Thursday, January 23, 2014

 Hi Guys, Just cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast for Jan and I while I write this message and will try and send it via the ham radio this morning. We have been held up for the past two nights in a pretty bay called Bahia Cacaluta. Just a few miles west of Haultulco.  We are tucked in behind a big rocky island next to a sandbar that breaks the swells that wrap around the island. There was a bit of a blow out in the Gulf the past couple of days so we had big waves crashing on the beach just on the other side of the sand spit. Way cool. But despite my best effort to get out of the waves it was still a bit rolley and Jan did not sleep well. Will try and move the boat closer to shore today. Last night we had a giant sea turtle crawl out of the ocean, up the beach and dig a nest where it deposited its eggs. Unfortunately we didn’t see it but its tracks up the beach tell the tale and from the size of them she was a big one. Her tracks looked a small bulldozer plowed out of the surf and up the beach. 

Jan and I spent the evenings playing dominoes but between hands I would go outside with the spotlight to scan the beach to see if had been stormed by a heard of egg laying turtles but no such luck, I saw nothing so eventually we went to bed and I guess that is when this Tortuga made its move. Out-witted by a ninja turtle.

Well I shouldn’t say that my visits outside the boat were a waste of time as we did see something rather spectacular. As I shown the million candle power spotlight at the beach, where the light struck the water, thousands of finger size flying fish would burst out of the water and take to the air.   The dart-like fish would flap their pectoral fins and “fly a foot or two above the water for fifty feet or more. It was as if they were trained to perform as directed by my light around the boat. As fast as I could pan the light they burst from the sea in what looked to be a frenzied panic. 

Will try tonight to get some video of the fish as well as I may make a trip ashore after the moon raises after midnight to see if I can catch a turtle doing its thing on the beach. There are some nice coral formations within this bay but the water is very green and cloudy, a result of an underground river that enters the sea here, so the snorkeling is not very good.

 While diving Jan and I found where some of the fresh water enters the bay, the location given away by streams of air bubbles gurgling out from the sea bed and through fissures in the rocks.  We found what looks like a good diving spot with clear water on the other side of our island so we will try it out later when the sun is high. Well that’s about it for now, will post this on Facebook with Pics when we get back to civilization.