Sunrises and Days of Rays

 I just can't stop taking pictures of the sunrises - the magnificent ones are one about every 2 weeks so I take full advantage when they come!

And then there's the manta rays - which are actually mobula rays!  When the water temperature changes to warmer in the spring, they arrive!  They come to Baja to mate and reproduce, eating the plankton for their diet!  The rays can jump up to 9 ft above the water and do flips and somersaults - they are certainly a wonder to watch!

The sound they make as they jump and then hit the water as they come back down sounds like popcorn popping on a GRAND scale as it echoes off the ocean!  They arrived about a week ago here and woke us up early as our bedroom is beach front - it's hard to imagine the sound when there's a long string of them in the ocean which can reach up to over a kilometer long - and there can be as many as tens of thousands of them!  It's so fun to walk the beach early in the morning and watch them!  But they're around most of the day and today is the first day I haven't seen them so they might have moved on!

 

I borrowed this picture so you can get a better idea of what they look like!

Here's a video although the sound doesn't do them justice!!

We've enjoyed the rays for over a week now!  Gosh they are fun to watch!!

Mexican Pizza

 We had been wanting to try a new pizza place on the edge of town and finally set a date with our new friends from Calgary, Mark and BJ.

They do mostly carry-out there but do have a couple of tables so we decided just to eat there - they don't carry beer but have soft drinks so Glenn and Mark walked across the street to the tienda and got a large beer, intending to put 1/2 in a cup so they could share it!  But after coming back and asking for a cup, we found they didn't have one since the drinks are all in cans so Mark had to walk back over and buy another beer!

Glenn always wants a meat pizza and I usually like vegetarian - we were happy when they said they would do 1/2 and 1/2!

This is outside the pizza place.

And here's our SMALL pizza - 4 large pieces for each of us!  I ended up taking 2 of my pieces home!  And check out my vegetarian side - large basil leaves on top and WHOLE green olives - very different but VERY good!

We had a great evening together!

Here Fishy Fishy

 The fish pictures are piling up so I better do a blog on FISH!  Glenn is THE MAN around here - no matter WHEN he fishes, he always catches something, unlike some of the other fishermen!  So it's always fun to see what he catches when he comes in!  

If it's a calm day, you can bet he's up at 4:30 or 5:00 (and no, I don't get back to sleep!) getting prepared to take the boat out for a few hours!  He loves every second he's out on the water and when he returns, can't wait for the next time!

Glenn and Del decided to head up to Bahia De Muertos to spend the night and fish on a charter boat the next day!  It's always an "unknown" when you go up the night before and this time, they decided to rent a motel room to sleep in - there was a motel about 15 minutes from the bay so we got on line and booked a room!

I knew it would be a dandy for $36 a night!!!!!  There was a double bed in the room along with a pull out couch that was made into a bed.  When they walked in, there was a dog turd on the bed - OK, that would have been enough for me to start running but hey, they're guys and no big deal!  When Glenn pulled the bedspread down to make sure the sheets looked clean, guess what - there were NO sheets on the bed!  When he finally got through to the guy running the place that he needed sheets, they gave him sheets for a twin bed - ha!

Glenn ordered chips and salsa - so the guy running the little restaurant takes a bag of frito like chips and opens them and hands them to Glenn - Glenn says "where's the salsa?"  So the guy grabs a ketchup like bottle and squirts some of it into the bag!  Oh gosh....

I of course am here by myself when he leaves - but I'm not scared to stay by myself!  I was watching TV that night and all of a sudden it sounded like gunshots outside!!  I raced to the slider doors and threw them open to see what was going on and it was fireworks!!  Beautiful fireworks being set off at the Spa Hotel!

The guys had a great time fishing and Del's wife Linda sent me this picture!  I was excited to see that they both caught a yellowtail, till they returned and Glenn told me he had caught both of them!

And one more yellowtail picture that Glenn caught from his boat!

We had the neighbors over for sashimi!

Crazy Waves

 Yes, we get a lot of wind where we stay - the kiters love it - the rest of us, not so much!  We have come to expect it and just know that on super windy days, you don't walk the beach or spend a lot of time outside!  And usually it's just for 1/2 day or so, not the entire day!

But on March 13th and 14th, we had some crazy wind which equaled high waves - the highest we have ever seen!

At different times, we had waves up to 8 feet!  WOW!  It was hard to just walk out on the beach and take pictures as the wind was blowing so hard!  Water came almost up to the palapas!

The kiters were out in full force - I had taken this picture the day before when the waves weren't so high!  You sure wouldn't catch me out on that water in the wind and waves!

Joleen's Stay

 Joleen spent her first week in a rental of our friends' and then moved to our house for the second week!  Unfortunately I didn't get to walk the beach much with her that week as my dog bite happened the day she moved to our place!  But I was thankful she was around to take care of me and remind me to rest and ice and elevate!

Special coffee on the front porch - always a winner!

Taken at Hillary and Eric's place the night of our anniversary!

Potato night at the Spa - such a wonderful place to eat!

Good company and great potatoes!!

Happy hour our last night together!

Glenn took Jo out fishing and she did get to catch a couple of fish - but somehow the pictures never got to me!  She thoroughly enjoyed her time here and we loved having her!

Happy 36th Anniversary To Us

 For the last 5 years, I think we've celebrated our anniversary down here!  We don't tend to do anything special but it's just fun to think that we're down here at the beach during that time!

Eric and Hillary had invited us to dinner the week before - I didn't realize at the time that it was our anniversary but that didn't matter!  Joleen was here so we wouldn't have went out to a nice dinner that evening anyway.

Here's to 36 years!

We had a wonderful meal at Hillary and Eric's place and a toast was made to many more years!

Since we have been in Baja the last few years on our anniversary, I never had pictures from our wedding.  So this year in January before we left, I took pictures with my phone of a few of the wedding pictures to post!  And on the second day after our anniversary when I peeked at it, there were 88 likes and 88 comments so just had to take a picture of that since 8 is my favorite number!!

Fish and Sunrises

 The lazy days of Baja!  Glenn loves catching a good fish - I love catching a good sunrise!  The sunrise is getting earlier and earlier it seems - my wake up call has been 5:50 for quite a while now in order to get ready to walk on the beach.  And if there's an awesome sunrise, then I stay and take pictures and then walk!  Of course for the first week after my bite, I did no walking at all on the beach...sigh....

This sunrise was magnificent!

I noticed Glenn has the same shirt on in the next 2 pictures, even though this was 2 different fishing times!  I should remember the name of the fish but I don't!

I love the reddish color on this fish!  And yes, they were all excellent eating!

Not A Great Way To Start The Week

 If you're squeamish or don't like blood, better pass on looking at this blog!

Sunday, March 7th I was doing my usual walk on the beach in the early morning - even though campers are NOT allowed on the beach for overnight camping, there were 3 sets of them camped out!  As I was walking towards the last tent (which is up on the sand - I walk right along the water) I saw a dog down on the water.  I stopped and waited to see if a person would come out of the tent and sure enough, someone came out and the dog went back to the tent.

I walked on by and then turned around at my designated spot and headed back along the beach.  Now mind you, I look for sea glass when I walk so my head is down a lot and out of the corner of my eye as I'm walking parallel to that tent again, I see 2 dogs barreling towards me!!  It happened SO FAST that I hardly knew what had happened but one of the dogs bit me in the back of the leg!  It hurt - BAD!!  Both dogs then stood there barking ferociously and I remember screaming NO at them as the owner is running towards me, yelling at the dogs!

I think I was in shock for a couple of minutes - the bite hurt - and she got ahold of the dogs and sent them back up to the tent.  I told her the one bit me and turned my leg around and sure enough it was already bleeding.  I did have enough sense to ask if the dog had had his shots and she said yes!  And by this time I realize the couple has 4 dogs!  The guy is walking towards me too and he felt bad and kept asking what he could do to help!

I had no idea the bite was so bad and just stood there dumbfounded - by this time Joleen is walking towards me and I just left and walked towards her and showed her my leg!  I should have asked him to take me by car back to our house as we had at least 1/3 of a mile or more to get back there!  And I probably should have gotten their names and phone number but I'm walking without ANYTHING except sea glass in my pocket and I'm barefoot!

It was a long walk back to the house and when I got there, then I could really see what had happened and it wasn't pretty......

This doesn't look so bad taken straight on.

But once I turned my leg to the side, you could see how swollen it was!

Joleen is a nurse (how convenient!!) so got the puncture wounds cleaned up and we got ahold of Jaime (who is a pharmacist) to see what type of antibiotics I needed to be on!  Glenn was out fishing!!

We flagged down my friend Jo who was walking by and she took one look at my leg and said she was taking me to the dr so walked back home to get her car.  But after she finally got ahold of a nurse who works at the clinic, she found out it wasn't open (it's Sunday).  The nurse did call the dr and got instructions on what to do and passed that on to us!

It's such a great small community we stay in and before long, Jo had left and brought back all kinds of supplies - she had a syringe to thoroughly irrigate the wounds, special liquid to clean it with again and then per the dr, an amoxicillin pill crushed into triple antibiotic cream!

Glenn was pretty darn shocked when he got back in from fishing and him and Joleen got right into town to get me some high powered antibiotics!  Luckily the 2nd pharmacy they stopped at would dispense them without a prescription!

For many days, I iced it, put on the cream, took my medication and spent way too much time on the couch!  The bruising was bad - all the way down to the ankle and it hurt to basically sit straight on the couch and have my legs in front of me because of the pressure so spent a lot of time on my side!  Luckily I slept pretty well!

I've been wearing the same pair of stretchy cotton shorts for over a week now during the day and if we had to go out or to town, I had one pair of capris that were not legging tight!  Guess I need to rethink clothes next year and have some baggy attire!

So as I write this 10 days later, my leg is doing much better!  The bruising is still there - it's still quite sore - but I've done my 10 days of antibiotics (and my stomach paid for that this morning - glad I'm done with those) and hoping the bruising will fade shortly!  I'm sure it was very bruised inside also.

As you can see, it's a whole lot better and the puncture wounds are scabbed over and healing nicely - I kind of think I'll have a scar or two from this ordeal!

Unfortunately I am not a dog lover (sorry all you dog lovers!) and now I cringe when I'm around dogs - and believe me, EVERYBODY down here has dogs running around on the beach!  Glenn has found me a stick and I've started walking short distances this week, carrying my stick and keeping a close eye out!  I will NOT walk if there are tents on the beach!  And next year, the bear spray will be brought down!

This 'n That

 This is like a mid-month photo dump - ha!  

We're really "uptown" here at the spa now - they actually have guys come around and either rake the sand or drive this and pull a drag behind!

We split a box of vegetables with a neighbor - a guy grows all of this and then every other week delivers a box to whoever wants it filled with whatever is growing at that time!  There was a LOT of stuff in that box and this is even after our friend took his portion out! $8.00 was for 1/2 a box like this!

We went to Smokey's one day for their famous nachos with sweet BBQ Beef and drinks with Joleen!  It didn't disappoint1

Some of the gals from the Spa decided to have a "Girls Day"!  Joleen and I were both invited and my friend Jo picked us up in her huge station wagon!  We went to the Community Market first and walked around and then on to La Playa for brunch!  Most of the gals ordered Bloody Mary's or Bloody Maria's (made with tequila instead of vodka).  I ordered a mango/strawberry smoothie which was delicious but did taste Joleen's Bloody Maria and it was good!  They served them in the cutest mugs and the view there is wonderful!  After a stop at the veggie market (where I didn't need a thing of course!) we headed back home - what a nice day!

They FINALLY had cheesecake offered at the Spa when we went for taco night - it was very good and I thought it was strange that it was served with a blackberry tasting preserve on the side and the little dots are a very creamy peanut butter!!  Mix them both with cheesecake and wow - it was delicious!!  WOW - who would have thought?

And last but not least, our oldest granddaughter Rayna turned 19!  Happy Birthday Rayna!

2nd Set of Company

 After we dropped Sherry off and got a few groceries, we went back to the airport - I was sporting a pretty good headache by this time and was dismayed to hear that Joleen's plane was delayed - really delayed!

We had another friend we met last year who was waiting in the bar/restaurant area for us - her guy was coming in on a later plane and she was just waiting so we sat with her and had a little lunch and drinks!  By this time, we knew Jo's plane was going to be delayed by 3 hours (oh the joys of flying) so I headed back to the car to try to sleep a little and get rid of the headache.

It did eventually subside and Joleen did get in so after being at the airport for 7 hours we finally got to head for home - airport days are never fun days!

Joleen was staying in a rental for the first week and then coming to our place for the 2nd week!  We got her settled in and of course invited her for dinner with us that evening.  She was super excited to walk the beach as soon as she got here!

And we did have 3 amazing sunrises while she was here!!  So stayed tuned for more gorgeous pics!

The first calm day we had, Glenn and Jo headed out to fish!  They stayed out several hours and had a fun time catching fish!

The catch of the day - and of course we had fresh fish for dinner and plenty to give away!

Although we have a lot of windy days, the calm days are beautiful and all you want to do is sit on the front porch and watch the clouds and the ocean and the palm trees swaying gently in the breeze!

Every day is a great day on the Baja!

February Photo Dump

A hodge podge of pics from life in Baja!!

This is where coffee break is taken most days!!

A new house is being built right beside Juan's house (Glenn's good friend and where Joleen, our next guest, stayed for a week before coming to our place) and it's been fun to watch the progress!!  This is the day they poured cement!

When we showed up for potato night we easily found our outside table!

Almost full moon!

Steps I saw on a walk one day - aren't they cool?

It's always fun when the horses come to visit!

Glenn and I have spent many hours in these chairs enjoying the ocean!

 And that's a wrap for February!