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!