The videos are basic, unedited and maybe a little vertigo-inducing, but they give a pretty good idea of the local area.  You can see south along the beach to La Penita RV Park (where the rock outcrop interrupts the beach), to La Peñita, and to Rincon. I think it's not bad for a quick and dirty effort.  And where can you view said videos, you may ask?  Well, we've been struggling with bandwidth all day today, in an effort to put them up on Youtube (literally all day so far has yielded 24% progress, for one video).  OK, it's up, have a look.  Radian view of La Colonia beach

After flying, we celebrated by heading into La Peñita, to Jaime y Hinde's restaurant for lunch.  For me, three tacos, two fish, one shrimp, @ 12 pesos apiece, and a bottle of Tecate cerveza, 20 pesos, for a grand sum of 56 pesos ($4.48 CDN) for a great lunch!

I also just finished an experimental bottle of amber rum today, Los Reyes.  Entirely acceptable, and 65 pesos ($5.20 CDN), on sale!  I am really growing to like Mexico.

Kirk never has had stellar vision, and his right eye's cataract is not improving matters.  When we're sitting out on the deck hers tied on his lead, back where he is no threat to the sunning amigos, which he would dearly love to chomp.  Nancy put some green beans out for the iguana on his sunning wall, early in the morning, before the wall was hot enough to attract him.  Kirk came out, saw something on the wall, made a lightening charge, and dealt the helpless green beans a death blow, scattering beans in all directions.  His embarrassment was extreme, I had to wait until he left to laugh.

Today, after siesta, we went adventuring up the dump road, and through the back road from La Peñita to El Monteon.  The rough road made it a walking pace adventure, it was also narrow, and overgrown with vegetation.  We got to see the dump, covered in vultures and egrets, waded through places where the stream was flowing along the road (the loose, rounded rocks under the water giving the CRV's AWD a workout, as all four wheels slowly worked their way through and over the rotating, fist-sized rock/steam bottom), and checked out the agave fields, mango orchards, and cattle grazing, and generally had a good time meandering along through the alternating semi-fields and jungle.

December 31 & January 1

Well, it has been 2 days of celebration with extreme patio resting in between.  The park has increased its temporary residents by about 200 - 300 Mexicans mainly in tents with tarp gazebos and the odd tent trailer.

The beach has been busy and everyone is swimming, playing games and relaxing.

Mario's was the site of the New Year's eve dinner

Mario's is just across the highway from the park and nearly the entire park of gringos went there.  Dinner was fantastic with tequila shooters supplied by our hosts.  Mario has traveled in the U. S. and Canada.  He and his wife, son and 2 daughters run the restaurant with one other waiter (Pancho).  After the food was cleared, they joined us dancing while Pancho kept the drinks going.  There were a lot of fireworks back at the RV park as well as some automatic weapons fire at midnight in the vicinity of the Colonia police station.   

We spent New Year's Day watching the beach then had 4 friends for Happy Hour and dinner on the patio.

 Then back to relaxing.