Mexico wrap up part 1

 I'm at my brother Jeremy's house and Altair is all wrapped up for the summer, Lord Nelson is running well, and I'm out of Mexico.  Heading north!  So here is a little post about the end of the season in Mexico.
After the trip to Isla Isabel, Lindsey and I decided to go on a short road trip up to an archaeological site, in this river valley, with a lot of carved rocks and things.  Hiking up there was really interesting and there were some nice birds flittering around the trees as well.  There were some small waterfalls and pools in the columnar basalt:

 On the way back we drove down the river that feeds the bay near Puerto Vallarta.  In this valley there was a turtle on the road trying to get run over, but I stopped and rescued it, and we tossed it into a nearby pond to spend its days in water.  It peed on me when I picked it up, as turtles are wont to do, I guess.  We also spotted some Black Bellied Whistling ducks!  They whistled a little and flew around, and were generally beautiful. 

 Here is another view of the Whistling Duck, with a Cinnamon Teal in the background, with a Coot. 

 Then we got back on Altair and went for a short sail around the bay, stopping in Corrales, then Yelapa, and then back to La Cruz.  We also stopped in a small bay with a lagoon that doesn't have a name, and so we named it Crocodile Death Beach, in anticipation of the crocodiles that inhabited the lagoon (we assumed) and the probabilities of our future with those reptiles.  In fact, we didn't see a single one of the armored attackers.  We found these yellowlegs instead.

 At this marvelous beach (and lagoon) we found Frigatebirds diving down and scraping their bellies in the water and then splashing water on their wings, but all of this while still flying low along the surface of the water.  Really fun to watch.

 Here is another shot of the process.

 Then we found a bunch of puppies.  Suddenly, this beach was wrongly named and we found that Crocodile Death really translated into Cute Puppy Beach.  We played with the puppies a little and then tore ourselves away from them to head back to the boat. 

 They were very cute.

 Then we spent a few more weeks on Altair, but then we went on another road trip down the coast to a place called La Ticla.  Its a great spot, just to walk the river and enjoy the atmosphere, but there is also a surfing wave there, so I like to surf as well.  I first went two years ago with my buddy Wes, and this time I drove with Lindsey and also with my friend Jonny.  We managed to find some Black Necked Stilts...

 And a bit of a tube!

 Here are some glamour shots of me surfing.  Lindsey was kind enough to take them.  Its a fun wave with some challenging fast sections but I was really practicing all sorts of fast take off and trying to get my top turn more snappy.  The best part is that you can swim in the river right after surfing so you come out clean.

 There is a left as well, which I didn't feel as quick on, but it barreled a bit more

 And a bit more still!

 The right was decently fast and powerful and really fun when it hollowed out, but mostly a fun fast wall to run down...

 There was a bit of reverb from the shore and sometimes it would come back and hit you, you can see it in this shot, punching up from the front of the board. 

 We walked the river and found a few friendly pigs to say hi to. 

 And some Teals

 Of course my favorite the stilt

 and some Chacalas.  This one looks especially Jurassic.

 Sometimes the waves would close out and you needed to look upwards for inspiration, I had a few high exits where I might have got 15 ft of air as the wave dropped down behind.

 The last day the waves were much smaller but very clean, and I had my favorite wave of the whole trip.