Leviathans

I took a sunrise walk yesterday morning, mourning the fact that I can’t go home and show my Dad these beautiful pictures and tell him about my trip. But then I realized he’s right here with me, seeing what I’m seeing, and as much as I miss him I know he is no longer in pain. Birthdays and holidays after a loved one passes are hard, but I just keep remembering how lucky I was to have him as my dad. As I finished writing that last sentence the Mexican jay swooped in and perched on the air chair across from me, and just looked at me. Like I said, I am very lucky.

I had a bit of an adventure during my walk. The tide was high, and the beach access I chose was closed off from the rest of the strand unless I timed it just right and ran like crazy before the next wave. It was quite rocky and I had on my sneakers; if it had been sand I’d have just waded around. That sprint only got me only so far, and then I realized I was trapped at the next sea wall. I climbed the stairs to see that the property behind this beach-front wall was vacant, with the hurricane shutters all down, so I figured no one would mind if I cut through their yard and went to the beach path in back of their house. Nice property; 2 guest cottages, a main house, a garage and carport, and lots of gates. All padlocked. Hmm. Luckily there was a narrow path to the side of the house where the propane tank was installed, so I shimmied past it, but still had to climb over a 4 foot cement wall to get out. Glad no one was watching, it wasn’t pretty.

The wind has been tricky. We thought it was west today, but by the time we got to Los Arbolitos it was north, and the chop was fairly heavy. Snorkeling would have been possible, but not easy, and our beach chairs were very comfy so we read, swam and played in the waves, and had lunch on the beach, using up our remaining egg salad. While we were reading and taking the occasional gander about with our binoculars Mary spotted a rather large eel undulating through the water, a kingfisher and some frigate birds, and then – the leviathans. They were far off, on the horizon, but easy to see with our binoculars. At first we though it was just one, breaching and blowing, but then we counted the blow from two and then three whales, probably humpbacks. We watched them move across the horizon north to south, eventually they’ll make their way around land’s end to head north to Alaska for the summer. They put on quite a show. They breached many times, spy-hopped, slapped their flippers repeatedly on the surface, fluked and porpoised. The interesting thing is we don’t usually see them in Cabo Pulmo. Sure, you can get a boat to take you out looking for them and we’ve done that – but far from shore. Catching site of them from the beach is a rarity. Another day filled with awe.

We returned to find what looked like citrus pulp on the porch, possibly bird scat. Well, we HAVE been feeding them oranges. As Mary and I cleaned it up she looked out to the busy, teeming yard and yelled, “Don’t make me feel like the thrill is gone!”

We went to Nancy’s restaurant for dinner, never sure what we’re going to find as she is getting on in years and has had some bad ones. We’ve been there to find her asleep in her library and her daughter running the show, years when she was only serving one thing as she lost her cook, and years when she seemed a bit off and I was sure she wasn’t long for the business. But when she’s on, she’s really on. And last night was excellent. We had tortilla chips freshly fried and puffy served with guacamole, Shrimp with guajillo chili, and chicken mole enchiladas. Everything was excellent. While there we ran into Michael, an old hippy who comes down in December every year to work on people’s solar power systems, house sits people’s places or camps. Interesting dude. We’re going to have drinks with him Thursday night.

So this morning is Esteban’s birthday, and the cacophony of birds out side the bedroom this morning seemed to be heralding his day. This included two very noisy gila woodpeckers that found heaven knows what to pound on. Speaking of heralding, we think the roosters here must be from Rochester or Mattapoisett, because nobody is heralding the dawn. More like heralding the 4 AM, so they’re on east coast time. When we did finally open our eyes this morning an oriole flew over the bedroom’s open wall and perched on the armoire. I’m sure he wanted to know where the fresh oranges were, and I think they are getting a bit demanding.

We are really enjoying all of Steve’s birthday greetings everyone!
¡Feliz cumpleaños Esteban!
Deborah