Well my big trip to Mexico has been off to a rocky start. We had one really nice day the first day we got here but after that it has been blowing. We actually just had a hurricane go just a little ways north of us, directly over the area of the Pacific I was supposed to go diving this week.
We have a rental car which has made all the difference on these down days, being able to cruise around and the see the country.
We have made it diving two days but were only able to dive some shallow coves, which although was very interesting and fun to dive with Cat, just were not holding the fish I was looking for. The Sea of Cortez builds dramtically with very little wind. I would say 18 knots of wind here looks worse then 25 knots off of Key West. One day we were able to get out to the the sea lion colony, which was great fun. We have no seals or sea lions on the east coast, at least not where we live, so they were a novelty rather then pests.
The rocks on the islands north of La Paz are just amazing, sheer cliffs covered with saguaro catcus and other desert fuana. The water has been extermely warm and that is probably not helping with the fish either. Our guide has said all the shallow stuff near La Paz has not been holding very much fish recently. Although who knows that sort of thing changes day by day.
I have seen numerous small fish, but nothing big. I have shot small barred pargo, small grouper a small snook, and a bump head parrot fish. The structure in genereal is amzing to dive, and seeing dozens of small cuberas swimming around in 10 feet of water was pretty cool as well. There are giant trumpet fish as well as huge needle fish, one of which looked like it was pushing 5 feet long. Cat has taken hundreds of photos, before we even got to the seals, maybe up to a thousand already. Editing the photos on this laptop is kind of slow and sometimes the moniter does not accuratly portray what the final product looks like but as long as I am just sitting here in the rain, I may as well edit some.
We have drove all around the city and out to the Pacific coast south of La Paz. We drove almost to Cabo San Lucus and stopped in various beach towns along the way. It really is beautiful on the Pacific coast here, not sure how the diving is there but the water was blue as the Bahamas and looked incredible. We drove to Todos Santos which was a beautiful town but definitly seems tourist trappy.
The next time I come here I want to drive more and head north to see more of the Pacific coast. A lot of areas we have seen seem pretty touristed up and prices on many things seem not very much less than Key West.
We also got pulled over and it was a pretty negative experience. Perhaps having a spanish speaker with us would have helped this.
The rain from the hurricane has turned the streets around la paz into rivers, watching the brown waters pour into the bay , I am not sure what this next week of diving will bring.
