Water Taxi from Cabo to Land's End

 Cabo San Lucas has a very pleasant touristy marina full of little boats that want to take you out and show you the sights. You can't walk more than 15 feet without someone offering to get you signed up for whale watching, deep sea fishing, or a local cruise. We opted to travel out with this gentleman for a bti of local sight-seeing.

 For about $10 USD per person they take you on a pleasant cruise through the bustling marina, past the local rock formations of Land's End, and out to Lover's Beach (more on them coming up) You can then specify how long you want to explore the area and they'll come back for you at roughly that time.

 An added bonus to this excursion is that most of the boats have a little glass-bottom panel in them and the fish around the reefs of Land's End are are striking as the water is crystal clear. This gives you a great look at some local wildlife feeding on algae and whatnot on the bottom of the boat. I was pleased to get a better look at fish while diving, but for people without that opportunity this is a pretty fantastic option.

Scuba Encounters

I had 3 dives in Mexico during our visit and had several unique and exciting animal encounters to share. The first dive at Land's End was also my first dive since 2011 but any apprehension I might have had quickly evaporated when my guide Julio dug around in the sand and produced tiny sea urchins which puffer fish would swim up and take right from your fingertips. They were very gentle but certainly had tough little teeth in there for crushing and grinding up urchin shells and spines.

It can be pretty difficult to give wildlife the space it deserves while also getting a decent photograph, but I decided to err on the side of caution with this moray eel and accept that my wide-angle lens would have to be pretty generously cropped for any photo to share. Still, this was my first wild eel and I was very excited to see one.

When we did a dive at the La Paz sea lion colony this one individual was very intrigued by bubbles and rings that our guide was blowing while lying almost on the bottom and came down to investigate and be patted. At this exact moment, Kathryn was actually snorkeling in a different spot and spent 20 minutes cuddling a juvenile sea lion, but unfortunately we only had the one underwater camera so that moment can't be shared with the rest of you :(

Sea Turtle Release

 We were unexpectedly delighted to learn that the resort we had chosen, Sandos Finisterra, was an active participant in sea turtle population rehabilitation. Sea turtles have less than a 1% survival rate to maturity on a good day and human impact on their environment has not helped, so efforts to improve their chances were a welcome sight.

Efforts by the resort are pretty substantial and not just feel-good as well. They have a staff biologist who gathers up buried eggs along the beach and places them in a protected enclosure where they are monitored and able to hatch in safety.

 The signs at the beach said they were Golfina turtles, which I believe are commonly known as Olive Ridley turtles in English. Every few days enough dug themselves up to the surface to be ready for a batch release into the sea and a crowd would always gather to watch the turtles head for the sea. The added bonus here is that a large crowd tends to keep away many of the birds that predate on these hatchlings and helped give them that little extra edge.

 Of course I was still not prepared for what a rough start they had to their lives. The beaches in Cabo are not swimmable due to strong rip currents and unpredictable waves so for us the area was walking-only. No such luck for these little guys as they struggled down the beach and into the surf. Most of the time a wave would come up and people would cheer, only for it to roll back having pushed half a dozen turtles 15 feet back onto the land and flipped them on their backs. Even when they did back it to the water, every large wave had dozens of little black bodies tumbling around in the chop. Not a easy lot in life.

Any turtles which were too tired or cold to make it into the water on the day were gathered up by the biologist and either warmed and released into the surf, or kept for another try on the following day depending on their state.

On Top of Mount Solmar

 Part of the view from our resort in Cabo San Lucas was a rocky peak in Land's End called Mount Santos. One evening as we were watching whales and frigatebirds at sunset, I noticed a small group of people standing at the top of the hill. From that moment I became set on climbing to the top and getting a full panoramic view of the whole end of the peninsula.

 The trailhead is accessible beside a dog obedience school and the owner Enrique leads the ascent himself twice a day along with a pack of puppers to help show the way. We had no problem with the trail but there are certainly parts where we were scrambling a bit, so I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. The path in the photo below is quite simple and near the start, but it does get trickier.

There had been some sort of unspecified problem a few months earlier so the gate to the hike is now locked except during the two guided jaunts daily. We would have liked to do it a little before the worst of the sun set in, but the only times available were 9:30 and 3:30. While we were concerned by the size of the group at the start, probably around 50 people, it thinned out significantly on the walk itself.

 The view from the top was totally worth it, as I hope the spherical panorama below can adequately convey. Kathryn was able to spot a number of humpback whales from the peak and the view of the harbor and city was spectacular.

We were also slow walking in order to try and take pictures without as many people in them and the downside to that was that the path was not super-well marked and a little easy to lose track of on the return. That was our fault for dawdling though, not a problem with the are.

Snorkeling with Whale Sharks

A key factor in why we chose Cabo San Lucas for our most recent holiday destination was the opportunity to snorkel with whale sharks. This experience turned out to be both incredible and absolutely nothing like I had expected it to be.

For starters, for the biggest fish in the world, they blend into their surroundings pretty well. There is a 30-foot shark in the picture below and I bet you wouldn't even know it was there if the species name wasn't in the blog title ;)

Documentaries present these animals as placidly swimming through crystal blue waters, but in actual fact they can REALLY move when they want to. I'm a reasonably fit guy and I struggled to keep up with them for even a minute or two in each of the 4 dives we did. I originally hoped to scuba with them but now understand how fast you need to be to see them at all. Unfortunately groups of divers are just too slow to reposition and trade off to ever stand a chance of seeing anything.

On top of that, the water was so thick with nutrients and plankton (which is what draws the animals to the area) that visibility is very limited and it can be tricky to see the shark until its practically on top of you. Which is pretty daunting when its 30 feet long and you're not supposed to be within 6 feet of it and its emerged RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

 The image below is actually a composite of 3 video frame grabs from our goPro. Even with a very wide angle lens, capturing the entire animal in a single shot is nearly impossible, so I resorted to a little digital trickery to try and give you all a feeling for the size and shape of the whole creature. To drive home how large these animals can get, the ones we saw here were juvenile males and a full size adult can be more than 40 feet in total.

Hats off to the locals of La Paz for doing their part for conservation as well. Our guide provided us with wristbands which gave us access to the park area and there was an enforcement boat verifying we should be in the area within 10 minutes of arrival. They also watched from a distance to ensure that no more than 4 people were in the water at a time and that we didn't overstay our allotted limit.

Chichen Itza

We spent our honeymoon in the Mayan Riviera of Mexico and while there, took in the ruins of Chichen Itza on the very same day it was declared one of the official wonders of the world. This giant pyramid known as El Castillo dominates the centre of the cleared area and is breathtaking to see. After some injuries by clumsy tourists it is no longer open for climbing but the view from the base remains unforgettable.
The Mayan people were brilliant astronomers and the ruins of this observatory were very captivating to me. There were statues of the heads of Mayan astrologers around the outside and the main dome had been designed to look like a snail. For any apocalypse nutters out there, we had it tiredly explained to us that the end of the Mayan calendar is the beginning of a new cycle and the world is no more likely to end on any December 31st than the end of 2012... just because you're out of calendar doesn't mean you're out of time.
This is the top of the Templo de los Guerreros (Temple of the Warriors) which has a reclining statue at the top and was flanked on the sides by hundreds of columns.
The Mayan people were fascinating and their lack of written language combined with their cruel decimation at the hands of zealous Spaniards leaves many of these places as enigmas I wish we knew more about.

Flashbacks Intro

So to spare our few brave readers the next 9 months of duck photos before we get on a new adventure, I thought we'd share some old pictures from before we started this blog and some of our trips and travels prior to our move.

Our first adventure together was a long-weekend camping trip to Kenora in 2006. Just the two of us for a few days out relaxing and seeing if we could put up with each other for extended stretches. Turns out we both liked it quite a bit and a trend was started.
The following year we took a summer expedition to Europe, starting in England and working our way through the former western block before ending in Istanbul. Kathryn was supposed to go on to Israel for summer work, but there was exceptional conflict in the area that year and her funding was pulled. Since we had gotten engaged a few weeks earlier we were quite happy to return home together and not have several months apart at all. Below is the pair of us seconds after our engagement in the tower at Dunstanborough Castle.
And the following year we had our honeymoon in the Mayan Riviera of Mexico. The picture below was taken at our resort before we went riding around on a tandem bicycle.