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. 

Isla Isabel Video

Here is a video I've made of the trip out to Isla Isabel this past spring...

Another trip to Isla Isabelz

I just got back from another trip out to Isla Isabel, and it was probably the best trip I've done out there. To start, we took off from Punta Mita in the afternoon, with little wind and smooth seas, and suddenly there were tons of whales all over, and a bunch of dolphins, so I stopped the boat and went for a swim. They didn't show themselves to me, but I could hear the dolphins clicking at me, checking me out. I got back aboard and soon after we saw a marlin jumping, followed by a school of something big (maybe Tuna) and a flock of the same Black Noddy that I saw one before of at Roca Corbetena. They flew around and tried to snatch the fish the tuna (suspected tunas) were eating. I couldn't manage to convince the big fish to bite a lure of mine, however. Sunset followed shortly, and I missed my chance to get more photos of the Noddies, and we headed north into the darkness. It was a pleasant night with lots of stars and pretty smooth, and we got in the next morning without any fuss, to Isla Isabel. First off we jumped in and swam over to a group of Bigeye Jacks that lives in an archway underwater, and there is more to that family than I've ever seen before. They swarmed around me and it was very cool. Some of them are quite big. We did tons of snorkeling but the visibilty was never better than about 40 ft, mostly around 20.

 The Blue-footed Boobies were nesting and mating and we got lots of looks at them. I learned that the male birds whistle and the females honk. I also have been trying to figure out why some have dark around their eyes and others do not. Other than that, they look very similar. In the lower photo, however, look at the pupil of the two boobies and see if you can see one is smaller than the other. In fact, they are both about the same, but one has more black on the inside of the iris, and the pupil is circular, just hidden by the black iris.

We found a few nesting Tropic Birds and looked carefully at them, one was out hunting still and we found the baby "fluff nuggett" waiting for mama to come back.

 Probably the cutest bird on the island, and shortly afterward we saw the most ugly of all birds on the islands. Pelican Babies. They are like little house-elves, all wrinkled and nasty and wierd. 

 I got maybe the most unflattering shot of one with zits on its neck and wrinkles and an eyelid half closed. Or a nictitating membrane. 

 The adults are quite handsome however.

 I got a few nice shots from aloft with the kite of the southern cove and the west side of the island. Its hard to get the kite high enough to cover the whole island.

Also we were diving on the west side, where its a big drop off, and suddenly there were some Giant Manta Rays flying under us! I dove down and got some video, and here are some stills. This one was about 15 ft across I think, it was the biggest one I've seen close up. It waited for me to ride it, but I didn't have the guts.

 After 5 days out at Isla Isabel we sailed down to San Blas, and I managed to scrape through the channel and get in to the estuary at a -0.6 tide, though I touched the bottom a little. The bugs weren't too bad, but we went up to the fort to look around and got attacked by a lot of mosquitoes, and I don't know why they are only up there, but they are quick and the bites don't go away quickly. Still, I found a Russet Crowned Motmot up there and I got a nice shot of the old church.
Here is the Motmot, look carefully in the middle.

 As we returned to Bandaras Bay we saw a dead Dolphin wrapped in fishing gear. I can never really support commercial fishing because of sights like this. Also I prefer to eat my own fish I catch.

And lot of whales the whole trip. This one is a nice little breacher we sailed by.